Ghalib in Translation

Huzoo-e-shah mein

When, in the king’s durbar, poets compete
In the garden’s durbar, sweet songs compete

To heavenly women poets compare their loves
But it is for gallows and rope that we fight

Look! She’s here! Don’t say: “I haven’t seen”--
A test for the assembly’s patience and restraint?

Let the sweet heart-piercing shaft go deeper still
Is the she-archer’s skill now being put to test?

The sacred thread and the rosary are both worthless
For brahmin and sheikh, it is a severe test

Experiment with her lock of hair’s great strength
Hold on! Why restlessness? O my slave-heart!

She will come, Ghalib, It’s a promise. Don’t fret!
Beneath the old sky, the torturer’s new experiment!

(Translation by H S Shivaprakash)

Comments

Rajbir Parashar said…
Sreelala, GHALIB is marvellous in many ways. It is good that you have put it here. HS Shivaprakash has done this translation well. Reading Ghalib, I always think that intensely creative works, especially poetry originates from a subjective crisis that refuses to be reduced by the personal in its final form.
10:40 PM, July 29, 2008
Sreekala Sivasankaran said…
Raj, this one is an unpublished translation of Ghalib by Shivaprakash. His new poetry collection contains a few translations of Ghalib in Kannada and his own ghazals (though Shiva does not call them ghazals). The beautiful cover design of this book titled "Mabbina Hage Kaniveyaasi"(Like the Mist through the Valley), Abhinava:Bangalore,2008 is done by Sam.
7:37 PM, September 25, 2008
Amitranjan said…
this is the first time i read ghalib in english and enjoyed the translation. i have read ghalib only through translation and that too in bengali!
9:05 AM, November 07, 2008
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