translating shiv kumar batalvi: kabraan udeekdiyaan

a humble attempt at translating a poem by shiv kumar batalvi

song

it is peak noon overhead

and my shadow’s almost disappeared

the grave awaits me like mothers

await their sons dear

the ground of my life is seared

and in my being as a tree alone

there is the dusty lull of grief

and stormy winds of sorrow blow

what strange wretched tree am i

whose own shade has eaten it clear

the grave awaits me like mothers

await their sons dear

in longing burn

dry bread and choori dry

my time is almost at an end

but no end to our separation nigh

these wretched crows they lied to me

to the content of the black hearts of theirs

the grave awaits me like mothers

await their sons dear

people have heard my songs

but no one has known my pains

lakhs have kissed my forehead

but no one recognized my face

today from this face i

sit trying to hide my own self here

the grave awaits me like mothers

await their sons dear

it is peak noon overhead

and my shadow’s almost disappeared

translating shiv kumar batalvi: adhura geet

a humble attempt at translating a poem by shiv kumar batalvi

gazal

i am a sentence in a song incomplete

a journey of the footprints not made by any feet

of all the havoc that love has wreaked

of these ravages i am the peak

i am a lamp in your gathering that’s gone out

i am an allusion that from your lips leaked

that has death alone as its cure

i am the worries of such a life worth a week

she, who saw me and looked away

i am the mute gaze of her eyes deep

it is but my own face alone that i've seen

what a strange man in this world i’ve been

someone heard shiv say yesterday, sorrow’s 
left me well known in this world bleak

translating mirza ghalib: ye na thee hamaree qismat

a humble attempt at translating a gazal by mirza ghalib

to meet my lover i just wasn’t fated

had i lived on then, eternally i’d have waited

it’s not true if you believe that i lived upon your promise

i’d have died of happiness had i trusted you but for a moment

that the thread was a fragile one i knew from your delicacy

had it been stronger never would you have been able to break it

they should ask my heart of the half-drawn arrow that you shot

whereof would there be such pain right through had it gone

whereof is this friendship with all my friends doling out advice

if only there was a shoulder to cry upon, someone who would sympathize

it would drip from the stones and then not stop for an instant

if what you think is sorrow had been a pain sparkling illustrious

i died and was disgraced, why did i not go drown in the sea?

there’d be no procession then, no tomb would there be

whom can i explain this to, it is a bad thing this evening of melancholy

why would i shun death, if it was to come but once, and once only

sure it’s perilous, this sorrow, but what can one do about the heart insane

had it not been about love, it would have been about my occupation mundane

who can see him, for he is without equal, alone and unrivaled yet

had there been even a scent of there being another, surely we’d have met

oh this telling of tales, ghalib, the way that you speak

we’d have thought you a man of god, not so drunk had you been

..............................................................................................

the text in english

ye na thee hamaree qismat ke visaal-e-yaar hota
agar aur jeete rehte yahee intezaar hota

tere waade par jiye ham to ye jaan jhoot jaanaa
ke khushee se mar na jaate agar 'eitabaar hota

teree naazukee se jaana ke bandha tha 'ehed_booda
kabhee too na tor sakta agar oostuwaar hota

koee mere dil se pooche tere teer-e-neemkash ko
ye khalish kahaan se hotee jo jigar ke paar hota

ye kahaan ki dostee hai ke bane hain dost naaseh
koee chaarasaaz hota, koee ghamgusaar hota

rag-e-sang se tapakta wo lahoo ki phir na thamta
jise gham samajh rahe ho, ye agar sharaar hota

gham agarche jaan_gulis hai, per kahaan bachain ke dil hai
gham-e-ishq gar na hota, gham-e-rozgaar hota

kahoon kis se main ke kya hai, shab-e-gham buree bala hai
mujhe kya bura tha marna agar ek baar hota

hue mar ke ham jo ruswa, hue kyon na gharq-e-dariya
na kabhee janaaza uthata, na kaheen mazaar hota

usay kaun dekh sakta ke yagaana hai wo yaktaa
jo dooee ki boo bhee hotee to kaheen do chaar hota

ye masaail-e-tasawwuf, ye tera bayaan 'Ghalib'!
tujhe ham walee samajhate, jo na baada_khwaar hota
...............................................................................................

another translation, by ayesha kaljuvee