Sunday, June 5, 2011

Incomplete…

The usual Disclaimers about my translations of shers apply here also.

The following sher is part of the first ghazal in this post!

मैं उसका हो नहीं सकता बता न देना उसे
सुनेगा तो लकीरें हाथ की अपनी जला लेगा

Main uska ho nahin sakta bata na dena use
Sunega to lakirein haath ki apni jala lega

Don’t tell him of my inability to be with him
He may burn his palm-lines in its aftermath!

वसीम बरेलवी (Waseem Barelvi)

I translated the following sher because it feels grand as it has an instance of यमक अलंकार (Yamak Alankaar) in it. It is a figure of speech in (at least, Hindi) poetry where a phonetically same word [पर (par)] is used with different meanings [‘on’ & ‘wings’] in the same line or so. I have tried to retain this effect by using the idiom ‘to take wing’ for ‘flight’ in my translation below. Irrespective of my ‘grand’ knowledge of Alankaars, I don’t know the exact meaning of the (most likely, Urdu) word ‘ताइर (Taair)’ as of yet!

हौसला मुझ को भी थोड़ा उस ताइर जैसा दे दाता
उड़ने से पहले धरती पर जो अपने पर छोड़ गया

Hausala mujh ko bhi thoda us taair jaisa de daata
Udne se pahle dharti par jo apne par chhod gaya

Grant me a bit of that arrow’s courage, O Lord,
Who left its wings on Earth before it took wings!

– दिनेश ठाकुर (Dinesh Thakur)

As expected, the translation does not feel that grand. Anyway, there you have it, me crossing the h’s and dotting the ι’s: Here are…

More Ghazals of DT

No comments:

Post a Comment