This poem, was e bewasi, by Atta Shad has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch.
God, O God!
Where is that world?
That heaven and the earth?
Where is the dark dawn that should lead to daylight?
Those flower-studded stars, the bright moon?
Where is that inner tipsy ambience?
The pleasant landscape of pleasing hearts?
The world I’m condemned to be in is a stranger to me.
The world that is the soul of my innocence,
Like the country of an angel.
The world that is the purposeful sin of my old age,
Yet is deprived of the hell’s inferno.
The heaven of my countless sizzling dreams and desires,
Vended not to be at the mart of grief and gloom.
The world that is neither mine nor my abode,
But no route to it is far enough for me,
Yet I forage and search but never reach there.
Where is that world? Where is it?
That earth and the space?
God, O God!
I’m like an ancient corpse lying under the earth of some archaeological site.
I in the depth of my future-molding ocean of dreams,
With blood-stained memories,
Who knows where will I wander surrounded by walls of melancholy tides?
Should I drown and die?
Where is that world?
O God!
Fazal Baloch teaches Urdu at Atta Shad Degree College, Turbat. He is the first regular translator of Balochi literature into English.
