Monday 27 September 2010

ghalib's ghazal 230


Ah! Say not all artless the petal’d poppy has Aurora’s tear drop distilled
Its own eye, Shame's laproscopy, has today in the heartless instilled

Pray, if the heart beats itself bloody for that once Beauty the eye filled
As wine in a hand held looking glass is not her nuptial henna fulfilled?

What fearful sight freezes the flambeau so, by its own Light, chilled?
Or to beat up its own beaten heart, must Life yet again body build?!

Taking infection from your reflection- so bitching, bewitching & self-willed
Rose-like, your honey'd mirror opens, Light's pollen thief guilty to gild

Burnt feathers mark the bier of, what for Love, the caged bird trilled
O Lament, like me unremarked, mark you my life-blood spilled!

You torture me the more, my tyrant, for so spiritless & unskilled
Truly killing's that cruel kindness qualmish to see me killed!

Love not free to leave off Love- how profess yet confess as billed?
Hands are bestowed on hands till, stone-crushed, hands are stilled.

The Sun is the Saqi of Saqis but my shadow not being of that guild
Dear my mere mirror wine, martyrdom's sword flash has swilled

The credit for crimes imaginary, their Infernal meed to which I've thrilled
God, grant Ghalib, the lonely, but only if Thy Loneliness thus has willed.

4 comments:

Sanjay K said...

Dear God, I can't believe my eyes! But you're in earnest aren't you? To rhyme poppy with laproscopy is not just pissing on Ghalib's grave, it is to lower your pajamas (or roll up your dhoti) and squat down to take an almighty dump!
You have outdone yourself.
What's your day job? You're not one of those Babus involved in the Commonwealth games are you by any chance. No. Those monkeys are still way brighter than you.
I really don't see how you can get any worse. But you'll keep trying won't you? Got to admire your spirit- well after gouging one's eyes out and vomiting up one's viscera and so on.
What can I say? Kamal kar diya! (I know you don't understand Urdu so I'll translate Kamal means the laproscopy of the hiatus of the Ibn Arabi's metaphysical pajamas. Thus kamal kar means 'the proctology of the sociology of the ontology of the laproscopy & c. Diya means a little clay lamp.
So the translation, as per you of 'kamal kar diya' is 'Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Grant God me such whiskey as in its duty-free I might buy.'

windwheel said...

You bastard! Fucking, fucking cunt!
I'm just too angry to deal with you just now. I will get back to you.
Cunt!
On the other hand this couplet is quite good-
'Where the mind is without fear and the head held high
Grant me, God, such whiskey as, in that duty-free, I might buy'
(see, I have chastened your prosody, like the truly great and Ghalibian Ustad that I am)

Don't tell me it is your own. You must have got if off some toilet wall graffiti you were forced to very closely observe while being repeated rammed by queuing P.W.D karamacharis specifically employed for the task by Sheila Dick-shit- coz she is your Aunty isn't she? And that's the real reason for the CWG fiasco.

Sanjay K said...

Dear Ustadji,
Thank you for having actually managed to make worse my impromptu piece of doggerel. It's not just Urdu that you don't know. You are equally ignorant of the rules of English scansion.

As for the line 'Where the mind is without fear & c- it is by Rabindranath Tagore. OMG, you're going to start translating Tagore aren't you? What have I just done?

windwheel said...

Bastard! It hurts coz it's true.