Best of SAARC Poetry

Abhay K. has listed below some of the best poems from Beyond Borders: An anthology of SAARC poetry edited by Ashok Vajpayee published by Rainbow Publishers in 2002 in association with Academy of Fine Arts and Literature, New Delhi

Fatima Hassan

I can also Live like the Wind 

For you

I am the bitter Neem tree

Its fruit you cannot taste

Even if you wanted to

All you can do is rest for a while

In its shade

For I am also green in colour.

Some time back a jinn used to live in me

But after a long journey

I refused to recognize him as a jinn

And he was offended.

I did not try to placate him

Since the lessons the passing seasons have taught me

Include this lesson:

I can also live like the wind.

Translated from Urdu by Asif Aslam Farrukhi

Perveen Shakir

Where Do I figure in Your Life, My Love?

Where do I figure in your life, my love?

In the freshness of the morning breeze

Or in the sheen of the evening star.

In the reluctant drizzle

Or in the laughing rain,

In the cool of moonlit night

Or in the indifference of afternoons.

In deep thoughts

Or in some casual tune?

How do you take me?

As a puff of cigarette

A toast for weather?

Of that famous temporal tragedy

In which one love affair is dead

And the other not yet born.

Am I your summer resort?

Or just one long weekend?

Where do I figure in your life, my love?

(translated from Urdu by Lesilie Lavinge and Baidur Bakht)

M.A. Nuhman

When I was waiting for the White Dove

I was waiting in my courtyard

For the arrival of the white dove

The hawk came first

And took away my chiks

Then

Came a vulture

And landed on the coconut tree

In my courtyard

It purges a volley of shells

Tearing apart my house and living

My souls withers

And I am refugee once again.

(Translated from Tamil by Sumathy and the author)

Amrita Pritam

The Virgin

When I moved into your bed

I was not alone- there were two of us

a married woman and a virgin

To sleep with you

I had to offer the virgin in me

I did so

This slaughter is permissible in law

not the indignity of it

And I bore the onslaught of the insult

The next morning

I looked at my bloodstained hands

I washed my hands

But the moment I stood before the mirror

I found her standing there

the one whom I thought I

had slaughtered last night

Oh God!

Was it too dark in your bed?

I had to kill one and I killed

the other.

(translated from Punjabi by Kartar Singh Duggal)

Nida Fazli

The Bridge of Words

Quite is

the dome of the mosque

and silent are the bells of the temple

the ideal revealed in the scriptures

enveloped in ornate cases

has long been consumed by moths

colours

pink

blue

yellow

no more anywhere

you, on the other side

I, on this

the miles-long gorge between

the bridge of words has broken

you are alone

so am I

(translated from Urdu by Baidar Bakht and Lesilie Lavingne)

Pratibha Nandakumar

Light and Shadow

There are two of me

Like light and shadow

One behind the other

Whispering but never loud enough

They never race each other

Never face each other

One behind the other

This one...

She wants to cross the seven seas

Wants to fly the sky

Find that warm bird's nest

Catch a wink or two

She wants to ride the wild horse

Hold on to mane

Reach the constellation...

This other one...

She feels proud to watch

Her poems marching to school in neat uniform

Her kitchen never closes

Smile doesn't fade

She is the proverbial sandalwood

That gets rubbed to give out a sweet scent

She is content, so she says...

The two don't meet

It's not right

If they ever touch

They burn each other out

After all it's only one body

Not two...

(translated fro Kannada by the poet)

Sharankumar Limbale

White Paper

I do not ask

for the sun and moon from your sky

your farm, your land,

your high houses or your mansions

I do not ask for gods or rituals,

castes or sects

or even for your mother, sisters, daughters.

I ask for

my rights as man.

Each breath from my lungs

sets off a violent trembling

in your text and traditions

your hells and heavens

fearing pollution.

Your arms leapt together

to bring to ruin our dwelling places.

You'll beat me, break me,

loot and burn my habitation

But my friends!

How will you tear down my words

planted like the sun in the east?

My rights: contagious caste riots

festering city by city, village by village,

man by man

For that's what my rights are -

sealed off, outcast, road-blocked, exiled.

I want my rights, give me my rights.

Will you deny this incendiary state of things?

I'll uproot the scriptures like railway tracks

burn like a city bus your flawless laws

My friends!

My rights are rising like the sun

Will you deny this sunrise?

(translated from Marathi by Priya Adarkar)

Attiya Dawood

To My Daughter

Even if they brand you a 'kari'

And condemn you to death

Choose death, but live to love.

Don't sit pretty in the showcase of respectability

You must live to love.

In the desert of thirsty desires

Don't be like a cactus, but live to love.

If somebody's fond memories

Come slowly to you,

Smile and live to love.

What can they do?

They may stone you to death

But in a single moment

You can attain all my life.

You must live to love.

They may call it in sin.

So what? Bear it,

But live to love.

Kunwar Narain

The Neem Flowers

When in bloom

the big Neem tree in our courtyard

used to fill the house

with a bitter-sweet

medicinal smell.

Tiny white flowers

like soap-bubbles

floated in the wind,

one or two would get caught

in Mother's long hair

when she returned from the patio

after watering the Tulsi plant.

Strange, it is always 'flowers'

never 'a flower',

that comes to my mind.

Never saw them withering,

though never so full of colours either

as the Gulmohar or the kachnar.

Yet there was something

more dignified than blossoming

in the way they fell

from the tree

nobly, without remorse.

(translated from hindi by Rupert Snell)

Banira Giri

Woman

Naked

Unhindered

Without fear

Without shame

Woman stands at the crossroads

in her pure primordial form

A crowd of blind men

are eager

to discover the nature of woman

One stroke her flowing hair

and mutters

Ah! Woman is a waterfall, woman is the Ganges

flowing from the head of Shiva.

Another

strokes her hands and fingers

and announces happily,

Woman is the lotus of Saraswati's hand.

Another

grasps her firm thighs and shouts,

Woman is the trunk of a young banana tree

at the wedding pavilion.

Another touches her lips, which sing

the sweet song of creation and says,

Ah! Woman is a ripe raspberry!

Yet another

strokes the boon of motherhood,

her breasts ad says slowly,

Woman is Mt. Kailash, the gift of Laxmi.

Another,

discovering

the half-secret place of creation, leaps up and cries,

No, listen to me!

Woman is nothing but a vile hole!

Her eyes stream with tears

at the blind man's revelation

and another man

touches her brimming eyes and says,

You stupid fools!

Woman is not just a vile hole,

She is also Lake baikal, Lake Ural

She is also Lake Gosainkunda, Lake Mansarovar.

(translated from the Nepali by Ann Hunksins)

Uday Prakash

Women

A woman takes a small bill from her purse and buys from the bus conductor a ticket to go home

She has just been raped

On that same bus with a few women of about her own helpless age another woman discusses

promotion and he rising cost of living

In her office today her supervisor had again sent a memo

The woman who observes the waterless fast of Karva Chauth

so she may remain happily married

Wakes up screaming for fear of being murdered by her

husband or mother-in-law

Standing on her balcony in the middle of the night a woman waits

For her drunken husband to come back from a woman likewise

insecure and helpless----

(translated from Hindi by Robert Hueckstedt)