☀ What Sparks Poetry: Ranjit Hoskote on Mir Taqi Mir's "The Homeland's an Ocean"

1.

shāʿir ho mat chupke raho ab chup meñ jāneñ jātī haiñ
bāt karo abyāt paṛho kuchh baiteñ ham ko batāte raho

You’re a poet, don’t be silent, lives are lost under cover of silence.
Speak up, read a couple of lines, read us verses, keep talking to us.

(Divān-e Panjum: V.1706.5)

2.

ho ḳharābī aur ābādī kī ʿāqil ko tamīz
ham divāne haiñ hameñ vīrān kyā maʿmūr kyā

Let intellectuals tell ruins and peopled places apart.
I’m crazy—to me, what’s desolate, what’s teeming?

(Divān-e Duvvum: II.694.3)

3.

dhūp meñ jaltī haiñ ġhurbat-vat̤anoñ kī lāsheñ
tere kūche meñ magar sāyah-e dīvār nah thā

The sun burns up the corpses of those driven from their homeland.
Your lane did not offer them even the shadow of a wall.

(Divān-e Avval: I.109.3)

4.

kar ḳhauf kalak-ḳhasp kī jo surḳh haiñ āñkheñ
jalte haiñ tar-o-ḳhhushk bhī miskīñ ke ġhaẓab meñ

Fear those who huddle around fires, their eyes red.
Both wet and dry will burn in the rage of the oppressed.

(Divān-e Panjum: V.1688.4)

5.

ham bhī is shahr meñ un logoñ se haiñ ḳhānah-ḳharāb
mīr ghar-bār jinhoñ ke rāh-e sailāb meñ haiñ

I, too, am one of those people in this city whose homes
have been trashed, Mir, whose everything lies in the flood’s path.

(Divān-e Suvvum III.1174.7)

6.

ek jagah par jaise bhañvar haiñ lekin chakkar rahtā hai
yaʿnī vat̤an daryā hai us meñ chār t̤araf haiñ safar meñ ab

Like the whirlpool, still centre of a giddy circling,
the homeland’s an ocean that scatters us in all directions.

(Divān-e Panjum: V.1579.4)

7.

mīr ko vāqiʿah kyā jāniye kyā thā dar-pesh
kih t̤araf dasht ke jūñ sail chalā jātā thā

Who knows what portent would manifest itself to Mir
that he used to surge towards the desert like a flood?

(Divān-e Chahārum: IV.1327.5)

8.

haiñ musht-e ḳhāk lekin jo kuchh haiñ mīr ham haiñ
maqdūr se ziyādah maqdūr hai hamārā

We’re a handful of dust, but whatever we are, Mir, we are.
Greater than the power fate granted us is our power.

(Divān-e Avval: I.69.7)

9.

‘ajab hote haiñ shāʿir bhī maiñ is firqe kā ʿāshiq hūñ
kih be-dhaṛke bharī majlis meñ yih asrār kahte haiñ

Poets, they’re amazing—I just love that lot.
Unfazed, they’ll broadcast secrets to an assembly.

(Divān-e Avval: I.344.8)