Dast-Daraazi

दस्त-दराज़ी

खौफज़दा दिलों या ज़ख़्मी सीनों से आयें

आहों को मज़हब न सरहद रोक पाएं

अपनी या ग़ैर की, तेरी हों या मेरी

अंगारे तो हर सीने में जला जायेंगी.

उन मैली सफ़ेद परतों से झाकेंगे 

स्याह रिसते नासूर यूँ बेपर्दा हो कर

कफ़न अपने पर हो या किसी ग़ैर पर

हर ख़ामोश गवाही एक नई आग लगाएगी.

देख! जाल सी फैलती ये सुर्ख नदियाँ

तेरे और मेरे घरों को निगले जाती हैं

ले बहें अश्क-ओ-लहू अपना या ग़ैर का

फिर एक दफ़ा ख़ुदा का सर झुकायेंगी.

The Translation:

Violence

From fearful hearts or wounded bodies, they may come

Neither any religion nor borders can stop these sighs

Be our own or someone else’s, yours or mine;

They’ll surely leave burning embers in every heart

From those soiled white layers, will peep

Black open wounds shamelessly unveiled

A shroud may be on one’s kin or else’s

But each shroud will lead to more violence

See! Those red rivers distending like a net

They are swallowing our homes, yours and mine

Be the tears and blood flowing our own or else’s

Such violence will once again hang God’s head in shame

  

This poem was written originally in Urdu after I read about violence at many places. Just the very news of such bloodshed is enough to disturb us; we cannot even imagine the plight of the people involved. Such wars effect their generations to come, leaving their children ill-fed and uneducated. Families of armed forces officers suffer too, for their kin face painful deaths in such useless mayhems.

The tree of violence bears only poison thorns that vex generations to arrive. There is no winner in a war; both the sides involved suffer more or less equally. A peace loving attitude and a stance of non-violence is the best gift we can give others but most importantly to ourselves. 

                                                                                  

To quote Gautam Buddha.

‘If you throw a burning coal at someone, your fingers get burnt first’

How true!

Images from: http://z6.co.uk/e1cb1863 and http://z6.co.uk/089fda62