The Sonnet of Darkness

For me the greatest fear’s to be blind
Devoid of sight, know left nor right
To never know colour, no stars no light
Life a constant nightmare: unending night.

To hear a chirping, know not whence it comes
To be burnt by fire know not what burns
Possess imagination greatly profound
Yet, unable to conceive any ground

Hats off to those for whom day and night
Always same: no night too dark, no day too bright
Yet in this world magnificently survive
Showing the world the way to fight

However to God they must be dear
So came epiphanies to the blind seer

Written in 2005, with a view towards technicalities of the sonnet form, the iambic pentameter...

Illustration by Ritwik Mukherjee

Akbar Allahabadi in translation

The following is my first ever attempt in translation from Urdu to English. I have attempted to keep rhyme and meter intact in the spirit of Urdu Shayari.

Akbar Allahabadi:

Batayen aap ko marne ke baad kya hoga
Pulao khayenge ehbaab, fateha hoga

My translation:

Allow me to tell you what will be after death
There'll also be prayers at the funeral banquet

Ibtedai- Trying To Tell A Story

Ibtedai
Or Initial or Introductory,

the names of my first blog and its first post, represent what is nearly my first real foray in to the open world with my acts of creation. Like Milton, I hope that it will "fit audience find, though few."

I begin with a self reflexive poem on the creative endeavour for me,

Trying To Tell A Story

I
Want to tell
The story of the Word
For which
Words enough
I haven’t
Found
Yet.

I grope in the dark
I read in the light
I search my soul
To be able to indite

Imagination
I don’t think
I lack,
It’s the words
That escape me
From
Me
Forever
In flight
I catch them
Now and then
As I run constantly
Pin them down
And
Scribble them
Or
Trap them
In my
Hard disk

But these are only
The feeble runners
The weak ones of the herd
Who fall prey to my
Inept snares

The fiery gazelle
Know no leaps
No bounds
Too high
On and on
they flee
from me

I do have tomes,
Trophies that
Hang
On shelves on walls,
The Advanced Learner’s
Has the whole lot
Neatly bound
By feeble threads
Alphabetically arranged
Barely three inches thick

Yet
these are not mine
to boast of!
A chaos of darkness
That I have not moulded
Into worlds of my mind
Into days and nights
Poems and novels
And stories
That I want to tell

My prized catch
Still remains
Far far away.



Written
1:30 AM Oct 12, 2007
Delhi