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Kavita Kosh से
जिनसे लड़ने की कोशिश में
मैं कभी-कभी इन पुरानी तस्वीरों को ही हथियार की तरह उठाने की सोचता हूँ
लीजिए, अब यही कविता अँग्रेज़ी में पढ़िए
Mangalesh Dabral
OLD PHOTOGRAPHS
What is it in these old photographs
When I chance upon them I can’t stop looking
Is it the luminosity of youth alone
A full crop of hair a soft-featured face
That still retains the traces of parental gifts
Eyes brimming with eagerness to see deep and far
Un-ironed clothes from those times
When life itself was in wrinkles
In this picture I represent my real self
Dreamlike, wearing my heart on my face
With friends who share the same casualness
A light cloud that comes floating from somewhere
And rests awhile
No hardness no cleverness
No greed in the eyes
The picture is of a morning at a street-corner teashop
The world around it also transparent and simple
Like the teacup, the street, the morning
There are several such pictures that I occasionally show
To people who come visiting
And what is it I now avoid being photographed
I say leave it
I don’t photograph well
I get uneasy as if
There is a mirror before me
Is it fear that I won’t look as I did
Will my face reveal the harshness of the world
The cleverness and greed one sees everywhere these days
To resist this I sometimes try
To use old photographs as armour.
(Translated from Hindi by Asad Zaidi)
