Translated from the Hindi by Bharatbhooshan Tiwari
The Fall
Safdar fell in January
In December, the Mosque
The neighbourhood fell in the interim
Why would sense and essence
Not fall then
Tears kept falling
In the company of cowardice and contrition
The sky hasn’t fallen: someone said
We kept falling
Year after year.
Seeing
for John Berger
One cannot see Shopiyan from my village Jakh
But Pakh could very well be
On the hill up front
Stretching the neck up, I can see the hillock of Akhori village
Better stretch it down, for I can never see
Pulwama from here
Jammu, Dras, Srinagar, none of them is visible
How can one see Mayali, Bhavali or Pithoragarh
Although one can see quite clearly
One hill from another
Looking downwards, one can see plains, river or sea
For instance, you can see Palestine’s Gaza quite clearly
From Tehri’s Gaja.
Passport
He recognised
That it was none other than me
An heir of hegemony
Highborn, genteel
I said: My caste is my passport
He stayed quiet
Through the book, just rummaging
For the pages of his citizenship
I began to laugh
My laughter was as real as caste
And it’s spread
As horrendous as civilisation.
Shivprasad Joshi (b. 1971) is a Hindi writer, poet, translator and journalist based in Dehradun. He has two poetry collections, one diary-travelogue and two books on media discourse to his credit. He has translated several world poets and writers into Hindi.
Bharatbhooshan Tiwari (b.1978) is an independent writer and translator working in three languages, English, Hindi, and Marathi, and actively working on adding a fourth language, Dutch, to the repertoire. He earns his living as an IT professional and lives in Amsterdam.