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Dervish in this City of Merchants — Poems of Kamal Jeet Choudhary, translated by Kumar Krishn Sharma


Poet Kamal Jeet Choudhary

Ladakh


Here,

The moon is next to me

you are next to none


I embrace a tree

and the tree sheds all its leaves to kiss my feet

 

sparkling all the moonlight in my curls 

The moon whispers in my ear-

I am standing next to you



Dialogue 


Sahiba

Your Love is a story of resilience 

to get out of the bridle

your existence breaks its iron

 

Mirza

You never follow others' footprints

You are the only one who has learnt

it’s only the love and revolution

that makes a land fertile.


 

The boat was futile for us


There was a river

where we were standing-

adept in our skills 

You knew more about swimming than drowning

I knew drowning better than swimming...

the boat was  futile for us



I was told


I look crazy 

while sipping tea at a stall

a friend told me this

I look like a lover

while talking to my daughter

my wife told me this

I look revolutionary while teaching 

a student of mine told 

I look most beautiful while crying 

this was told to me by a kiss

 


The Last Brick


From my elite neighbourhood 

Looking at your house 

having fewer courses than mine

I take out one brick from my house every day

I want to hold your hand

But my dream remains a dream

The God of my privileged colony 

Steals one brick every day from your house 

and celebrates the distance between us

I wish God's pot of sin gets filled quickly 

So I can wage war with him

Please hurry, God

Love and War

are a last brick away from me.



Declaration from periphery


That which you couldn’t see

is the reflection of the sun.

That which you couldn’t think

is the idea of Ardhanarishvara.

That which you couldn’t hear

is the word of the Buddha:

'I have long since stopped,

when will you?'

What you are bent on erasing 

is a patriotic declaration from the periphery:

My nation is a beautiful window

from where the father- Sun

daily at the crack of each dawn

pins the flowers of hope 

into the curls of his daughter- Earth.



The Clay pot ... The Dervish... The Lover


Thirst will be quenched by you, splash after splash.

Fingers will tap to your resonance—

songs will echo through the night.


Civilizations will collapse at watering places,

and beheaded heads will hide within you...


You will be broken,

you will be destroyed.


Children will play with your fragments—

and through their innocence,

you will come alive once more.


You will be a shower of relief

in courtyards of grief.


You will not be admired for being strong,

but blamed for being fragile—


My dervish,

in this city of merchants,

you have a begging bowl in your hands

how could I not love you... 


 

Poems by Kamal Jeet Choudhary

Translated from the Hindi by Kumar Krishn Sharma


Kamal Jeet Chaudhary is a Hindi poet-writer-translator. Two books of his poems have been published under the titles 'Hindi Ka Namak' and 'Duniya ka Antim Ghoshna Patra'. His poems have been featured extensively on online portals and in print.


Kumar Krishna Sharma is a Hindi poet and translator. He is the author of the poetry collection Lahoo Mein Loha. With 12 years of experience in Hindi-English journalism, he is currently working with the Agriculture Department.

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