Struggling With Sara Shagufta

[I don’t expect more than a couple of people to read this through to the end and I won’t blame them for giving up. I am really using this space (it’s mine after all) to archive my ongoing struggle with Sara Shagufta so that I can find everything in one place when I pick it up next as I will. And, of course, there is always the off chance that someone will pop in with helpful suggestions.]

I find Sara Shagufta (1954-1984) a particularly challenging poet and so was delighted to come across a translation of one of her poems in a volume compiled by Asif Aslam Farrukhi and Frances Pritchett, two highly respected names in Urdu studies.

Here is the translation into English. (Because Substack ruins the line formatting, I would like readers to look at it on page 153 of the volume linked above.)

THE HOUSE OF EMPTY EYES

The house of empty eyes is expensive
let me become a line of dust
God has forgotten to create
a number of people
let the sound of footsteps linger
in my desolate eyes

The taste of fire
is a lamp
and the taste of sleep
is man
pull me as tight as stone
so people won't know
I have no tongue
With God's tongue in my mouth
sometimes I become a flower
sometimes a thorn

Give the chains freedom
for man is more of a prison
than they are

I have to die alone
so
these eyes
this heart
give them to some
empty person

I started with the English version because translations are intended for those who do not know the language of the original. The translation has to stand on its own as a poem in the target language and convey some impression that the reader can interpret in his or her personal framework.

Given that Asif Aslam Farrukhi and Frances Pritchett have a deep knowledge of both Urdu and English poetry, it is reasonable to expect that together they would have extracted the maximum from the original and rendered it sensitively into English.

However, despite the availability of such expertise, there are parts of the poem that left me with no coherent images. Of course, this could be a function of the inherent complexity of the poem or of my lack of poetic sensibility. Nevertheless, that was my impression as a lay reader.

Take, for example, the opening line — ‘The house of empty eyes is expensive’ — which left me with no image that I could turn around in my mind. Or take — ‘let the sound of footsteps linger / in my desolate eyes’ — in which I was unable to relate sound to a lingering in eyes. ‘The taste of fire / is a lamp / and the taste of sleep / is man’ — left me just as puzzled in trying to bridge the transition from the part to the whole.

And so on. There was no recourse but to refer to the original in order to try and see if that could unravel some of the puzzles.

Here is a transliteration of the original. (It can be read in Urdu and Hindi scripts on Rekhta.org.)

Khaali aaankhon ka makan

ḳhālī ā.ankhoñ kā makān mahñgā hai
mujhe miTTī kī lakīr ban jaane do

ḳhudā bahut se insān banānā bhuul gayā hai
merī sunsān ā.ankhoñ meñ aahaT rahne do

aag kā zā.iqa charāġh hai
aur niiñd kā zā.iqa insān

mujhe pattharoñ jitnā kas do
ki merī be-zabānī mash.hūr na ho

maiñ ḳhudā kī zabān muñh meñ rakhe
kabhī phuul ban jaatī huuñ aur kabhī kāñTā

zanjīroñ kī rihā.ī do
ki insān in se zyāda qaid hai

mujhe tanhā marnā hai
so ye āñkheñ ye dil

kisī ḳhālī insān ko de denā

Now, for example, when I read in the original – ‘zanjīroñ kī rihā.ī do / ki insān in se zyāda qaid hai’ – I am unable to reconcile it with its interpretation in English — ‘Give the chains freedom / for man is more of a prison / than they are’.

As I have said before, this is indeed a very difficult poem, at least for me. It is conveying an intense state of mind that does not necessarily have to translate into any coherent meaning. Yet, the images have to move the reader without which the poem would have no emotional impact. I have shared the original with a number of poets and literary critics but have drawn a blank. It seems that the poem is as much of a dilemma for others as it is for me.

So far, this is what I have been able to make of the original — seeing it as a cri de coeur about the lack of agency. (This is going to be an ongoing engagement and I would really appreciate any insights that lovers of poetry can contribute.)

Emptiness

Without eyes the world is empty
I would rather be a speck of dust

God left many humans unfinished
Let some light remain in my barren eyes

A lamp signifies fire
Sleep, the fullness of life

Turn me to stone
So none would know I'm speechless

Despite God’s word
I’m a flower now, now a thorn

There is no need for chains
Humans are self-willed prisoners

I'll die alone
Bequeath these eyes, this heart

To one without them