To today
and
to today’s anguish
Anguish, which is gloomy even in life’s full bloom
A forest yellowed in fall
A forest yellowed in fall, my land
A congregation of pain, my land
To the dejected lives of Clerks
To moth-eaten hearts and voices
In the name of the Postmen
In the name of the Tonga-pullers
In the name of Railway employees
To the innocent workers in factories
In the name of the Emperor, master, the mouthpiece of God and peasants
To one whose cattle the uncouth took away
Whose daughter the dacoits mauled away
Whose one hand was devoured by the weeds in the fields
and the other amputated by State taxes
Whose legs have been smashed
beneath the mighty and the powerful
In the name of those sad mothers
whose children cry out in the nights
unmanageable to sleepy, weary shoulders
unable to explain distress
indifferent to promises and weeps
In the name of the lasses
whose beautiful eyes
blossomed behind curtains and indoor plants
and have withered away in time
In the name of those married
whose bodies groan and protest
adorned on insincere loveless beds
To the widows
In the name of hamlets, alleys and localities
in their unholy trash
moonlight bathes itself, night after night
and in their shadows mourn
Henna-dried palms
bangles jingling on wrists
fragrance of tresses
To ambitious able bodies frying in own sweat
To the readers
To those, who went to the leaders,
with folded hands, to rescue pen and paper from clutches
but who never returned
To those humble and guiltless, who naively went
with the desire to keep alive their tiny lamps,
and were rewarded with the largesse of pitch darkness
In the name of the incarcerated
The pearls of future in their hearts
in the gloomy anxious nights of the prison
which now glow like the stars
For the ambassadors of tomorrow
who like fragrance to the flowers
are enamored by their own words
**Left incomplete by Faiz**
Nazm in Urdu by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Trancreation by Vijay © 29th May, 2006
