मुझ से पहली सी मोहब्बत मेरे मेहबूब न मांग [Translation]

Attempting a translation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's iconic "मुझ से पहली सी मोहब्बत मेरे मेहबूब न मांग". You can read his original (transliterated in English) here.

Don't ask me to love as I used to, my love
I thought it was you who illuminated life
No sorrows of the world were greater than your sorrows
Your face gave the world its spring
Nothing worthy in this world, but for your eyes
If you were mine, fate would wither away
I wished it be so but it isn't that way
There are miseries, in these times, other than love
There are other pleasures to have beyond making love

Innumerable dreadful spells of centuries,
wrapped in satin and silk
Bodies put up for sale, everywhere, streets and markets,
battered in dust, bathed in blood

Bodies baked in diseased furnaces,
puss oozing from melting wounds
My gaze returns to those sights, what do I do,
but am still allured by your beauty, what do I do
There are miseries, in these times, other than love
There are other pleasures to have beyond making love
Don't ask me to love as I used to, my love 

Light of Your Memories

Attempting to translate, from Hindi to English, Dr. Bashir Badr's beautiful ghazal "उजाले अपनी यादों के (light of your memories)" which appeared in his book by the same name. You can read it here.


Let a golden goblet of the morning my heart be
Let the evening lit up by the lamps that my eyes be

May sometime the moon descend from the sky and be a cup of wine
and a beautiful evening to your name be

Strange were the times, and so closed the trades of heart
The mansion of love, however it sold may be

In the journey of the seas, you summon me in a way
that rushes the winds and wanes the day that be

I know the dwelling place where
the bird that fails to touch the sky would be

Let the light of your memories be with me
At the evening of life who knows which lane I'd be

Tide of Time

The sweeping tide of time
carries in its belly
so many joys, so many sorrows.

I want to hold on to things
against this tide, beyond my power.
So many moments, so many memories

Of the so many firsts -
bicycle, love, job - sweeps all.
So many fortunes, so many failures

And those who are me now
my family, and friends, and hopes;
so many faces, so many dreams

Asleep - Awake

[Copied over from my old blog storyteller.blogspirit.com]

I see myself sleep, careless, blank.

I see that dream leaving me.

It took me to places I won't remember.

I see my hand stretching out, trying to hold the dream back,

then it falls down to pull the sheet over.

I see the morning sun measuring my window.

Light slits my eyes, entering me to enlighten me.

I see myself wake up. And, then I go to sleep.