His Master’s Voice
(For Major Avtar Singh – the murderer of Jaleel Andrabi)
Master,
they play your voice
at night on the broken
gramophone when the light worms
have slept, tired of the drenched morning
that never ends.
Master
Your notes shake hands
Like the fleeting rain falling on
Blown out lamps. The days are sad, Master
yet at night smoke of sadder death fills my wide nostrils.
They burn all the idols
Of gods anointed by
you.
Master
I petition to dye
The soiled bowl of moon
With the warm tint of that fateful
spring.
Master, I petition
the shadows of banned stars
protest at night near my tongue tied window and break open
my last
heart.
Master
I have forfeited my dogmas
surrendered every charade of a plan.
I have sworn via costly affidavits before
their Lordships: I won’t atone my sins.
Yet, every night, Master, my throat refuses to howl.
I ache for
a sip of warm
blood.
Master
Curse my sad eyes.
Your murderer left the house
Weeping and wailing. I never consoled
him. He cupped your warm blood in his coarse hands
and deposited it softly in my
bowl. The taste lingers,
Master. How can I then
set you
free?
Hysteria
I clench cold blue pebbles
in my swollen palms.
Mother sprinkles warm breath
gathered from drenched Quran and her prayer rug.
Uncle says four witnesses testified-
moon rose in Iqbal’s medicated eyes on Eid.
He ploughed the soiled lane
with thirsty nails after the last bullet.
In the fresh mazaar, we bound his dead
feet with narcissus plucked from beside the grave.
The parchment of my heart
is empty, quite empty.
Letters to Azaadi
Either everyone talks of you to me
Or else no one converse with me
- Anonymous
They barricade us, dear
in halls of censored silence.
A half dead rumour
whispers you will visit soon.
Black roses shed mourning, buds
bulge in the blind garden
beside frantic beds in the fort-prison.
We were directed to forget
the taste of tulips left on battered
tongues and further directed to report
the rumours of your exile to stinking Dal.
We wrote back
An ember simmers in our ancestral mouths
when cold minutes prey on a mutilated memory.
We wrote that this fire also feeds on our caned bones.
We Remain wedded to our delusion:
One day, the final destination of mirages
will testify in courts of reality. Their apprehensions
too will be dismissed, we too will wheel in the hollow horse of victory.
We are still prisoners of the sorcerers.
They lure us with outlawed remedies and handcuffed
potions. They gouge out our warm heartbeats and auction them
at the loud borders over feasts of rented revelry. We are yet foolish dear
to smuggle letters to you in our beats. Do they reach you? Did you read them? You never reply.
Minutes of a Meeting
Neither a ritual of friendship, nor any mark of enmity
Both adopt a similar colour in your city.
- Khatir Gaznavi
Look, did nobody inform you?
The vultures meet tomorrow to discuss the magpie.
The feast is set and the guests are met, in Coleridge’s words.
Today, the radio news announced the magpie stands accused
of slander, misinformation and rebellion against the dead summer.
The summer was found dangling upside down from the almond bough
in the masked gardens yesterday. The Magpie is the prime suspect.
Yesterday, the radio declared it in four dead languages every hour.
I heard them.
Indeed, did nobody inform you?
They have all the proofs. The magpie was found
hopping in blood coated feet between the words
of a poem by Shahid. You know Shahid? No, not the boy shot dead
yesterday. No, not the one they picked up last year!
No, Shahid – our beloved witness and cashmere poet.
The magpie was caught near his villas of peace.
The spotlight caught him
eying the inscriptions on the graves
recently whitewashed. We need new symbols,
they announced on the radio. So, they have wiped hurried blood
off the clichéd inscriptions. You know the elegy
about the swallow returning the garden back to the gulcheen – the black rose thief.
The radio announced elegies are banned now.
I heard them.
Indeed, did nobody inform you?
That the trial is due soon. The magpie has spilled the beans.
It is due to be grand conspiracy. The bats have shut their bored eyes.
They have seen and heard enough. No prior sanction is required to display
its gassed innards on the clock tower. The radio threatened miscreants to not expect mercy.
I heard them.
Indeed, did nobody inform you?
Last winter, the magpies hung in the warm jails
were piled on the blasted road. They wrapped them in smoked shrouds
after calculating the price of a censored massacre. Their ghosts have promised
to immolate themselves at the feast in protest. The wary vultures have announced
that nobody shall be permitted to take any liberty, so they will step up security.
The radio speculated it remains to be seen who emerges the victor.
I heard them.
Testimony in February
Murdering a lover was never far from any beloved’s mind-
but before your regime, it wasn’t the general practise
-Dard
Faraz, what befell the garden’s residents this time?
Why don’t my friends of the cage answer me?
-Ahmed Faraz
We will evacuate our grief
Won’t you rent our empty hearts?
We will forsake our creed
Won’t you be the Prophet of heresy?
We will prevail upon Death
Won’t you outbid it at the auction?
We have disowned desire
Won’t you accept our turn of phrase?
We forgot your name
Won’t you silence our conversations?
We scheme we will be faithful
Won’t you seduce us in sore custody?
We have abandoned our homes
Won’t you house us in mirrors of history?
We gaze out from the prison window
Won’t you blow out green stars and the moon?
We too call caged friends, Faraz
Won’t they reply with tidings of a massacre?
Huzaifa Pandit was born and raised in Kashmir. He is pursuing a PhD on “Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Agha Shahid Ali and Mahmoud Darwish – Loss, Lyricism and Resistance” at University of Kashmir. His poems, translations, essays and papers have been published in various journals like Indian Literature, PaperCuts, CLRI, Punch and Muse India. He is fond of Urdu poetry, Urdu and old Bollywood music. He hopes to publish a book of his translations soon.
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