Comments/Credits:

			 % Credits: Ashok Dhareshwar 
%          Pavan Kumar Desikan 
%          U.V. Ravindra 
% Transliterator: Rajiv Shridhar 
% Date: 11/03/1996

%      Producer - Evergreen Pictures

%      For comparison, here's the English version of Daud Kamal. I just
%      noticed that the title of the book is 'Selected poems of Faiz 
%      in English rendered by Daud Kamal.'  Perhaps the keyword is 
%      'rendered'!


%    Do Not Ask ...

%       Do not ask me
%       For that past love
%       When I thought
%       You alone illumined
%       This entire world
%       And because of you
%       The sorrows of life
%       Did not matter.
%       I thought
%       Your beauty game permanence
%       To the colors of spring
%       And your eyes were
%       The only stars
%       In the universe.
%       I thought
%       If I could only make you mine
%       Destiny would, forever, be
%       In my hands.
%       Now I know
%       There are afflictions
%       Which have nothing to do with desire
%       Raptures
%       Which have nothing to do with love.

%       On the dark loom of centuries
%       Woven into
%       Silk, damask, and goldcloth
%       Is the oppressive enigma
%       Of our lives.
%       Everywhere--
%       In the valleys and bazaars--
%       Human flesh is being sold--
%       Throbbing between layers of dust--
%       Bathed in blood.
%       The furnace of poverty and disease
%       Disgorges body after body--
%       Your beauty is still
%       A river of gems
%       But now I know
%       There are afflictions
%       Which have nothing to do with desire
%       Raptures
%       Which have nothing to do with love.

%       My love, do not ask me ...


% Here by the way is the entire nazm by Faiz for those interested, with
% translation by Naomi Lazard.

% Here is what he writes about the translation procedure:

% "This   project  of translation  started    at  an international literary
% conference in   Honolulu in  1979 and   continued until Faiz's   death.  We
% established a procedure immediately.  Faiz gave  me the literal translation
% of a poem. I  wrote it down  just as he  dictated it.   Then the real work
% began.  I  asked him questions regarding the  text.  Why did he choose just
% that phrase,  that word, that image,  that metaphor?  What  did it  mean to
% him?   There  were  cultural differences.   What was   crystal  clear to an
% Urdu-speaking reader meant  nothing at all to  an American.  I had  to know
% the meaning of  every nuance in order  to re-create the  poem." ( Faiz--The
% True Subject p. xii)


%        Don't ask me now, Beloved, to love you as I did
%        when I believed life owed its luster to your existence
%        The torments of the world meant nothing;
%                       you alone could make me suffer.
%        Your beauty guaranteed the spring,
%                       ordained its enduring green.
%        Your eyes were all there was of value anywhere.
%        If I could have you, fate would bow before me.

%        None of this was real; it was all invented by desire.
%        The world knows how to deal out pain, apart from passion,
%        and manna for the heart, beyond the realm of love.
%        Warp and woof, the trappings of the rich are woven
%        by the brutish spell cast over all the ages;
%        human bodies numbed by filth, deformed by injuries,
%        cheap merchandise on sale in every street.
%        I must attend to this too:  what can be done?
%        Your beauty still delights me, but what can I do?
%        The world knows how to deal out pain, apart from passion,
%        and manna for the heart, beyond the realm of love.
%        Don't ask from me, Beloved, love like that one long ago.

%        (Faiz--The True Subject p. 38-41)



%              Meanings of some words :
%              daraKshaa.n : shining, brilliant
%              hayaat = life
%              dahar: time, adversity, world etc. 
%              aalam = world; bahaar = spring; sabaat = stability, permanence
%              nigo.n = hanging downward = bow
%              taariik = dark, obscure; bahimaana = dreadful, terrible
%              tilism = spell, magic
%              resham = silk; athlas = satin
%              kamaKaab = brocade; silk woven with gold and silver flowers
%              jaa\-be\-jaa = hither-thither
%              lita.De =imbrued 
%              amaraaz = diseases; tanuron = ovens
%              piip = pus; galte hue = festering; nasur = ulcer; 
%              dil_kash = heart-warming