Baidar Bakht:: Translator of Urdu Poetry par excellence

 













BAIDAR BAKHT is Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering at the Universities of Toronto and Manitoba, Canada. He translates modern Urdu poetry into English in collaboration with Canadian poets and scholars of English. He lives in Toronto, Canada.


His translations of Jayant's poetry have appeared in Indian Literature 252:July-August 2009 p73-88.


He has also translated Gopi Chand Narang's article on Jayant  which has appeared in the same issue p 60-72.

Wheat Field with Crows

Over the yellow

Wheat fields

Hover black crows

Like death.

After some time,

The crows in the sky

Hold Van Gogh

In their wings

And take him

Towards the grave of the yellow sky.

Tr. Baidar Bakht

Marina Tsvetayeva 2

Your poems like the phoenix,

Rise from their ashes,

And sing in soft tones

On a barren branch of a tree

In the courtyard of my heart,

And make me cry

For hours.

Tr. Baidar Bakht

Marina Tsvetayeva (1892-1941),Russian poet,committed suicide on August 1^st,1941

The Last Will of the Dalit Poet

A dalit poet

Leaves several things behind:

A paper dripping wet with blood,

A black sun

On the night’s head,

A river of blood,

A lantern of his ancestors.

He never assault you with

Symbols,

Metaphors

Or personalities.

A heavy burden on a donkey’s back,

He himself a wounded shadow.

He has no existence.

There is little difference

Between him and a broken cup.

He,who makes images with cow-dung

Has at least the sense to know

That in the hour glass,

In the smell of exiled earth,

In the sunflower of rebellions,

In the spear of the pen and the ink,

Art lives forever.

But now,

He is looking for his existence.

He is looking for himself.

He is proud to call himself

A dalit poet.

Tr. Baidar Bakht

Wheat Field with Crows

Over the yellow

Wheat fields

Hover black crows

Like death.

After some time,

The crows in the sky

Hold Van Gogh

In their wings

And take him

Towards the grave of the yellow sky.

Tr. Baidar Bakht

Pencil 3

My daughter

Little dear daughter

Lights a pencil

With a sharpener.

The sky of the white paper

Begins to be filled with light.

The black bird flying away with the tree;

Glasses on the eyes of the peacock;

The fire chariot flying in the air;

The airplane walking on the road;

The lion having a conversation with the cow;

A one-eyed sun on the black tree

With a patch of cloud over it;

A blue fish flying on the forehead of the cloud;

The yellow butterfly swimming in the waterfall.

My darling daughter,

In her ecstasy

Is busy drawing

Strange pictures.

But when the schoolmaster

Gives her homework,

My darling doll

Breaks the tip of the pencil

In anger,

And the candle of the pencil

Is  extinguished.

Only the smoke remains

On the sky of the white paper.

Tr. Baidar Bakht

The Black Bird of Pain

(For Van Gogh)

Your story

Is not only the story of

The eye,

The brush

Or the palette.

It is the sad tale

Of a lonely heart

Beating in the prison

Of deep darkness,

Who does not know

Why a black bird of pain

Keeps flying on his face,

Again and again.

Tr. Baidar Bakht