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9 poems by Parveen Shakir (Translated by RQ)
9 poems by Parveen ShakirPost-dinner Item
Already we counted ourselves amongst the prisoners of your
locks
But today we want to kiss yours hands as well
For today you’ve adorned the dinner-table
With such a delightful variety of delicacies
That we are all perplexed
From where to start
It’s amazing that in spite of being occupied in your
Extremely demanding social duties
You remained kitchen-bound for so long
All this much!
Surrounded by foolish cooks and unruly servants
And such appetising food
Seems a miracle to us
On top of which is the astounding fact
That you must be so tired
Yet you’re so jocund
Lady so-and-so’s feast was nothing in comparison with this
Thanks
Thank You so much for all this gratitude
Now, what shall I present to you
Tea, coffee or the poet?
SOLILOQUY
The people around me
Seem to speak
A totally different language
That Wavelength
Whereby I was connected to them
Has entered another dimension
Either my grammar has become obsolete
Or their definitions have changed
Their glossaries do not contain
The meanings of the paths
Upon which my words take me
I am dumb to the sanctity of words and can only hold
converse
With the solitude of walls or with my own shadow
I am terrified of the moment
When I will entirely dissolve and disappear into myself
Having forgotten that Frequency
Upon which I used to talk (to myself)
Am left repeating to myself
“May Day, May Day”
Tomato Ketchup
In our country
A woman who writes poetry is considered a curiosity
Every man fancies himself as the addressed
And since in actuality it is not so
So he becomes her enemy!
As such Sara Shagufta
Made few enemies
And because she did not believe
In offering explanations
She had already become the sister in-law of them all
Before she became a writer’s wife
Every Tom, Dick and Harry claimed
That she had slept with him
From dawn to dusk
Every unemployed hack-writer in the city
Buzzed around her
Even those
Who had jobs to go to
Would leave their tatty files and worn-out wives
And let her play in their hands
(Oblivious of electricity bills, children’s school fees and
the wife’s medicine
For these were concerns
Of the lesser mortals)
All day long
All evening
‘So late into the night’
Incensed talk would ensue on literature and philosophy
When hunger struck
They’d all chip in and order
Bread and boiled pulse from the hotel round the corner
Great dignitaries would then be offered tea
At her expense
They told her she was the Amrita Pritam of Pakistan
Stupid gullible girl
She fell for it
Perhaps also because
Those responsible for her bread and butter
Always served her Kafka for tea
With Neruda biscuits
She survived
Their drooling compliments
But how long for
One day or another she would’ve had to escape this panther
prowl
Sarah went one step further and left the jungle itself!
She had been nibbled away alive by
The flattering connoisseurs of art
In their symposiums
They still dribble at her name
Except that they can no longer taste her
For in death they have relegated her
To the status of Tomato Ketchup!
    ………………………
Sobbing like a child he insisted
That they bury him alive with his dead wife
The boys nudged and winked
At each other
The elderly said ‘He has gone mad’
And the priests had a hard time dragging him back home!
Daily he would go to Mewashah after work
Carrying flowers and incense candles
He made this his routine for some time
Then he would go every Thursday
Then every ninth day
Then on the 2 Eids, and then every Shab-barat
Then annually upon her anniversary
Till one day as he alighted from the number 60 bus
Into the scorching sun
His eyes settling upon a tree
And he remembered
The new typist in the office that had arrived that day
And realised that the world
Does not only consist of one person
And laughed
A difficult question
The face of a 12 or 13 year old child
Peeping from behind thin curtains
Fresh as the first
Flower of spring
As pure as
First love!
But the hands cut from too much
Cutting of vegetables
And those cuts embroidered
With dry sand
The hands are 20 years younger
Than the face
Advice from a senior executive
The senior executive where I work
Called me rather unusually to his office one day
And after asking after a file or 2
Frowning uneasily he mentioned my non-civil pastimes
Shedding light upon the standing of the poetess in a
society
The gist of what he said
Was that a poet has the same role in a nation
As an appendix in our bodies
Absolutely Useless – But able at times to cause great
pain
So there is only one way of getting rid of it – Surgery!
A feint smile played upon his lips , as he imagined he had
rid himself
Of the appendix of my personality
Then Said
‘An ideal consultant
Has no face
First her lips disappear
Then her eyes
Followed by her ears
Until finally she loses her head
Without loss of lips, eyes, ears and brains
Nobody can become, a Federal Secretary!’
To further enhance his argument he referred to couple of
barmy diplomats
But I think he must’ve read my mind or facial expressions
That this fool is content merely to remain a Local poet
Disheartened he permitted me
To take my leave for the day
And the fool I returned to my office
Having found inspiration for a new poem
Well aware of a possible entry in red
In my A. C. R.
On
Clifton
Upon which the high and mighty Traffic Policemen
Are seen to perform their duties
Around the clock
Including, 6 or 7 undercover
Not even an unconcerned bird may flitter its wings around
them!
I saw her!
In a deep ochre
Gold sequined dress
Every fold aligned!
Her Lipstick so dark
That my eyes were drenched in it
Her foundation dripping in the mid-May sun
Seemed to say
No amount of money can buy such beauty
Her face caked by the smoke of a cigarette
Stuck between her blue nail polish-drowned fingers
And with those captivating glances and such movements
She could easily have been arrested by the Police under
Clause 294
Parked at the Traffic Signal I thought
Any time now, this P. C. will hand over an arrest warrant
To this heroine out of Manto
But before he took out his book
A car with a navy-blue Number Plate
Stopped by her
And she disappeared into the car
Along with her Clause 294 persona
While the plain-clothed P. C.
Stood aghast ADVICE Our love has died its clinical death!
How much longer can this fake respirator
Of excuses and diversions
Keep it alive
It is better
To switch off the plugs of our hypocrisy
And let a beautiful emotion die in dignity!
I should have known
We met
When the snows from the mountain-tops was melting
When the cherry-tree’s first buds were in bloom
The entire park heralded the coming offspring with its
sweet fragrance
The nightingale had just begun to sing
We strolled
Arm in arm
In cherry blossom-strewn streets
Catching the butterflies until
The rain came to join us
Like a dear friend
The day the first leaf fell from the trees
I bent down to pick it up
Turned around
Saw he was gone!
Now I collect my tears in broken leaf-images
I should have known our time together
Was to last
As long as spring
© Rehan Qayoom, May 2007.
July 9th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
[...] flickr contact has sent new translations of Parveen Shakir’s poems. The nine poems translated are from the latter phase of Parveen [...]
May 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Beautiful, touching, true, I think I had read a Punjabi Translation on the Sara
Shagufta Poem somewhere. Shakir’s poetry always goes right into the heart.
The translations are amazing. My compliments to Qayoom - and gratitude
for bringing them to us.