Susurrations

Tonight!

My heart wishes;

You were with me

And we sleep side by side.

I miss your robes;

The heaven is crystal clear;

The stars and the moon

Enraptured in ecstasy.

Each particle of earth

Sparkles fresh.

But O my helplessness!

Come tonight!

And be my confidant.

Come at last.

Seize! Drunk and rapturous

Clouds rushing your way

Without leaving a trail.

And the droplets of water.

You too come;

Tonight!

We will sing at last,

In each other’s company,

The song of love.

Your body is beautiful

Your look and every act

Is so dear to me.

Your lovely youth ─ a fresh flower

 And your look─ frank and tawny;

Those champak flowers in your hair;

The garland kissing your soft hand;

And a necklace dangling your neck-

O all your decorations

Take away the wires of my heart.
A slight sound

Lost track in the vast horizon.

Come, my little fairy;

Come, my enchantress;

Tonight!

I wish you too were with me.

 By Meeraji

©Translation by Ashaq Hussain Parray

Saki

Blushed is the rose; pale turns sun’s visage, Saki

Your beauty mums all mouths to silence, Saki.

Like fire-pot my heart still blazes, the soul is thirsty,

How it can be our past scores are settled, Saki?

To drink without moonlight does not seem propitious,

Moon shall have regrets; take off the veil, Saki.

Why should they be surprised to see the goblet empty?

 Yester night revellers must have dreamt of something, Saki.

My desires seek pearls in the deep ocean of agonies,

It is the pain of fire blesses candle with light, Saki.

Offering its blood, love waters the deserts of life,

May like this, beauty’s mirage shine always, Saki.

Now the pious cannot protect the chastity of his hem

Free of cost somebody began to vend wine, Saki.

Keeping the ecstasy, Rahi tells the meaning of words,

Violin and harp further beauty of my Ghazal, Saki

 A Ghazal by Rahman Rahi translated by Ashaq Hussain Parray

I Fear

My father pesters me every day

With a single thought:

“When will you get married?” He says in a casual way.

I evade it every time turning the topic

To Kashmir politics and argue:

“There ought to be a direction to our struggle.”

He calms my fears with a genuine concern

“Look, son it has been there, and I too married.”

We enter into an exchange daily over the

Prospect of a good marriage.

My mother sits silently with a wrinkled

Face perhaps endorsing my views.

I don’t know what goes on in her mind?

She does not usually intervene.

“Women ought not to have an opinion,” she says.

Every night I retire to bed, strange thoughts

Begin to drip in my mind.

They feel raindrops falling on,

The roof of a tin shed making crash sounds.

Every night I think of ‘you’ and wonder:

"What if we could get married?

Would you be you and I still be- I

Would YOU and I be We when

We are different.”

I fear every night, I might steal

Your thoughts, or read your mind

And doubt yore fidelity.”

I fear if I can talk to the people with

Whom I have spent the cloudless nights.

I fear if you come to know by mistake

What goes in my head? The fact that

I love you as much as I love other women

Would be too much for you to bear.”

Each night I think of you and our marriage,

I close my eyes thinking perhaps

You would come to me and ask for more

Time to decide whether love exists

On earth or whether we are at a mutual

Play, playing our part and dancing

Naked in the absence of candles.

The Word

In the beginning was the Word,

And the Word was with God,

And the Word was God.  (Holy Bible, John 1:1)

Hush! Hush! How

                 Does

A word
                        Break

Its silence?

Does it behave like

An unruly boy at the last

Row of a crowded class?

Or a school teacher in hurry?

How does the word break its shell?

To unfurl its pock-marked heart.

Does it toss like a fish, caught

Fresh, in the hands of a fisherman?

Or the tail of a rounded eel?

What if the word were a

Woman?

A poor one,

Dreaming of a fine

Gold necklace from her lover.

Would you strangle her- in bed?

With your muscles,

Before dawn jumps in her shed.

Or would you be drowned

In her helpless breath?

Bark tonight! O heart! Bark!

With a spade, in memory’s field

Like a farmer, dig deep trenches

Only to unearth your memories

Like some fossils.

All day and night the word sings:

“I am neither the loosening of a song

Nor the close-drawn tent of music;

I’m the sound, simply,

Of my own breaking.” ¹

                                        (Ashaq Hussain Parray)

1. Note: The last four lines are from Mirza Ghalib

Song of the Soul

When the full blood moon drowns

in the big black ocean of sky

to break the news of coming night.

That time, my Love, that time

I rip apart my garments

and sing of my desolation.

 

When the muezzin calls- loud at night

and the faithful fall out in fright

to wash sins in the mosque of love.

That time, my Love, that time

I rip apart my garments

and sing of my desolation.

                    

When a sentry’s curious look at the gate

chains my view of your abode and I

call you to open the doors of my body.

That time, my Love, that time

I rip apart my garments

and sing of my desolation.

 

When the soothing air smells conspiracy

to drown my head in our blood

I call you while you sleep unmindful.

That time, my Love, that time

I rip apart my garments

and sing of my desolation.

 

 

When I burrow the barks of memory

in search of your lovesick eyes

and nothing but specks I gain.

That time, my Love, that time

I rip apart my garments

and sing of my desolation.    

 

When the prison walls pour out the dust

of bones from my countrymen

while Death rejects me her golden turn.

That time, my Love, that time

I rip apart my garments

and sing of my desolation.    

Forgotten Papers

After a long time today I opened

The secret chambers of my heart.

There was nothing except some

Silverfish-ravaged past papers

Of your memories.

Page by page I sold all papers of

Your memories in lieu of sixty six

Pennies to feed my filthy stomach.

The merchant was reluctant to accept

Hopeless papers of love.

He kept saying with downcast eyes,

“I don’t deal in revealed scriptures.

God forbid! It is a blasphemy.”

I told him otherwise and assured him

Of no ill fate that may befall him.

The sacred silver pages of my heart

Bear the unholy touch of an infidel.

The scripture of heart is always open

Like our fragile lives in Kashmir,

To the attacks of ruthless wild wind.

Its pages are milk-white always

Waiting for some hand to imprint

The first impressions of love.

Love! I thank the day we met

And separated silently in silence.

There are no ‘forty rules of love.’

Love has no rule to lay down and

To love is not a rule at all.

Once dead in the hunger of solitude.

It saved me and fed my belly.

Ashaq Hussain Parray

Let’s Go

Rise and let’s go and rest at Friend’s lane.
Revive lost letters of love and strive to see,
If we can be-- old friends Again.
And measure the wounds of our heart,
Count the tall telling trees of yore,
The flowery petals of blood in our heart.

Friend, you know what spells charmed us.
Rise O rise, for you know who killed them.
“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, [Friend]”
You know who left their bodies shroud-less
“Fear no more the frown of the great, [Come]
Rise and let’s go and rest at Friend’s lane.

Friend, let’s go and see with our eyes,
The bent bodies of our brethren,
Who like flies swarm across the bars,
To seek refuge from the letters,
Exchanged stealthily to each other in joy,
In the feverish cold of Chillai Kalan.

Let’s march against the odds of war,
And heal our wounds.
I shall burrow a hole into my heart,
With the dagger of your love,
A resting place for us, two together,
Thrown ashore by the smoke of shells.

Do you mind if we pretend, that
We are at peace in the dark.
Let’s go then and count the living
Among the dead, lying,
Or the dead among the living,
Under the same old red-leafed chinar.

Friend, “My nerves are bad tonight” but
Don’t forget, I love you much as I love
The Burnt- out end cigarette puffs.

My Friend, the same old red-leafed chinar,
Where our great grandfathers solemnised
Our marriage of misery and bondage.
Come let’s go and celebrate the massacre
Of human heart. Come, don’t be afraid,
“Thou shall be saved”, death too shall die.

(Ashaq Hussain Parray)