Originally written in Balochi by: Chandan Sach

Translated into English by: Uzair Mehr

 

 

 

1.    The Quest

 

Let’s come down to the earth from the sky again today

And once come to our hearts like angles 

What a desolation is reflecting in the streets

What a despondency spreading on the overhead of thoughts’ region

There’s no one to condole on his own death and inflame lights

Eras elapsed

I supported my own funeral

There’s a problem that the reason of my existence sets me free

Let’s come down to the earth from the sky again today

Do the memories of separation play in the figure of a bird?

Be an ember I will kiss your sanguine lips

The water too watches the eyes of thirst

The pain too feels the pains of inside

Ah world, your courses are inexplicable

You have interpreted everything as to your inclination

I set out that the death might recognize me one day

Not asking that why my eyes are soiled

Not thinking that why trees come in my dreams

Just came out of the obsessions of my bygone epoch

Now I am amazed that why the paths have become stranger

No matter how I think I can’t sleep now

I came down to my kindred earth from the sky

And suckled the fingers of a foregone epoch’s beauty

 

 

2.    The Waiting

 

I don’t know what kind of tale it is

That starts and doesn’t reach to an end

It’s said that,

The war has changed its colors now

If it’s so,

Then these birds will commit suicide

God forbids!

If it is the case,

Neither the fire will be aflame in this jungle

Nor the water will change color

 

 

 

3.    The End

 

From where will this war begin

From the thirsty picture of your foot or from the skirt of your embroidered dress

Or from the back of your oceanic eyes’ inebriating shade

In the battlefield of these heeds

Serenity rebukes me

Hey Chandan! ~

For whose quest are you carrying these bags on your back?

 What is in the books?

Why don’t you return to the dreamworld?

I take these questions in my heart and wander

Sometimes I cry carrying the sights in the palm that the world is an orphanage

Sometimes I light cigarettes in the eyes of an ashtray

Sometimes I play with the stale dreams of my bygone age

Sometimes I laugh with the walls to throttle the wrinkles of my forehead

And see inside the cupboard

The hungry mind opens up the door of salutations

Sometimes I ponder to take my obsessions into the streets of subjugation

And set the books on fire for the holly fella won’t be back now in this room

Sometimes I cover the pass of the door and utter why your eyes are in waiting of this path

Sometimes I hold the hand of the wind and say come little closer for a while for I want to kiss your fragile fingers

Likewise, I pass thousands of years in sleeplessness

And impatiently come to sit under the shade of Neem tree of your porch again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.    The Character

 

Oh life, you should have taken me to a shrine

In the evenings of Thursday

I would get together with ants

Eat some biscuits and sweets

Or imbibe blood

Or sing a laudation with birds coming from unforeseen places

We love the Godhood of the God

We cherish the separation of ourselves

We have nothing to do with the world

We have seen the end; it’s night

How long the night will accommodate the tales of peace in the lap of its spirit

Will the confined sobbing get a grave in their fate or not?

In the intention of a bypast desire’s pale lips

In which hope a person should knot the lines of his hands?

Our fate has been written above eternally

Oh life, you should have taken me to a shrine

For I would see what will the widows do there?

How will an unmarried girl pray if she’s alone?

How will the love sicks embrace the flags?

In which language the old crows will talk

In which rapture the black snakes pass coiled

Why the eyes of sevenfold scorpions are half opened?

Oh life,

How wonderful it would be if the sun and stars gather in a shrine

I was set free from my thirst merely in the quest of these secrets

Oh life,

It’s not good to chew these raw fleshes

Now take and accommodate me to a grave beside a shrine

I am fed up of seeing the sky

It’s a time of despondency

The infecund voices are downcast

 

 

 

 

5.    The Traveler

 

It’s your venomous desire

That circulates in the green veins of my body

The lust of my thirst freezes

Gropes my own bosom

The spirit of my eyes inundates

The gloomy dreams are uninterpretable

~ Bilqis is stayed put in the shade of ~ Solomon’s fort

She is desirous

She sees the thin lines of her hands

Bites her pale nails

It’s your venomous desire

A mum angel plays in front of my cause

Like an old house stricken by a storm

I am like that

I prostrate the juvenile desires of my solitude

I don’t know from where an errant smile comes in memory

A flock of cranes of your sight changes the turns of acquainted flights

As a cloud absorbs water from the sea and rises

And heedlessly moves over the mountains

It’s your venomous desire

That circulates in the green veins of my body

I fan the embers

And bring down myself into the spirit of a canvas

I confer my afflicted soul to the body of a tree

It’s a long tale of ages

Every character of a story doesn’t recognize himself and talks

 

 

6.    In The Times of Uncertainty

 

Oh heart, wrapping up the helpless dreams in which regions will you go

Life is bordered everywhere now

And fires deluged the earth

The eyes of the messenger birds of this world have turned old

The wings of hope are broken

What will remain by chasing an unacquainted cause?

Don’t you know that in which dreamworld the beauty has taken ~ Cleopatra

The love has shaped the war history of frantic ~ Caesar

Look a little bit

That centuries of eras have passed and ~ Eros has lifted the funeral of love and no one knows where he has gone

~ Erebus bites the insipid lips of the dark intention

And astonished like a child

What do you say?

Does ~ Hani beam with smiles?

And doesn’t ~ Shay Mureed drink intoxicant drinks?

We have played with embers for an age

And conciliated this heart

Whose tolerance has been broken by the doors of lovelessness

The journey of thirst didn’t end

We have evaded into mopishness from our own disposition

How will these times pass?

It’s better if a person doesn’t recognize himself

 

 

7.    The Dream

I am thinking that every dream which is lying in the pocket of my previous clothes,

I should send you all of them

Because the life of those dreams was concerned with you

But these dreams were not Socialists, Communists, and Marxists

I am thinking that I should not impair these dreams and send them to you

Because in summer the ridges of sea waves become sharp like a sword

The sword is a symbol of life, death, travel and moving forward

How it would be if I leave these dreams in the sea?

I am thinking

In constant thinking I feel that I am standing barefoot in a wide field and looking at the sky

I am thinking how it would be if I make these dreams amulets and make them wear to a tree of the path

This tree would travel

From country to country

Life to life

And should reach to the heaven

 And take these dreams along with itself

And I would be in the hell

And these dreams should come in my dream every night

And they should inform me about you there

That how Socialists, Communists, and Marxists travel with the seasons

And in which language will they talk when they become lonely

 

 

8.    The Season of Existence

 

This sky

This jungle and the vacant hut used to be the symbols of past but not anymore

See the both withered eyes of the wind

See how lonely the moon is

Do the remaining seasons of nocturnal age pass like this in the desolate field?

The life is so melancholic and it doesn’t worth watching

Like it has migrated in the era of aged prostitute forehead’s wrinkles

Let me go

The melody of dreams is downcast in front of the mirror of Pleasure

The mettle has fled from the feet

The heart is a broken black road

Who will pass on it and go for himself?

On the gravestone of an aged grave

Which kind of stories these staying posters narrate?

 This diary is unreadable

Let me go

The journey of Seven skies, seven lives, and the seventy-seven years of life be like that

No one should see himself and move away

 

 

 

9.    The Body Passes Through a Season

 

The entire asset of my world

The thirst of my love’s club is your silky hair

That needs to be muzzled like a drop

That needs to be enkindled like a fire

That wants to pass like a memory

My existence stands like a statue and watches the gleams of your beauty

In the luster of earth, The God too watches you, ponders and connotes

You are involved in the bygone season

You are associated with the old seasons

You are contained in all the appearances

I think of your rosy and delicate lips

I accommodate myself in the soul of my poem

Your figure is a boat which drifted from a far-flung sea and comes alone

I am a master sailor

My fingers are incessantly entangling and quiescently quivering with fetters

Sometimes you come like a pomegranate in my dream

It’s strange that I am fearful of the disease

Of this black palsy which is entangling my feet

The night swung the ecstatic melody of melancholy and fell asleep

You become a play which I am playing

of which age circles are these

the seasons have passed neighing

the raw henna of your hand cries over the lines of my life in the porch of my dreams

I see myself in the time of another period

That I am riding a green horse

And holding an elegant sword

You are standing in front of me

And you are having a red pomegranate

I want to dismount from the horse

And I want to reach myself

 

 

 

10.  The Sky Is a Boat

 

Tell to the clouds of waiting

This fall will pass with pale cries

The spring will arrive again

These sore memories will heal

When these eyes recall the memories of past,

Again, the season and life will travel along likewise

 

 

Some hard words used in these poems which might need a bit definition are:


1. ~ Chandan – Chandan Saach – Poet Name

2. ~ Bilqis – The Queen of Sheba (Hebrew: מלכת שבא‎; Arabic: ملكة سبأ‎, romanized: Malikat Saba; Ge'ez: ንግሥተ ሳባ) is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brings a caravan of valuable gifts for the Israelite King Solomon.


Bilqis the Queen of Sheba stands as a outstanding figure: a genuine queen who ruled the lands of sands in ancient times. Her story, describing the encounter with Prophet Solomon and her subsequent embrace of his faith (Islam), permeated through centuries.


For further reading, head over to the below mentioned links:

link 1: Bilqis

link 2:Bilqis


3. ~ Solomon–  Solomon is known for being the king of Israel who built the first Temple in Jerusalem. He was also the second (after his father, David) and last king of a unified Israel, which was at the height of its power during his reign. He is known for stories told in the Bible about his wisdom.


 For more reading click the link below:

Link: Solomon



A brief account about Bilqis and Solomon Story is given below:

Bilqis and Solomon 

4. ~ Cleopatra –  Cleopatra, who reigned as queen of Egypt during the 1st century B.C., is one of the most famous female rulers in history. Her life inspired a Shakespeare play and several movies.

Cleopatra VII was part of the Macedonian dynasty that took over rule of Egypt in the late 4th century B.C. During her reign, she forged political alliances and became romantically involved with Roman military leaders Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, until her death in 30 B.C. One of antiquity's most famous rulers, Cleopatra's life inspired William Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra and numerous film dramatizations, most famously a 1963 feature starring Elizabeth Taylor.


For more reading:

1. Cleopatra

2. Cleopatra

3. Cleopatra (In Details)



5. ~ Caesar – Julius Caesar was a Roman general and politician who named himself dictator of the Roman Empire, a rule that lasted less than one year before he was famously assassinated by political rivals in 44 B.C. More


6~ Eros – Eros, in Greek religion, god of love. ... Eros was a god not simply of passion but also of fertility. His brother was Anteros, the god of mutual love, who was sometimes described as his opponent. The chief associates of Eros were Pothos and Himeros (Longing and Desire). More



7~ Erebus – Erebus was the primordial god (protogenos) of darkness and the consort of Nyx (Night). His dark mists encircled the world and filled the deep hollows of the earth. ... The name Erebos was also used as a synonym for the netherworld realm of Haides.More



8. ~ Hani— A female character and beloved of Shay Mureed in romantic story of Balochi history. For more information click on this link: Hani


9. ~ Shay Mureed— A male character and lover of Hani in romantic story of Balochi history. For more information about this story click: Shay Mureed


 Reference:

 

 Azmaan Kaaristhe E Log Ent [The Sky Is the Abode of a Character]

(Balochi poetry book which was written by Chandan Sach and published by Ilm O Adab Publisher Urdu Bazar, Karachi on March 2019.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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