This poem was translated by Professor Carlo Coppola as part of the MULOSIGE Translations project. You can explore our collection of Urdu Poetry here.

Professor Carlo Coppola, Oakland University

Machliyān̲ kaun khā gayā / Who’d Eaten the Fish?

Then it so happened

That on my way I came upon an ocean

Deep—storm-boiling;

And then it so happened

That on the wide ocean expanse scattered 

Gold—silver—fish.

And I 

Then ran—and reached 

The other side in twenty centuries

And found nothing there.

Behind me, shining water

Gigantic-deep.

Who had eaten the fish?

.

From:  Āk̲h̲irī din kī talāsh (Search for the Last Day). Allāhābād: Shabk̲h̲ūn Kitāb G̲h̲ar, 1968. pp. 24 – 25

             

Then it so happened

That on my way I came upon an ocean

Deep—storm-boiling;

And then it so happened

That on the wide ocean expanse scattered 

Gold—silver—fish.

And I 

Then ran—and reached 

The other side in twenty centuries

And found nothing there.

Behind me, shining water

Gigantic-deep.

Who had eaten the fish?

.

From:  Āk̲h̲irī din kī talāsh (Search for the Last Day). Allāhābād: Shabk̲h̲ūn Kitāb G̲h̲ar, 1968. pp. 24 – 25