Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Main ki karna
Tera harpha phad ke
Poori chithhi likhni hai

Tere naa de pehle akhar to
Mere putt da naa vi hai
Tainu nahi pata, onnu vi nahi..
Te onnu vi nahi,
Jida o putt hai..

Tere naa da kajjal pauna
te onnu rijhauna
Jaddon o meriyaan akhaan chumme,
tainu laama paina..

Khasmaan daan kanjarpan
Ik bas tan daa
Saadi Roohaan di bewafai
Na kise phadni
Na koi saza...

Inspired by a Punjabi story.

@kj and hb: (and others wanting to read this piece..)
The translation below is more literal..

What will i do?
Take a letter of the alphabet
from you
and write my whole correspondence
from it..

The first letter of your name
is also the first letter
of my son's name
You do not know it
My son does not know it
Neither does the man
who fathered that son.

i think of you as
i line my eyes with kohl
And then, i work
on charming someone else
As he kisses my eyes,
the joke's on you..

Men, can only commit adultery of one kind
- the physical one..
We, the women,
can be disloyal from the soul..
A betrayl
that no one can discover
or punish.

14 comments:

WritingsForLife said...

very wonderfully done! :-)

Onkar said...

Beautiful.

The Phosgene Kid said...

Sorry, not many Punjabs in this neck of the woods. Love their music though!!!

Tarukh said...

Beautiful( that is for the part I understood) and Spectacular( for the part I did not get but am assuming it is just that!) U will have to make me understand this one!

kj said...

someone, hey someone! can you help me understand this interesting piece? heehee

it's nice to visit you whether i can read your post or not!

and thanks for your very kind and helpful comment on my brief little story.

xoxo

How do we know said...

Hi Raaji: Thanks.

Onkar ji: Thanks.

Hi Phos: Never mind... i much prefer the cooking. :-)

Hi Tarukh: Ok, u asked for it.

Hi kj: ha ha ha..

human being said...

echoing kj...

hey someone!
:D

How do we know said...

@kj and hb: post modified for ur benefit..

kj said...

whoa! this is so powerful!

there is a truth here that spills over and out in the fewest of words. a knife, a cut, a laser beam.

love it, and thanks so much for translating it.

love
kj

human being said...

again echoing kj...
cutting!

:)


wow... girl what have you done!

i loved the openness...
but i don't see it as a revelation about the cunning nature of women...
i see it as the desperate cry of of a kind and sincere and loving soul who is not appreciated for all the beauties she is adding to this world... worse than that... she is ignored... she's betrayed in a way...

and she's angry about this... why shouldn't she?

and what do we do when we are denied? or betrayed? some do the same thing... and when we do not believe in doing so? we pretend it... this is the way SELF reacts to keep itself secure...

we pretend that we don't care... that we are doing the same thing... even have been doing it earlier... or more...

i see sorrow... i see love... i see tenderness... beneath this power insertion...

and surely this feminine soul is powerful not because she 'can be disloyal from the soul' but because she can create a whole world just from a letter...

'The first letter of your name'




stunning work!

and i'm happy you translated it, my dear friend... and from now on i will never pass by any untranslated poem by you... i know a gem is hidden there...

namaste!

How do we know said...

@kj and hb: your comments touch so deep, that i really cant answer them here, on this public domain.. i've been thinking of an answer to your comments for days, and then realised that it touches too deep...
All i can say is, thank you for taking the time to read, and understand this so completely.. love u for that!!!

Himanshu Tandon said...

Read this once and then over and over again.. beautiful I must say. Thanks for sharing this. I am marking it as one of my favorites.

human being said...

and i love you for this...
:)
understand you...

hugs

shail said...

Oh wow! That was good!