In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Ghazals from Ghalib
  • Mirza Ghalib
    Translated by M. Shahid Alam (bio)

I

Only a few come back to us in roses and tulips.Many more lie buried, dust on their sleeping eyelids.

By day, the daughters of the Pleiades play out of sight.At night, they lift their veils in ravishing display.

My eyes pour blood on this night of savage partings:two lamps I have lighted to sanctify love's sorrow.

I will make them pay for the years of torment, ifby chance, these darlings play houris in paradise.

He shall have sleep, perfumed air, silken nights,if you untie your jasmine-scented hair in his arms.

I have no use for your coy approaches to the divine.Past your schools and creeds, we worship God alone.

If Ghalib were to keep this up (he cries inconsolably),every man, woman, child will be forced to leave town.

II

Hope is the bleak dawn ofdespair: troubles nest with me.

For death a day is fixed: whywill not sleep come to me? [End Page 38]

I have laughed at my lows.Now, they are not so funny.

He gives a prize for piety.My heart turns away from it.

If you cannot see my scars,can't you smell? I burn too.

I am in this place whereno news of I gets to me.

I will die pleading for it.Death arrives but gingerly.

Ghalib, will you make it toKaaba? As if that bothers you.

III

I did make free with her, got away with it.It could get tricky had she lost her cool.

Are you man's nemesis, fire, fury, the plague?Be this, that and more: also be for me.

Lord, you scripted life's troubles for me.I wish you'd give an extra heart or two?

Ghalib, she would have come around to it,if only you had stayed around till mercy. [End Page 39]

M. Shahid Alam

M. Shahid Alam's translations of Ghalib have appeared in Chicago Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Kimera, and Salt River Review.

...

pdf

Share