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Poetry

All It Seems

By Befaam
Translated from Gujarati by Meena Desai
Meena Desai translates a Gujarati ghazal by Befaam about love and appearances.
A colored floral illustration on paper
Detail of “Leopard Bearing Lion's Order to Fellow Judges", Folio 51 recto from a Kalila wa Dimna. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Alice and Nasli Heeramaneck Collection, Gift of Alice Heeramaneck, 1981

For me, the history of love
            seems to be only this:
first, it is the truth,
            then an illusion, or so it seems.

Whatever path I take, hope
            appears all around me.
When you are with me,
            Especially, or so it seems.

Even in the garden,
            a desert seems to hold sway,
since the breeze feels cool
            and my breath hot, it seems.

Now in sorrow, no one
            gives even false comfort,
and now even mirage waters
            Cannot slake thirst, or so it seems.

Generously, I give a share of
            my happiness to the world:
I laugh when I myself am
            being ridiculed, or so it seems.

This world’s bitter draught
            I imbibe like wine,
Even grief now becomes
            a kind of delight, or so it seems.

My meetings with you no longer
            occur in this world,
now that you are truly dwelling
            in my heart, or so it seems.

When she was near, far
            away she seemed.
Now far from me,
            she is still near, it seems.

Why else would she
            want to do me wrong?
This very age is her slave.
            To me, so it seems.

No one will be able to remove
            me from here, Befaam.
It is called a grave and
            my true abode, or so it seems.


Translator’s note: The literary genre of ghazals can be described as spoken word performance in twenty-first century parlance. The ghazal form most effectively reveals itself in recitation: couplets or series of couplets spoken out loud, often with phrases repeated with varying emphasis. When sung, popular ghazals invite similar reiterated recitation for maximum effect. This trait, while highly useful in oral art, finds itself somewhat distanced from the audience by the very nature of the written text, which cannot always reproduce the rhythm and the melody of the human voice. The ghazal form, made up of loosely linked stanzas called
sher (a couplet made up of four quatrains), allows for looping back on an idea, a topic, an expression to examine all the meanings available in this varied life.

Ghazal creation in the Gujarat region began in the mid-nineteenth century, expanded in the early twentieth, and came into its own from the 1930s to the 1950s, a period coinciding with the broader Indian independence movement as well as with a conscious move to create works beyond their root dependence on the Arabic, Persian, and Urdu linguistic influences. The burgeoning movement toward an independent identity of a much-colonized country also led toward more prolific creation in the “modern vernacular languages” like Gujarati. This stage is often called “Shayda Yug,” i.e., the age of Shayda (meaning “mad with love), the pen name of a ghazalkar whose words influenced Gandhi’s own perception of the richness of his mother tongue. The third stage saw great experimentation from stalwarts like Adil Mansuri (1936-2008), leading to the fourth stage of worldwide Gujarati ghazal creation by the Gujarati-speaking diaspora in the twenty-first century.

This very minuscule sample of this rich heritage comes from Barkat Ali Ghulam Husain Virani (1923-1994). As noted in his biography, he not only received encouragement from Shayda, but also married his daughter Ruqaiyya.

The themes, motifs, emotions, and creative imaginings expressed in Gujarati ghazals touch the universal with a special joy in the riches of its chosen linguistic medium. Befaam’s poems portray the human condition and the theme of love with a wryness born of looking at the paradoxical nature of reality or human experience.

Following an oft-used tradition of including the creator’s name in the last stanza, Virani’s chosen nom-de-plume is Befaam, encompassing a range of meanings from “uncontrolled” to “reckless” and “heedless.” As is the case with other poets, he weaves those meanings into riffs within his poetic expression.

The complete ghazal has fifteen stanzas, though nine are translated in this example. Befaam plays with the notion of seeming, or appearance, an age-old theme across cultures and throughout many registers. Here, the translation into English sometimes represents the repetitions literally, and sometimes varies the words to accommodate the rhythm of the target language.

—Meena Desai


©
 Befaam. Translation © February 2023 by Meena Desai. All rights reserved.

English Gujarati (Original)

For me, the history of love
            seems to be only this:
first, it is the truth,
            then an illusion, or so it seems.

Whatever path I take, hope
            appears all around me.
When you are with me,
            Especially, or so it seems.

Even in the garden,
            a desert seems to hold sway,
since the breeze feels cool
            and my breath hot, it seems.

Now in sorrow, no one
            gives even false comfort,
and now even mirage waters
            Cannot slake thirst, or so it seems.

Generously, I give a share of
            my happiness to the world:
I laugh when I myself am
            being ridiculed, or so it seems.

This world’s bitter draught
            I imbibe like wine,
Even grief now becomes
            a kind of delight, or so it seems.

My meetings with you no longer
            occur in this world,
now that you are truly dwelling
            in my heart, or so it seems.

When she was near, far
            away she seemed.
Now far from me,
            she is still near, it seems.

Why else would she
            want to do me wrong?
This very age is her slave.
            To me, so it seems.

No one will be able to remove
            me from here, Befaam.
It is called a grave and
            my true abode, or so it seems.


Translator’s note: The literary genre of ghazals can be described as spoken word performance in twenty-first century parlance. The ghazal form most effectively reveals itself in recitation: couplets or series of couplets spoken out loud, often with phrases repeated with varying emphasis. When sung, popular ghazals invite similar reiterated recitation for maximum effect. This trait, while highly useful in oral art, finds itself somewhat distanced from the audience by the very nature of the written text, which cannot always reproduce the rhythm and the melody of the human voice. The ghazal form, made up of loosely linked stanzas called
sher (a couplet made up of four quatrains), allows for looping back on an idea, a topic, an expression to examine all the meanings available in this varied life.

Ghazal creation in the Gujarat region began in the mid-nineteenth century, expanded in the early twentieth, and came into its own from the 1930s to the 1950s, a period coinciding with the broader Indian independence movement as well as with a conscious move to create works beyond their root dependence on the Arabic, Persian, and Urdu linguistic influences. The burgeoning movement toward an independent identity of a much-colonized country also led toward more prolific creation in the “modern vernacular languages” like Gujarati. This stage is often called “Shayda Yug,” i.e., the age of Shayda (meaning “mad with love), the pen name of a ghazalkar whose words influenced Gandhi’s own perception of the richness of his mother tongue. The third stage saw great experimentation from stalwarts like Adil Mansuri (1936-2008), leading to the fourth stage of worldwide Gujarati ghazal creation by the Gujarati-speaking diaspora in the twenty-first century.

This very minuscule sample of this rich heritage comes from Barkat Ali Ghulam Husain Virani (1923-1994). As noted in his biography, he not only received encouragement from Shayda, but also married his daughter Ruqaiyya.

The themes, motifs, emotions, and creative imaginings expressed in Gujarati ghazals touch the universal with a special joy in the riches of its chosen linguistic medium. Befaam’s poems portray the human condition and the theme of love with a wryness born of looking at the paradoxical nature of reality or human experience.

Following an oft-used tradition of including the creator’s name in the last stanza, Virani’s chosen nom-de-plume is Befaam, encompassing a range of meanings from “uncontrolled” to “reckless” and “heedless.” As is the case with other poets, he weaves those meanings into riffs within his poetic expression.

The complete ghazal has fifteen stanzas, though nine are translated in this example. Befaam plays with the notion of seeming, or appearance, an age-old theme across cultures and throughout many registers. Here, the translation into English sometimes represents the repetitions literally, and sometimes varies the words to accommodate the rhythm of the target language.

—Meena Desai


©
 Befaam. Translation © February 2023 by Meena Desai. All rights reserved.

ઈતિહાસ લાગે છે

મને તો પ્રેમનો બસ આટલો ઈતિહાસ લાગે છે,
પ્રથમ એ સત્ય લાગે છે, પછી આભાસ લાગે છે.

ગમે તે માર્ગ લઉં, મંજિલ મને ચોપાસ લાગે છે,
તમે હો સાથમાં ત્યારે તો એવું ખાસ લાગે છે.

ચમનમાં પણ મને તો કોઇ રણનો પાસ લાગે છે.
કે લાગે છે હવા ઠંડી ને ઊના શ્વાસ લાગે છે.

હવે દુ:ખમાં કોઇ ખોટા શ્વાસ પણ નથી દેતું,
કે મૃગજળ પણ નથી મળતાં હવે જ્યાં પ્યાસ લાગે છે.

જગતને ખેલદિલીથી ખુશીમાં સાથ આપું છું,
હસુ છું હું જ્યાં મારો મને ઉપહાસ લાગે છે.

હવે તારી મુલાકાતો નથી થતી આ દુનિયામાં,
હવે સાચે જ મારા દિલમાં તારો વાસ લાગે છે.

હતાં એ પાસ તો લાગ્યાં હતાં એ દૂર મારાથી,
હવે છે દૂર મારાથી તો એ મારી પાસ લાગે છે.

નહીં તો એને મારા પર જુલમ કરવાનું કારણ શું?
મને તો આ જમાનો પણ તમારો દાસ લાગે છે.

અહીંથી કોઈ પણ કાઢી નહીં સકશે મને બેફામ,
કબર કહેવાય છે જે ખરો આવાસ લાગે છે.

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