There is bondage, but it has no term ‘bondage’;

There is tyranny, but no lament or justice from tyranny;

There is night, silence at night, and loneliness;

Far from the prison ramparts, somewhere far away,

From the depth of the city’s breasts the gong rings out;

The mind is suddenly stirred;

The flames of breathing brighten up;

The candle of the chamber of thought wakes up;

I remember each thing of life;

On the public highways, in the streets, crowds of people,

Their dizzy feet,

Worry impressed on their forehead,

Their eyes, the sorrow of last night and the anxiety for tomorrow;

Thousands of feet

Thousands of people

Thousands of people’s beating hearts,

Sad with the tyranny of kingship, weary of the compulsion of politics;

Who knows which way they may suddenly burst forth!

The youths’ yearning, sad and helpless for years,

Goes to sleep embracing the gibbet and shackles;

The chain’s clang when shifted from side to side

Reveals the noise of life in the dream;

I’m sorry that my precious treasure of life

Became the offering to prison;

Why didn’t it become a freedom offering to my country’s prison?

.
    Central Jail  ∙  Hyderabad, Deccan  ∙  1951

.

From: Bisāt̤-i raqṣ (Dance Carpet). Ḥaidarābād, Inḍiyā: Istiqbāliyah kameṭī jashn-i Mak̲h̲dūm, 1966. pp. 127 – 29