This poem was originally penned down by Hafeez Rauf in Balochi.
I’m indifferent to the ups and downs of the world.
I had said,
What if the sky crumbles into the earth!
What to me!
To me what!
What if someone slaughters someone!
What if a brother kills a brother for a piece of land!
Why should I be bothered?
These homes,
The sky,
The earth,
Thousands of such issues related to earthly relations,
Could be problems for others.
I’m indifferent.
I’m ungodly.
This is life for me.
For me, life is all about the billowing of smoke between my fingers.
Yes, just that.
Whenever it rained,
I would pitch my palms,
To collect raindrops one by one,
Only to splash them back through the air and laugh at it for hours.
This is the life.
And whenever the rains stopped,
I would pretend to remain unaware of any such happening.
“You have got a God”.
I’ve heard that.
They tell me so.
This crowd of relatives,
Don’t belong to me.
Nor do me to them.
(The blood remains the only tie.)
They seem to me as the ruins of a house.
A house that can’t be inhabited.
I saw photos of hundreds of missing persons in yesterday’s newspaper.
Mine was among them.
Put up at a protest camp set up by the relatives of missing persons.
I was there sitting among them.
Since then,
I’m lost in strange thoughts.
I’m indifferent to the ups and downs of the world.
I’m good for nothing.
Jalil Baloch lives in Germany, studying for a Masters degree in English Literature from George August University. He originally belongs from Turbat, Balochistan. He taught English language there.
