AaeenaaEnglish translation (mine):
Tujhse bichara hoon to aaj aaya mujhe apna khayal
Ek kataraa bhi nahin baaki ki hon palkein to nam
Meri aankhon ke samandar kaun sahraa pee gaye
Ek aansoo ko tarastee hai meri takreebe-gam.
Main no ro payaa to sochaa muskara kar dekh loon
Shayad is bejaan paikar mein koi zindaa ho khvaab
Par labon ke tan-barhanaa shaakhchon par ab kahaan
Muskarahat ke shigufay khand-e-dil ke gulaab
Kitna veeran ho chuka hai meri hastee ka jamaal
Tujhse bichara hoon to aaj aaya mujhe apna khayal
- Ahmed Faraz
Mirror
Separated from you, I turn to myself:
Not a drop to moisten the eyelids here.
What deserts have drunk the sea from my eyes?
My sorrow thirsts for a single tear.
Unable to cry, I try and smile instead
Does a dream survive in this lifeless form?
But nothing will bloom on these barren lips
No flower of smile, no rose of warmth.
Life's beauty lies ruined; there's little left.
Separated from you, I turn to myself.
Note: I know the translation isn't entirely accurate, but in the trade-off between a literal translation and one that retained the rhyme scheme of the original I went with the latter. I don't think this version takes anything essential away. In any case, the focus of these posts is supposed to be Faraz's poems (in the original), not my translations of them.
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3 comments:
Kitna veeran ho chuka hai meri hastee ka jamaal
What a line. I had never read Faraz before and now I want to read him.
And thanks much for the translation.
//IMO, you should be adding your translations on Faraz's wiki page. The examples included there are....well...you go read them and decide :)
Very nice, thanks for this.
A technical point-- the measure seems overextended in one place, third line of first stanza. Intended? Makes the line feel a little awkward and tottering, since the rest of the lines are so carefully balanced and weighted...
km: You're welcome. And of course making you want to read Faraz is the whole point of these posts.
The translation on the wiki page are sad. Now if only I knew how one actually adds something to a wiki page...
equivocal: Thanks. You're right about the third line, of course. It's not intentional in the sense that I didn't want it to be that way, but I did notice and couldn't find a solution that would make it work. The best I could do was cut out the initial 'What' and make it a statement rather than a question, but I didn't want to do that.
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