A Satirical Poem

 .

Books, beautiful coffee cups

With strange pictures painted

By Bengali painters;

Even Jimini Roy’s paintings are ashamed of them.

And this broken head, contorted hands and feet,

The deceit of seven eyes,

The magic of eleven lips—

A picture without purpose, without meaning,

Only the mirror of the pleasure of expression.

Who knows what is beautiful, what is dreadful?

It’s the same thing one calls ‘the feeling of delight’

Or ‘the delight of feeling’.

Neither expression nor communication is possible

And this moment which has neither beginning nor end, 

This fleeing shadow of the movement of Time’s wings, 

The fiery kiss of the lips of past and future, 

The embrace of despondency and hope,

The union of life and death—

These alone are Man, these alone his reality.

It will not be possible to escape the clutches of Time and Death;

The words of the beauties with graceful stature, 

The tales of ruby lips with the breath of the messiah, 

All the stories of the collision of truth and lies—

All of these—useless! 

If there is any reality, it’s the loneliness of the soul.

Fill the wine glass with the wine of loneliness, 

With the wine of loneliness, 

With the wine of loneliness.

1 June 1965

From: Pairāhan-i sharar (Garment of Fire), 1965. pp. 36 – 38

Intalekchūl is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970