‘Darkness has spread, prudence is lost’: Read Urdu poet Zehra Nigah’s poems in translation

I was Saved, Mother, I was Saved

I was saved, Mother, I was saved,
The henna of your unripe blood has seeped
into every pore of my being.

Had my features formed, they too would have
filled with blood.
Had my eyes learnt to see, they would have been
rimmed with the kohl of acid.
I would have been bartered in satta-vatta or used up in kari.
Every dream I dreamt would have remained unfulfilled.
Had I gained a little height, my father would have
lost a few inches,
Had my veil slipped from my head, my brother’s turban
would have fallen.
Mother, before I could hear your lullaby, I’ve slipped
into a sleep of my own.
I came from a strange land;
I have gone away to a strange land.

I was saved, Mother, I was saved,
The henna of your unripe blood has seeped
into every pore of my being.

STOP

It is as though someone has said, “STOP”,
and halted the river of Time;
It is only now that I have fully understood
the magical properties of this word.
Each moment, flowing in its own orderly row, has stopped.
All my friends and all my enemies gaze at me,
as though turned to stone.
How strange it seems.
Even though, since the day this benighted city was built
I’ve been scared of precisely such a thing.

Ant

Someone would fling a morsel before me:
That is how I crawled through life for
countless mornings and evenings.
I would carry those morsels on my frail body
And, creeping and crawling, return to my hole.
Till one day the sun made me realise:
If you want, you can bring strength to these legs.
And the winds too stopped to whisper:
Come out of your hole, look at the world!
I was afraid of standing on my own.
I tottered and fell, got up and swayed unsteadily,
Till, suddenly, someone came to steady me.
My chest used to hug the ground;
Now my head rests against someone’s shoulder.

Let Us See How Long…

Let us see how long the goblets and glasses circulate
Let us see how long [the wine] will be forbidden to us

Let us see how long your tyranny will remain our lot
Let us see if your name survives the bitterness of this age

Darkness has spread, prudence is lost
Let us see how long the promise of a meeting remains

Men of wisdom are slow, the zealous are swift
Let us see how long the arrangements of passion will last

Let us see how long it takes for dawn to break
Let us see how long the afterglow lasts

That Book

Written by my life, Placed in the niche of my heart,
That book is still waiting,
The book I’ve never read.

All those chapters, all those pages
Are still stuck together, still unopened. My reading eye
Has not yet given them the separation
That is the spirit of any book.

I fear in that book
All the troubles of my nights and days
All the regrets and reproaches
Might be marked in the margins somewhere.
I, who am deceived by my sense of superiority
I, who am a captive in my circle of cowardice –
How will I ever read that book?

Excerpted with permission from The Story of Eve: Selected Poems, Zehra Nigah, translated from the Urdu by Rakhshanda Jalil, Speaking Tiger Books.