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| Bulbul. Gurgaon. 2012. Aug 9. End should have been yellow. |
O bulbul, strange bird!
Your loud call was so very sudden
That my sad heart gave one wild leap,
For in a flash my world was quite transformed
Full of roses, bulbuls and spring verdure
I had been reading a Greek play
My mind absorbed, my fancy feeding
On a king’s story, so true to life,
Where new strife treads on the heels of the old.
Though silver lay on the tree and around,
When you struck your harp, blossoms came
And my winged fancy soared to heaven –
Spring often does bewitch one’s eyes.
The sun shone bright in an azure sky;
A snow-white cloud sailed, not very far.
We stood, enraptured, gazing at the lake,
My love and I, in an island bower.
Suddenly some one knocked at the door,
Fled was the dream and I was awake.
A cold gust rushed in like a raider,
And back I was where I had been.
I have fastened doors and windows;
Icicles on all sides sparkle like glass;
A black cloud blanket wraps up the sky;
A chill wind pierces the marrow of my bones.
The last chinar leaf on the branch
Hangs withered and lifeless like a corpse.
Drunk with power, midwinter has his day,
Even the fire pot we cling to is cold.
You are a strange bird, o bulbul!
How can I forget that in dreary midwinter
You made me roam in flowering meadows?
~ Ghulam Nabi Firaq. Translated by Trilokinath Raina. From ‘mahjoor and after: Modern Kashmiri Poetry’.
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| Bilbitchur. Bulbul. Jammu. 2012. Sept 8. The yellow bottomed one. |
