tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53467956423861691842024-03-12T17:53:08.295-07:00Make Humans AgainPoems in translation from Kashmiri: being a diary of sorts of my days spent completing a book, "Make Humans Again".Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5346795642386169184.post-15798323560293189352012-04-25T08:31:00.002-07:002012-04-25T08:47:57.315-07:00I will not sing (Bi Gyavana Aaz)<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will not sing—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will sing today no rose song, no song of the nightingale, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">No song of the iris, no hyacinth song,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> No
song to ravish nor song intoxicated<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> Not
languor’s sweet, slow songs—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Not the least song—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will not sing—
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Not when the dust
cloud of war skins the iris for its hue—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">When the thunder of guns tears out the tongue from the nightingale—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">When I hear the clamor and clatter of chains, here <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Where there
were hyacinths—and the diseased eye of lightning is webbed closed, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">And mountains recoil <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Back onto their
haunches; when black-death gathers close <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Cloud tops to embrace—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will not sing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">For now warlord and bureaucrat stand<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Girt-about in guard; here remain in watch <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Over my Kashmir.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will not
sing—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will sing today no song of Nishat or Shalimar, no annealed song of waters<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Engraving terraced gardens, no bower songs of bedded flowers; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">No soft songs flush or sweetly fresh, not green dew songs <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Nor songs gentle and growing—not the least song—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will not
sing—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Not the least song—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Not today—not when here is no place <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Where the day’s
white-seething pan of light is not set, poised to distress, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Setting shake, spilling from quavering vessels what life there was yet<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">To blight my waking garden—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">So the rose holds its breath, and<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">The tulip its
brand; quick rivers stall their song and keening koels shake <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">In their palpitating hearts<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Where throbbing song is stilled—all fearing,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">A wild starling
idly sinks into the quiet of its unsettled perch. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will not sing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">For now the warlord and bureaucrat stand <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Girt-about …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will not
sing—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will sing no song today of incipience, no late songs favoring spring<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">of first friends, the fevers willed, of new love and wildness in
longing;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I will stage no song to effloresce red and yellow, with tender crests<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"> Of
the blue and green stuff growing—not the least song—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">(An Ongoing Translation of Dina Natha Nadim's <i>Bi Gyavana Aaz </i>by Sonam Kachru)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Here, for the first minute before the overdub begins, you can hear the Master himself. Note how the visuals miss the irony of using them as yet another picturesque reduction of the valley.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Here is the poem, set to song, and part of the after-life of Nadim's strong music. I prefer the rhythms of the poem as Nadim offered them to us, demotic and unharnessed by narrow musical measures, but patterned around the breathing voice. Still, important:</span></div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5346795642386169184.post-53314776559383456882011-12-21T18:47:00.000-08:002011-12-21T18:47:09.463-08:00Bird, Mad About Flowers (By Mahjoor)<br />
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">What is it that will sift a flower—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">and what flowers!—that will boldly drink<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">of spring from the garden’s year, and does not know?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">For here is riot, and fury of sound, quite agony enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">What if you were not told?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Yours is the horse-hair net<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">and florid bait, and the sprung-snares of luminous stuff made:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Here flowers conceal the flush green nets set with blades of spun-grass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Here is downfall;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">your ruin in fire,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">should you nestle among boughs where there are flowers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">high on the flowering tree—now it is past time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">you left the garden; now that you persist, and would disavow this—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">For we here bless with more life only trees </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond;">that keep, and do not beg </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">their share of shade; </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond;">we lay waste </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond;">to the tree bereft, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond;">be it the proudest of tall pines.</span></div>
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--Ghulam Ahmad Mahjoor (1885-1952)</div>
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(Adapted from the Kashmiri poem, <i>Bulbulo Mot Gokh Poshan</i>, by Sonam Kachru, September, 2011*)<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The songbird (<i>bulbul</i>) has figured before this in the poetry of Mahjoor, and was to continue to effect him in his work beyond the forms and metaphoric registers he inherited from Persian. He could not resist speaking to the bird, even in a poem otherwise addressing the Gardener: <i>karee kus bulbulaa aazaad panjaras manz tsu naalan chukh / tsu pananye dasta pananyan mushkilan aasaan paadaa kar</i>. I hope to have occasion to say more soon concerning the songbird as it figures as muse, deceiver and creature of extravagant invention and by turns naive servitude to idyll thoughts in a burning garden. In that note I will explain my preference of "songbird" over "nightingale" or even retaining bulbul in transliteration. In the meantime, one might amuse oneself with the erudition on display <a href="http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:1:313.hobson">here</a></span></div>
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*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">The poem has been translated before. See in particular 'Fussy Bird' by Trilokinath Raina, available in his collection of poems by Mahjoor, <i>The <a href="http://www.koausa.org/Poets/Mahjoor/index.htm">Best of Mahjoor</a></i>, J & K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, Srinagar, 1989.</span></div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5346795642386169184.post-855262962169354712011-12-21T11:47:00.000-08:002013-12-04T07:35:06.644-08:00Fragments From "To The Songbird (By Ghulam Nabi Firaq)"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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But you are curious, songbird--<br />
without a word your extravagant voice<br />
is inside; and you cry, and when all is<br />
alive with the abrupt rumor of you<br />
my haunted heart, a wild thing, leaps,<br />
near the least spasm of time:<br />
it suspends me here<br />
for my world is not now what it was.<br />
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of a moment with your moving song<br />
here seems the rose, and all your creatures of song,<br />
all as of noise and the flourish of spring...<br />
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I wandered far--it was a Greek play<br />
that consumed my mind, where I lost<br />
my self, wetting invention, feeding taste ...<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5346795642386169184.post-57832278660969462512011-10-07T20:22:00.000-07:002011-12-30T10:51:28.489-08:00Shrew, by Dina Natha Nadim<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3NXqOsBuEUflJH5hIldPorkpIdj2HWFTCXJiwAPrdrvBy7OzcDLkfeo5YqNzYSQwLeSUgrxbnrov5Jq5t_UXD1h9XOLyrG7dxRoBup0ZXN-W7i4uGEDDDd4xALwUxSe42VaPuHk29Fwg/s1600/news_7_3_2011_3-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3NXqOsBuEUflJH5hIldPorkpIdj2HWFTCXJiwAPrdrvBy7OzcDLkfeo5YqNzYSQwLeSUgrxbnrov5Jq5t_UXD1h9XOLyrG7dxRoBup0ZXN-W7i4uGEDDDd4xALwUxSe42VaPuHk29Fwg/s640/news_7_3_2011_3-1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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O, it is a weight and no mistake that a window must bear--<br />
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open it and it will complain, waking the bleary wide worlds<br />
street by shriek, like a shrewish (you know which) sister<br />
through marriage. It lets out a yell when you close it as well<br />
and you'll want then you hadn't. As for me, I have mine--<br />
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for me to have to hear such music the lifelong day every day<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGbUoGyxndQSwuReDMXTOltfolT9PwTpBQzoWiYjXCy-gjNp9BFZfi7arJydwlUXdKBVW3gXPGZtu5Mky-cOkZxcGvGy7RLUl3va0dK4O1v3_1XzxO4RBKgJNkac_EFJkWQWHQq8QtvUY/s1600/20100713-212815-pic-379402798_t607.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGbUoGyxndQSwuReDMXTOltfolT9PwTpBQzoWiYjXCy-gjNp9BFZfi7arJydwlUXdKBVW3gXPGZtu5Mky-cOkZxcGvGy7RLUl3va0dK4O1v3_1XzxO4RBKgJNkac_EFJkWQWHQq8QtvUY/s640/20100713-212815-pic-379402798_t607.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Adapted from Kashmiri by Sonam Kachru, August-October 2011.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A minor piece by the poet extraordinaire I first came across in Trilokinath Raina's book on Dina Nath Nadim for the series <i>Makers of Indian Literature</i>, published by the Sahitya Academy Press. The sketch is called <i>Vara Hajy', </i>a small contribution, but not without bite, to an object not uncommon to literature written in Kashmir, and with a tone too rarely found in reports on the region. The window has recently again featured as the occasion for verse, though <a href="http://pulsemedia.org/2011/12/25/window-to-my-city/">here</a> ("Window To My City"), in an elegy after Agha Shahid Ali recently offered by the young poet Feroz Rather, the window is a witness to life, if we may call it that, in a sadly diminished key in the city that has seen so much after Nadim. As it bears on the theme of windows, and because it is quite simply refreshing to point to the resurgent talent in the city of Bridges, I include here a painting by Showkat featured as an illustration to the piece by Feroz:</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6xHAV37e-Ts/Tv4HdKy_8XI/AAAAAAAAAks/maQg8icAeKQ/s1600/url.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6xHAV37e-Ts/Tv4HdKy_8XI/AAAAAAAAAks/maQg8icAeKQ/s400/url.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">For those interested in Nadim's experiments in the miniature poem (and the very short poems Nadim called fireflies, modeled on haikus), see Arvind Gigoo's translation of some of Nadim's anecdotes: </span><i>Ancedotes by Dina Nath Nadim</i>, translated by <a href="http://www.koausa.org/Poets/Gigoo/gigoo_index.html">Arvind Gigoo</a>.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I cannot refrain from offering one, as I have adapted it from Kashmiri:</span><br />
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It came to pass that time came to rest<br />
On a picture: and the bold, green lines<br />
Grew long, and there was a forest.<br />
He who took the long road through<br />
Found home--and there was breath;<br />
Where is the forest? What place, mind?<br />
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***<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image 1 from a review of a calendar called "Windows of Life," featuring the windows of Old City, Srinagar, that appeared in <i>Greater Kashmir </i>in an article called <i><a href="http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2011/Mar/7/shahr-e-khaas-silently-losing-window-of-life--15.asp">Shahr-e Khaas</a> Silently Losing 'Window of Life'</i>. Each photograph carries a short note on the history of the windows and their design.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image 2, by Mukhtar Khan, featured <a href="http://www.tcpalm.com/photos/2010/jul/13/253540/">here</a>.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Some heart-breaking photographs of houses by Habba Kadal (with a great view of the windows) can be seen at the blog <i><a href="http://www.searchkashmir.org/2009/07/houses-at-habba-kadal-old-and-new.html">Search Kashmir</a>. </i></span><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5346795642386169184.post-58402426060014719352011-10-06T09:49:00.000-07:002012-01-06T09:34:09.338-08:00Seven Sparks, Rafiq Raaz<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">At midnight the seer’s soul
caught fire; he began to dance—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In frenzy he danced, and in
splendor. I was still, fearing,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">When he made me a gift of
paper. I trembled to see there<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Sparks, there were seven,
wrapped in folds of paper like silk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I was overcome. I fell into
sleep, dreaming there the dancing seer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Was stilled. I made a
fold of my hands, and pressed them together<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">And asked after his gift: “Tell
me, let me not be the one left out<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">of the secret tonight—what is
this? In the name of God, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">What would you have me do with
these? How keep them? The sparks<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">will burn, how can they
not, through these folds as fine as silk.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">“They will burn,” he said, “and
the sparks go out. And seven <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">are the places that shall catch fire, burning for so many years.”</span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 17px;">Rafiq Raaz, adapted from Kashmiri by Sonam Kachru, October 2011.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">Instead of a commentary to this poem, I should like to offer two small fragments; the first, a quote that could have served as an epigraph to the poem, and second, an oblique essay: notes for a biography of the number seven. The latter is are notes towards an entirely idiosyncratic response to the poem. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">First, the epigraph, from Ghalib:</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"> For painted silk to enfold flames of fire is facile--</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"> It takes ingenuity to conceal burning grief in the heart.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">(<i>lipatnaa parniyaan men shulah-e aatish kaa aasaan hai</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><i>vale mushkil hai hikmat dil men soz-e gam chhupaane ki</i>)</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">For more on this verse see the discussion <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ghalib/136/136_03.html">here</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">And now, for something completely different: <b><i>The Number Seven. </i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><i>As an envoi to this essay yet to be written, I would ask you to recall that:</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><i><br /></i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When a sincere man </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">begins to dance,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The seven heavens, and the earth, and all creatures </span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: white;">begin to dance." </span></div>
</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">How far is it from Tabriz to Srinagar?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">There is a Sunni hadith, (from the <i>Sahih Muslim</i>): "Verily Allah is 'odd' [for he is one, and one is an odd number] and he loves the odd numbers best." Seven is an odd number, loved by God. Thus some have said, when he is remembered, as in the <i>Shahada</i>, it is seven words that gives commitment its shape:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span lang="ar" xml:lang="ar">لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>(</i><span class="Unicode" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: normal;" title="DIN 31635 Arabic"><i>lā ʾilāha ʾillallāh, Muḥammad rasūlu-llāh--</i>the seven words are more easily scanned in Arabic script).</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Unicode" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: normal;" title="DIN 31635 Arabic"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Unicode" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: normal;" title="DIN 31635 Arabic">Before it was clear that God loved the odd numbers, men have found reason to suspect something was in this number...</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Unicode" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: normal;" title="DIN 31635 Arabic"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">* NOTES ON RAFIQ RAAZ </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small; line-height: 17px;">For more on the poet, see Abir Bazaz's entry on Rafiq Raaz on his excellent website <a href="http://kunear.com/styled-25/styled-23/"><i>Kunear</i></a> devoted to the Kashmiri language and the literature of Kashmir in every language used in the valley. It is enough to say that Rafiq Raaz is perhaps the preeminent master of lyricism in language writing today, (favoring among all forms the <i>ghazal</i>), and in general, along with Rahman Rahi, is among the most prescient of poets working in Kashmir. At the level of image alone, he is often unforgettable:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 17px;">Outside you would see the likeness of Mughal palaces--</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 17px;">Inside, there is a lantern, a sickness and a dream.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 17px;">(<i>Nyebra cha baasaan Mughlan hanz shahkar haveel</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 17px;"><i>Andre chu akh chatgeer tae akh bemaar tae khwab</i>)</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizrqJ5ORh4etLmHQJUoPA5rlhQl_UH0ZF6kI1IMlr46p7ExNutkzMEYHVFkS2hWC29R01NFVYjL4OtdTTKF6gnak-5ay4h2p2SXWDFzEoavVn3umSwjs6UQi6kGJkG760_7d4eMBVJPvI/s1600/9780393332384_300.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizrqJ5ORh4etLmHQJUoPA5rlhQl_UH0ZF6kI1IMlr46p7ExNutkzMEYHVFkS2hWC29R01NFVYjL4OtdTTKF6gnak-5ay4h2p2SXWDFzEoavVn3umSwjs6UQi6kGJkG760_7d4eMBVJPvI/s1600/9780393332384_300.jpeg" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">I would like to take the opportunity here to point to an earlier, and beautiful rendition of this poem by Muneeb ur Rahman. Any student of Kashmiri literature ought to feel indebted to Rahman's ongoing efforts to keep alive literary expression in Kashmiri, through his own efforts as a fine translator, but also as the editor of the only Kashmiri journal dedicated to literature:<i> </i><a href="http://neabinternational.org/"><i>Neab</i></a>, revived in an online incarnation largely through the efforts of Rahman. His translation of this poem is available on his blog <i><a href="http://muneeburrahman.blogspot.com/2005/10/rafiq-raaz-talented-ghazal-writer.html">Kashmiri Writing Today</a>. </i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">This translation appeared in the book<i> <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?id=8428">Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond</a>, </i>a groundbreaking book for poetry in translation, along with two other poems from Kashmiri, Amin Kamil's ghazal 'In Water' rendered in a beautiful English form respecting the requirements of the <i>ghazal</i> by Rahman, and a poem by Rahman Rahi translated by Shafi Shauq. I believe that this is the first time poems from Kashmiri have been featured in </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">an anthology of world literature in English; they certainly represent among the finer achievements in the translation of Kashmiri into English. One of the things I greatly admire about Rahman is his unified vision of Kashmiri literature. In a time where we are apt to forget the achievements of our earlier poets (when we think of poetry at all), Rahman was quoted as hoping to include even Nadim, to my mind among the strongest of poets in Kashmiri, certainly among the most influential, but a poet seldom mentioned in the same breath as Raaz or Rahi: "I regret Dinnath Nadim's "Candy & Absinth" was dropped from the selection at a later stage during a review by a professor at the Kashmir University." I thank Muneeb ur Rahman for wanting to include our strongest poems, even where their immediate relevance to our current climate is not immediately apparent. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small; line-height: 14px;">Photo Credit: The Telegraph, Picture of the Day, 14 January, 2011. School Children in Jammu at recess. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5346795642386169184.post-7221402968409290062011-10-02T11:09:00.000-07:002012-01-06T09:44:15.340-08:00A New Disease, by Akther Mohiuddin (d. 2001)<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">He's out of his mind,
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">He will get to his house and then not walk through the door. He just stands
there, as if in queue, </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">sometimes for an hour: standing there, waiting for who
knows what; and then, he will not enter. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">He turns at last </span></span>his back to the door, if you
please, and walks away.</div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">No, no, no, he said, there has been
some change for the better. He has been to the doctor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And what did the doctor do?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He said that as soon as he gets
home someone ought to perform a search of his person. Then one must wait </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">to
see whether he will enter his house or no, or even walk through the gate.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And they did, just as the doctor
prescribed; and now he will enter. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The doctor said that ever since we
have had searches performed on us at every possible door, </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">outside every possible gate, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">this new disease has
proven catching. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Some, he said, are compelled </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">even to search themselves </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">before they can walk </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">through gates, any gate, or enter a house, any house.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">NOTES</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">1. Nav Byamar--there is no way to capture the manner in which this title, with its two words, and three stress cadence, rudely echoes and refuses a title beloved of so many authors before, in what must seem today, but was not necessarily so, a happier time, time when it was possible still to hope for 'new Spring' (<i>Nav Bahaar</i>). (I stress, however, that Nadim already spoke in the fifties of refusing to sing of new spring, youth or idle dreams of one's first, wild longings). Now, no 'New Spring' any longer, but 'A New Disease'. The choice of articles is always a burden for the translator when the source languages have none. I have chosen the indefinite. A vain hope that the condition is not a true disease distinctly its own.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">2. This is an adaptation from Kashmiri by Sonam Kachru, a piece long in preparation. Thus far, it is the only example of prose I have wanted to include as a prose-poem in my book of translations from Kashmiri poetry, as Mohiuddin' s voice is simply not to be overlooked in any collection of voices from Kashmir. Hence, this adaptation, prepared before I had the chance to read Abir Bazaz's excellent translation, recently shared via facebook, and through the closed group Kashmir Reading Room. This version is indebted to Abir's translation, and my willingness to share it, to the warm support shown by readers of the group for literature such as this.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am indebted Abir Bazaz (through conversation, for this as with so much else) and Basharat Peer (through his book, <i>Curfewed Night</i>) for acquainting me with this gem of a short story (what some today would call 'flash fiction', though Sadat Hasan Manto, Mohiuddin's true influence, excelled at this genre before it was a genre). Peer offers a paraphrase of this short story, effectively reproducing Mohiuddin's words, on page 154 of <i>Curfewed Night--</i>whether by design or not, Peer follows his ultimate predecessor, Kalhana, in his concern for documenting literary expression as a form of optic important to history and memoir. The passage reads:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"In "The New Disease" a man waits for a long time, as if in a queue, before entering his own house--and then turns away and leaves in another direction. His family takes him to a doctor. The doctor says, "Ever since frisking has been introduced, a new disease has come up. Some people need to be frisked every time they see a gate; others frisk themselves." He prescribes a body search every time the man reaches a gate. The family follows a prescription, and the man's condition improves."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Peer offers "frisk," and "body search", and Bazaz "search" for Mohiuddin's verb '<i>talaash</i>' followed by the periphrastic verb, <i>kadun, </i>which means to search for, as it does in Hindustani. All these variants in English help bring out the range of what is resonant in the by now all too familiar idiom in the valley, as are the words "security", "search," "frisk" in English, though the situation in Kashmir is much more extreme, as this piece invites us to see. Thus, I wanted something, that would strike the ear in English as at once routine (in our oh so secured world) and alienating. I wanted a phrase that would help render the body an alien object, the locus for actions that distance the agent and the object of action: hence, my ridiculously anachronistic example of bureaucratic English, "perform a search of one's / his person", which like the Kashmiri idiom, seems to promise and yet leave out a purpose for this activity. It is enough that the person be the locus of search, an environment for an endeavour. But to be adequate, we shall want all these senses, with the tonal possibilities of various idioms, and so, perhaps, as many translations as we can bear to have. It is worth pointing out the distance between <i>talash kadun</i>, and <i>pay kadu</i>n, where this latter activity (from <i>pay</i> meaning footprint) means to search for truth on the basis of clues. One respondent to the story thought she heard the echo of <i>laash</i> in <i>talaash</i>. I leave it to readers more skilled in Mohiuddin's work than I am to determine if he was prone to such sly echoes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">3. The echo in the last line to anigati, in Kashmiri, darkness, is my own. It is not Mohiuddin's, nor is the strict repetition, which is my way of stressing the everywhere present occasions for the symptoms of this disease. But the echo I seek to let resound here with the English "any gate" finds its source in this dedication of Mohiuddin's to his book of short stories, <i>Seven One Nine One Seven And Other Stories </i>published in 2001:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Intesaab</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Mausoom shaheed Muhammad Yusuf wa Ahmadullah Reshi te timan jawanan handi nawa yim zulmakis </i></span><b>ani gatis manz</b> <i>be nau Jayan qatl karne aayi</i> [Emphasis Mine]</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dedication:</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To the innocent witnesses through martyrdom, Muhammad Yusuf and Ahmadullah Reshi, and such boys as were destroyed in the unjust, depriving <b>dark</b> of oppression, killed in nameless places</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11px;">4. The illustration is by the Kashmiri artist Veer Munshi. I will add copyright information and a link to the original as soon as I can remember where I acquired it from.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-size: 8pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5346795642386169184.post-84227154931252665232011-09-28T23:09:00.000-07:002011-09-28T23:09:36.178-07:00YouthYouth<br />
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By Ghulam Ahmed Mahjoor<br />
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(Adapted from the poem <i>Lokchaar</i> in Kashmiri by Sonam Kachru, June-August, 2011; this adaptation has been accepted for publication by <i>Kashmir Dispatch. </i>My thanks to Majid Maqbool for finding a home for this effort).<br />
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Speak, Spring,<br />
Time I was young--what brief spell was this,<br />
Between vision, our hazard of staged parts<br />
And remembered scenes, and seeing you,<br />
Magician, stake all, and steal away?<br />
My youth was high midsummer, a face unveiled<br />
To tempt the world; there were flowers<br />
That lived through their day. Spring, I’d say<br />
My green days were like the wild cedar on the water’s edge,
<br />
Tasting new grass; but you are grim,
Woodsman—<br />
I beg of you, forego your axe.<br />
It was a time for life<br />
On fire, burning like lit pines, a time to spark<br />
Quick mouths and tongues of flame—Spring,<br />
That life is spent, the fires out.
My youth was a dream<br />
Sweet to savor; and if I have had to feed on regret<br />
On waking, I want, Spring, Time I was young,<br />
Just once, to see it again: my young days,<br />
The garden’s creaturely soul, a bird in the garden<br />
Lifting its gladdening voice, the thrill of accord<br />
The graceful burden of its balm of song—it sings<br />
Sweetly to ensoul me, softly stalked by the King<br />
Of Hunters, time and again among men.<br />
For a time there was time<br />
For gardens on fire; there were flowers<br />
Of the pomegranate to flame—too early splendor<br />
For such abuse, petals too soon among the torn<br />
Ruins in autumn, fragile spoils of fall’s winds.<br />
<br />
I speak, Spring, of time I was young,<br />
Of my days like water in an impatient stream<br />
Swelling with rain, of the flood past forlorn bends
<br />
And on the bank, of hot thirst of clutched grass<br />
Drying on the water’s edge.
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(This version is incomplete, omitting two verses that conclude the poem. If the poem seems sufficiently interesting, please see the forthcoming post on this blog for an essay in which I offer some reflections on translating Mahjoor and a reading of this poem in particular; the essay restores the concluding verses, and offers my reasons for not including them in this version of the poem. Briefly, I may say that translating Mahjoor's final gesture, his attempt at restoring life in a land desiccated by time, folding death into the image of an absent lover, involved me in his last attempt at exorcising the companion spirit of Rasul Mir, perhaps the Kashmiri poet most resistant to translation. I found it easier to rest in my translation where I have above, with Mahjoor in the company of the ghost of Eliot in the long shadow of Whitman).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5346795642386169184.post-16650577148343569442011-08-10T16:34:00.000-07:002011-08-11T07:18:04.237-07:00Pilgrimage For Our TimePILGRIMAGE FOR OUR TIME
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<br />Adapted from Moti Lal Saqi's 'Nav Yaatra' by Sonam Kachru, August 2010.
<br />As this translation has been accepted for publication by <span style="font-style:italic;">Words Without Borders</span>, please do not cite or distribute without permission (kachru.sonam@gmail.com).
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<br />What is it you wish to leave
<br />That has you leave
<br />Not without leaving
<br />Nothing behind?
<br />Where is it you wish to be
<br />That you take the zero road,
<br />Think nothing of not leaving
<br />Anyone not quiet behind
<br />To lie as one lies
<br />When one waits
<br />For water,
<br />Or is it an echo
<br />The sound a cracked heel barely makes
<br />On broken earth in an empty place?
<br />
<br />You insist and take nothing
<br />But a sometime familiar shadow
<br />To carry the rest of your humpbacked life
<br />On the empty road you will not leave, past
<br />The look out that does not lie
<br />Ahead, to a point at an indefinite close
<br />Of a vanishing road
<br />You possibly never meant to attempt,
<br />Or reach. There is something,
<br />Of a kind, in desolation’s witness—
<br />An earthbound star,
<br />The ruined sky.
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<br />There will be mountains.
<br />There are always mountains.
<br />There is hope always in the ascent
<br />To breathe what breaths
<br />They have forsaken before you now
<br />On the heights, and when
<br />You begin (and there is always time
<br />to begin) your descent
<br />There will be time
<br />To think on distance,
<br />Of cottages you can barely see,
<br />Of beds and a pleasant enough country road
<br />That can lead you past the open country fields
<br />And country dogs
<br />Only too eager to heel you through
<br />Yet another rabid country scene.
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<br />Count yourself mad
<br />In the unhinged city, for that is surely how
<br />They will know you. Have a care when you pick
<br />Your gentle way in the barbed meadows, again
<br />In bloom; do not stop to listen
<br />To the woodnotes by the glittering banks
<br />Or follow their turning feet:
<br />un-drowned gods mislead—but you know
<br />Not to leave the empty road or rest your broken feet
<br />Till you cross the desert—only, you know
<br />You cannot cross the desert.
<br />The desert is a waiting thing—and no road
<br />Enters but leads into the waiting heart of it,
<br />Where at last you must lie, emptied,
<br />To listen to blistering wind
<br />And the sun and empty sky, to wait
<br />Overhearing the desert defeat you.
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<br />So they will find you, at the end, so very still—
<br />Your breath all in you that moves as one
<br />With sand—and so they shall account you
<br />One, unbroken, among the visionary company—
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<br />In the end they will brick you in gold
<br />Build about you a temple
<br />To which others will find a well paved road
<br />Now they call it peace
<br /> Where you are.
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<br />—Moti Lal Saqi
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<br />I apologize to readers for the loss of indentation in the blog-post. Readers more skilled in this art may forgive a novice.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0