translated by M. Shahid Alam Only a few come back to us in roses and tulips. Many more lie buried, dust on their sleeping eyelids. By day, the daughters of Pleiades play out of sight. At night, they lift their veils in ravishing display. My eyes pour blood on this night of savage partings: two … Continue reading “4. Ghazal from Ghalib”
translated by M. Shahid Alam If a thing’s delayed, there’s a thing delaying it. Not you, your suitors slowed you down a bit. It wasn’t right, pinning my troubles on you. The furies, fate, kismet, each had a hand in it. If you can’t remember, let me jog your memory. I was your prized quarry: … Continue reading “3. A Ghazal from Ghalib”
translation by M. Shahid Alam . کہتے ہو نہ دینگے ہم دل اگر پڑا پایا دل کہاں کہ گم کیجئے ‘ ہم نےمدُعا پایا . I can’t have it – you say – if you find my heart. Once – it was mine. Now I know who has it. Love is easily the best part … Continue reading “2. Ghazal from Ghalib”
translated by M. Shahid Alam نقش فریادی ہے کس کی شوخیِ تحریر کا کاغذی ہے پیرہن ہر پیکرِ تصویر کا Where is the Artist whose art they protest? Every prop, every player, dreads his part in the play. Hard, it is hard, digging through granite nights. It takes a thousand sparks to break into day. … Continue reading “A Ghazal from Ghalib”
Professor Guy Rotella’s on Intimations of Ghalib (Orison Books, 2018), M. Shahid Alam’s sublime new translation of the great poet’s Ghazals. I first encountered Ghalib in the early 1970s. I was in graduate school, studying poetry. Then, as now, I had no Urdu. The medium of transmission—translation—was Aijaz Ahmad’s Ghazals of Ghalib, from Columbia University Press. … Continue reading “Intimations of Ghalib”
by M. Shahid Alam A night reading Rumi fills ancient wineglasses. By day speed & freeway suck God out of me. I have stayed up all night thinking of you. Wall Street & City leech love out of me. Who is my brother if the world is a village? Jet and internet pluck my roots out … Continue reading “Ghazal”
by Manash Bhattacharjee To Najeeb Mubarki Kashmiris will murmur the blessed word, Shahid, when the Beloved no longer has to witness Shahid. The day Paradise was lost, who was at the gates? We only know boots of Hell marched in Shahid. Rizwan couldn’t return to console his father – he found refuge for days in … Continue reading “Shahid: A Ghazal”
