Venus
Envy
Vol
V : issue 1
Cover
page
Kaushik Basu
Radhika Coomaraswamy
Taslima Nasreen
N. S. Madhavan
Zehra Nigah
Only in Print
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Zehra
Nigah
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Mixed
media by SABA HASAN
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Last
evening, while flying out
The enemy rained on me
A few yellow bags
In which I found
Round pieces of bread
A blob of butter
Bottled sweet water
A tin of preserves
In
return they took
My brother’s toiling arm
On which was tied a black thread
To ward off evil
My little sister’s small foot
On which the henna was still radiant
People say this war is for peace
In such peaceful war, the assailants
Leave the children only without hands
and
feet
They never leave them with empty
stomachs
Humanity is not dead after all, is it?
I, standing alone among burning
mountains
Holding the gun, my inheritance
Looking at the Pageant of the Benign
Looking at the Pageant of the Benign
My name is Gul Badshah
Age thirteen
Translated
from the Urdu by Syeda Hameed
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My
name is Gul Badshah
My age, thirteen years
My story, like my age
Is disjointed, short
My
nameless, faceless mother
Without medicines, quietly died
Buried in her burqa by father
He
was afraid that Munkir, Nakeer[1]
Would glimpse her face In any case
Even when alive she was in her grave
Father’s
name, Zartaj Gul
Age thirty-two
A Mujahid desiring martyrdom
Became a voyager on the Path of Truth
And the martyr’s cup
From my uncle’s hand he drank
Uncle was a Northern Mujahid
And
prayed five times a day
This
matter of martyrdom…
Too intricate, too complex
Better to leave it here and now.
In
any case, now
Father is in Paradise
In his hand the cup of chastity
In his arms the heavenly denizens[2]
But in my fate
Bombs, blasts, smoke
This crumbling earth
That melting sky
After death, he is alive
And I
Though living am not alive
Notes:
1.
Two angels who go to the grave with the dead
2.
Houris and Ghilmans who entertain good souls in Paradise
p.
1
p.
2
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