by Serajud Dahar Khan
Translation: Nazam Laila
Full of self-affection, I am just a simple human life
Despite not being pure, I love myself the most.
All day and night, and night and day, I remain self-obsessed
Within myself.
I express this in clear phrases without any hesitation
I am the shadow of a very ordinary man.
It seems I love my relatives-closest ones and neighbors!
Do I really love them? Haven’t got the true answer yet-
Loving someone with sacrifice and endurance
Is the rarest song of human life;
Have realized that with self-grace.
No such sacrifice and endurance I find in myself;
Rather self-centered I am!
Love mainly my own life like a selfish one;
And mostly my own persona gained through my own blood.
Since my infancy, the shadows of whose
Have enclosed my life like an imperceptible illusion,
Their pleasant memories burn me indeed sometimes
But do not immolate me.
They suddenly get dazzled in my mind for a little while
And I remember someone’s face;
But again they get absconded within a moment
And I come back to my own world.
Although the memories of my passion to others
Touches my phantom chest at some points-
I love you the beloved co-passenger of life.
I love you every day
As a reward of your love and affection
In the tide of the river of struggle of our life.
‘Without you as if the life is motionless’-
It’s not a mere rhetorical declaration
In fact, in real, this is the simple rule of life.
The phantom faces of the past come floating around,
And return to their own path;
In the end, you are the only one who remains alive.
I am in your life full of illusion and affection
You are in my life as well.
Disease and bereavement of someone else’s touch me
Momentarily, very temporarily
Someone else’s pain and destitution touch me fleetingly
Warn me
And I see the reflection of them in my own life;
I see my own last breath and death within me
Seeing someone else’s last breath;
For the departed ones
I express and show the mark of compassion and sympathy
In my pleasant and timid appearance.
But most of my affection and compassion are reserved for myself
And I see my own life within someone else’s life.
One day, this me will be blended into the original “me”
Being indebted to life,
Repaying the debt or by generous ingratitude.
I expect that the life avenges my life instantly
In my life-time.
All of her grudge and resentment
Against me
I Hope that she takes her due in this life;
That agony still tunes deep inside the mystery of my heart!
All the laugh and cry-abhorrence- jealousy of my life
The loan of overflowing love and endearment in my life
One day everything will bounce back
At the end of my last breath in exchange-
This is the infallible law of life!
Standing on the threshold of death, devoid of self-content
One day I will bow –
On that day, I will also get
Two drops of immediate transitory tears and
the momentary seemingly-affection of people.
The way a few people know me,
I do not deserve that;
Wittiness-cheerfulness you see in me
Is merely an emblemed mask.
‘Not harmless or generous, not plain and simple,
A complex human being you are’-
I do accept this adjective given by my close friends.
By acting like a fool and humane, I perform magic
By playing trick on you-
Regarding me as a philanthropist, the way you see me
I am not that; rather the opposite of that-
I am almost the begrimed, ungrateful mind!
Among the revered ones,
I am like a dying lamp-
For the attraction towards whom I am still awake
At one corner through my own breath!
Full of hatred and love, I am just an ordinary human being!
Day and Night and night and day, I am engrossed within myself-
I disclose that fact and thought through a clear confession,
Free of fatigue and doubt.
One day I will get back the revenge and the reward in my life
From the known face left behind
One day everything will be like a worn pair of shoes
One day everything will be shattered
Like a crashing airplane falling from the sky-
One day you will be gone;
One day, so will I.
But seeing the inhuman being and the ravenous human faces,
Breaching of humanity and the social depravity
And the narrow thoughts and darkness in the people and society
I still get recoiled.
No doubt! I am an insignificant one-
The reflection of an ordinary human being!
The poet is the Chief Executive of INTERACTION
BDST: 1538 HRS, NOV 1, 2017
SI/SMS
