Ban'h gayee hai zindagi apni
Safar wi nahi mukk'na
Fling a shoe at me please. I want to be popular. More importantly, I need shoes. Shoes of all variety-running shoes, heeled shoes, chappals (for I develop corn on my little finger sometimes), pump shoes, thin shoes, fat shoes, platform heeled shoes, pencil heeled shoes. Fling a shoe on me when I am looking my best for I understand that the media would surely like to report the shoe-incident and I do not want to be caught on the wrong foot with the wrong makeup and with a wrong shoe being thrown at me. I wish that I make it to the front page-looking as stunning as I always do in my photographs. (Just between you and me-I look far far more stunning in my pics than I really am-so if my photographs have managed to enamour you-pull yourself out of your crushes. They are hardly worth the pain in you-know-where.) All the national dailies and regional, vernacular dailies, weeklies, monthlies, yearlies, decadalies, centuralies would want the picture of a good looking me-ducking the shoe, or maybe very charmingly holding the shoe close to my bosom so that you end up envying the shoe and cursing yourself aloud why you didn’t fling yourself instead of the shoe at me. Just for your information-if you had flung youself on me, you would have tasted the heavy Punjabi slap that I am capable of delivering. The Shoe would not suffer anything like that slap, so do not envy it. And otherwise also, I have a tendency of paying people back sooner or later-usually in my own coin. So a shoe thrown at me would not mean that I would tell the press beatifically that I have forgiven the thrower of the shoe. I understand that the forgiving in shoe throwing is the in-thing. However, I would not want any legal action to be initiated against you (for this is a request to you to fling a shoe at me). I would, instead, very forcefully throw the shoe back at you and there is every chance that it will hit you, in the face or below the belt-depending on my mood and the energy quotient at the moment.
So please, throw a shoe at me.
But why would you throw a shoe at me? After all, I am no minister belonging to a party which has successfully conducted pogroms of minority communities; after all you are no frustrated youth peeved at false claims; you are no drunk father upset at your son’s unemployment and you are no victim of a religious wipeout. Also, you are no independent candidate from my opposition party. I even will manage to conduct shoe proof political rallies, press conferences and public meetings
I deserve this treatment because I am guilty of not reading your blogs for about 3 weeks, not leaving my comments there and of not putting up a blogpost. People must get hit with shoes for these major offences.
Here end my hopes of being hit with a shoe flung from audience while I use the mic to glory.
Understandably, I accept that I would never be famous.
I, in an emotionally challenging moment, penned down some words in Punjabi which I have posted on my Punjabi blog- Kaaghaz de Kujh Purzei. In a casual chat with my friend Sumanto, I happened to tell him that I wanted to put it up here too, but that I had not done a good job with the translation of the poem. He, very kindly, has translated it for me-rather as he puts it- he has 'transcreated' it for me. Your input is worth appreciation, Sumanto. Thank you.
++++
kamrey ke maroothal kee
deewaro'n se takraa kar
jab
mere lafz
mehz aawazein ban reh jatey hain,
main maa ban kar
pingley baccho'n ki tarah
unko goad mein utha
darr-darr firti hoon,
duaayein maangti
shayad
kabhi shabdo'n ke kaalib* mein
fir se rooh dhadak hi jaye.
(*kaalib-skeleton)
++++
Words rebound
lose their sound
in the four walls
of the desert of my room.
Tired whispers
die a silent death-
in the desert night.
I do my mother act
Gather the fractured words, my progeny,
Onto my lap-
caressing,
petting,
knitting prayers on my lips.
I roam about
each corner of the desert room
Hoping for an oasis
if only the skeletons could get back
the touch of blood
and
live upto life again.