Translator’s Note
These are translations of four modern Urdu poets from Pakistan. Modern Urdu poetry on one hand remains loyal to its Arab-Persian base on the other hand is verily open to experimentalism arriving through writers’ exposure to western modern poetry. Munir Niazi (1928-2006) is a modern Urdu poet who has written both Ghazal and nazm (a loosely defined form of free verse). His poetry approaches existential conundrums. In “I always get late’, a simple but proud reflection on temporal conditions, the poet attempts to grapple with the ever complex question of time- something T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock also encounters. On the contrary, Majeed Amjad’s (1914-1974) poem ‘Earring’ is steeped in Romantic tradition of classical Urdu poetry and despite it being a free verse the poet captures the mellifluous, the rhythmic, the hypnotic – all elements at the core of the genre of Ghazal. The Persian word Ghazal literally means talking to women. The pain of unrequited love personified by a quotidian image of the beloved’s trinket the poet expresses his erotic desires with a control. The lover and the beloved are too conscious of scandal; an aesthetic streak in Urdu poetry. Noon. Meem Rashid (1910-75) is modern experimental poet. He can be called the Ezra Pound of Urdu verse, yet a voice deeply rooted in his milieu. Having lived in America and Europe his work is hybrid and contains an osmosis of Eastern and Western sensibility. The poem ‘Blind Junk Dealer’ is an appropriate version of indigenous flâneur; the vendor of dreams/artist is eking out survival walking through an urban crowd. It also echoes Dylan Thomas’ ‘In My Art or Sullen Craft’. Lastly, in these translations I have followed the ‘process model’ carefully straddling between the literal and the interpretative.