This Evening - Gulzar
Photo by M, a conversation with whom triggered this translation
This evening, it appears that that is a wetness to these eyes here. This evening, it appears that there is an absence of you here.
Simply burn me so that I too may breathe along with smoke For it appears that my life has held its breath for too long here.
Fickle time, why it doesn't stay at one place? In this inconstancy of habit, it is like us here.
Agreed that between us now, there is no relationship left. Yet it appears that you have stayed in the mirrors here.
This evening, there seems to be a wetness to these eyes here. This evening, there seems to be an absence of you here.
No one can put the heart of the matter into words more simply and elegantly than Gulzar. Listen to this ghazal here.
Translations
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Madurai Dreaming
Flickr is a wonderful resource to take armchair trips to places one that hasn't been to, as well to revisit places that one had already been to before, and thus shares a degree of intimacy with. Oochappan's Flickr stream is one such hatch to open, to fall into the world that has always been, and perhaps will always be; the world of sun and brilliant colors, weather beaten men and women, children with large lambent eyes, various kisoks for gods (not only of Hinduism), old temples filled with incense, flowers, people at prayer, lumbering Apus etc.
No wonder, Mr. Oochappan, who is Belgian, feels compelled to revisit Tamil Nadu for the first three months of every year, and this since 1987. It appears that he has found his Shangri-La, and now takes beautiful photographs over there to remind viewers like me of all that was visible but remained unfelt and unseen then.
My Daily Notes
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Permanent Center of Gravity
Heart in summer
Walks into in fields
Of wild poppies,
And becomes a bottle
That holds the old ink
Pressed from
Gauzy skirts of their petals
Waving in the wind;
One continuous flag
For Hypnos,
The god of sleep
In whose arms
Loveless fitfully sleep.
It is only when The bottle breaks open And every Beatrice dips Her hand right into The heart of the heart To reveal the silence That abides within, Does the heart find Its permanent center Of gravity To fall into, fall towards.
Written in response to this photo by Elle
Image-ned Word
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