दस्त-दराज़ी
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’
