Tukre Tukre Din Biitaa
Fractured days, nights in shreds
That was all that was given to me
For each receives in accordance
To the size of their plea
When I try to understand myself
I hear a laugh taunting me
“Don’t even begin to try
You are sure to lose again”
What is loss, what defeat when
We must each live out the allotted hours
I found at last a partner after my heart
But alas, his heart was restless too
Note on the trans-creation: “For each receives in accordance/ To the size of their plea” is really a very poor translation of “jiska jitna aanchal tha usko utni hee suagaat milee”. Aanchal is the fold of the sari or skirt stretched out to receive alms or benediction. Some images are so culture specific that to try and capture them in another language is to render them false.
The actress Meena Kumari’s only outing into the world as a poetess while she lived is contained in an album titled “I write, I recite” released in 1965. The pieces are in her own voice against a musical score composed by the composer Khayyam. Her voice, with its flawless Urdu diction and its mesmerizing depths and sheer range, does great justice to the poetry in these renditions. Her poetry has been transcreated here in English by Manjul Bajaj.
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