Lal Singh Dil - A Punjabi Revolutionary Poet

                     Lal Singh Dil  photo by Amarjit Chandan 
                                  
Here are eight poems of Lal Singh Dil (1943-2007) , translated from Punjabi by me.

I am planning to translate  a selection of Lal Singh Dil's poetry  into English. As my basic text, I am using 'Naglok' (2007),  published by Chetna Prakashan Ludhiana, its publication made possible with the efforts of Prem Prakash. It was published sometime before Dil's death on 14 August 2007. 'Naglok' seems a collection of almost all of Dil's  poetry. It certainly contains all the three collections of poetry - Setluj Di Hawa (1971), Bahut Saare Suraj (1982) and Satthar (1997) - published by Lal Singh Dil. 


Comments on the poems and my translations are welcome. I have written a small note on Lal Singh Dil in my earlier  blog post (December 2010) on him which contains  one of the most remarkable poems  Dil wrote: The Women of Kudali Village. I have nothing more to add to that note at the moment.

From SETLUJ DI HAWA (1971)

            (The Breeze from the Setluj)

1. THE UNEMPLOYED 

You have learnt to hide the worn-out edges of your shirt sleeves

And the skill to walk in beggarly shoes

You have trained your tongue to say sweet things

Learnt to smile through eyes hiding corpses under the eyelids …

But your dress and skin are transparent like glass

And I can see your blood coursing through your body

Because we have met so often

In third class compartments

At the tea dhabas and kabaadi shops

I too have gathered together so often

My papers the babu at the employment exchange

Tossed out through the barred window.

          ---

2. NADEEN    

I have fallen in love

With this flower smelling of the earth

With the colour of this trowel

With its handle’s smoothness

That has come through a repeated clasp of the hand:

It is more beautiful than any work of art.

The hand that remained

The trowel’s friend through the rainy season

Looks like a warrior’s brow furrowed with lines.

And this warm and stale smell

Rising from the fading flowers!

I feel like bursting into song

For these fading colours.

Even though the sun has shone for them

The great rains have washed

The winds have kissed their faces

What if the trowel worked against the sun

Insulted the winds

Rebuked the soft heart of the rain!

I may be a wheat stalk

Or this flower that grows between the water channels

I would love the sharp sweep of the trowel.

And all the pain within these flowers,

Expressing which this heartless trowel too

Is crying with these weeping colours.

Don’t let its tears fall to the ground

The girl’s back will break with their weight.

---

3. MY COUNTRY

My country has yet another name

I have yet another kinship

Where ever there is even one hamlet

Half hungry

Half asleep

Wherever drudgery

Counts the stars

To comfort its aching limbs

Away from my country

Wherever it is

It is my own country, my brotherhood.

Whenever I pick up my sitar

To play a tune for this fraternity

Hordes flock towards me from across the seas.

But who’s there to welcome them?

Who are they that shed rivers of blood

Across these boundaries every year?

My country has yet another name

I have yet another kinship.

---

 4.  CIVILIZATION

What are you?

Why have you covered your face?

Why do you walk, so disguised?

Why are you hiding your claws?

But who are you?

Just watch that man

Who day and night

Pulls a heavy chariot

He is wearing Manu’s leaden rings in his ears

His body is striped with

The rulers’ whiplashes -

He will surely recognize you.

Sometimes, when during the nights,

He lets out sighs

As big as the skies

The stars drop their heads.

He says: ‘This earth is my first love.’

And casually adds: ‘It is I

Who have bejewelled the sky with these stars.’

He has travelled through Jesus lands

He has travelled through Gautam lands

Wearing Manu’s leaden rings in his ears.

---

5. THE WORD

The word has been spoken

Much before us

And even after us

You may cut off our tongues

If you can

But the word has been broadcast

---

6. THE  FOOTPRINTS

Can't you see!

Each tree is dancing

The dust on the pathways is breathing

The water from the wells is spilling out

The waves in the canal are agitated

The peasants have come out

And the pathways are stamped

With the fighters' footprints

The moon is no longer on the wane

   ---

From  BAHUT SARE SURAJ (1982)

           (So Many Suns)

7. PUNJAB  

It’s Punjab everywhere

Everywhere

Villages besieged by trees

Dresses camouflaged

Under the bundles of grass

The dirty towel

The unkempt beard

The shirt blackened with sweat and dust

Bare legs

Cracked heels

Whether in Bengal

Or in Kerala

Herdsmen driving their cattle,

Covered in the dust they kick up

Look like Punjabis

On the way

The peepal trees

The date palms

The clouds

It’s Machchiwada on all sides.

---

from    SATTHAR (1997)

            ( A Harvest of Sorrow) ?

8. TEA SHOP

The glasses are out from their cases

Early in the morning

Two and a half dozen glasses

They drive me mad the whole day

‘No sugar…chillis in tea leaves…the milk you use?

You do not know how to run a tea shop.’

Occasionally a lawyer reels out a calculation:

‘You can make one thousand cups of tea from ten kilos of milk.’

This awakens the memories of the pub

And the eyes fill up with inebriation.

‘Adjust this against the rent.’

‘For this I have already paid.’

‘For yesterday, you owed me that much.’

Even then some one pays up

The rich guy’s counterfeit coin

Looks sweet

To an untrusting man like me.

The glasses return to their cases,

Like the pigeons to their pigeon holes

A few of them have been pinched by some for their drink

The pub…the intoxication rises in my eyes again

What is this, friends,

If one can’t earn enough

For a drink?

---