Surely one evening we'll sit down
drink late into the night
and in the dying dark
together we'll perform a bhagat
Our chogas will be threadbare
the bocchaan tied on our heads
dancing bells on our tired ankles
To the sound of dust-covered instruments
we'll lift our unpracticed hands
Our breaths will choke
Under the dark open sky
a small stage made of mud
Before us sand
stretching out for endless miles
No one to listen to us
All of them lying on their velvet beds
lost in dreamscapes
The wind that carries our voices far
will quieten
Again and again it will return to us
You begin by speaking of my origins
In between I'll add my testimonies of your past your present
In the last hours of the night
together we'll perform a bhagat
we'll sit down one evening
and drink late into the night
In the first act of the bhagat
we will bring to life a scene
I will come to you and die
You will die and come to me keep walking keep dancing
From both our bodies
will emerge one thing
your soul
my conscience
Your soul will play the role of some prosperous man
My poor conscience will remain mine
They will converse with each other
speak of common some uncommon things
In the middle
my conscience will speak a monologue –
Ask anything of me
Do not ask my name
Do not ask about my identity
Do not ask where my home is
Do not ask about my neighbourhood
Do not ask about my city
Do not ask about my country
But I will serve you wine
in a goblet made of gold
Ask anything of me
Don't question me
Don't look for my legs
Don't look for my hands
Don't look for my eyes
Don't look for my tongue
Don't look for my touch
When I regained consciousness
I began to count
After becoming unconscious
I continue to count
Look me all over
Don't look within me
Don't look at my feelings
Don't look at my thoughts
Don't look at my values
Don't look at my soul
Neither do I seek to speak with you
nor do I wish to speak with my self
I hiccup
pronouncing a single world
whose meaning is not so difficult
but it is my heritage –
I can walk
The echo says have no legs
I can fly
The echo asks where are the wings?
I reach out
The echo sighs have no hands
I can see
The echo breathes in eyes are shut
I speak
The echo reveals its pain words have ceased to be
I laugh
The echo brings back sobs
I scream
Dweller of the land of Sindh
I have crossed many seas
I have seen Time
The echo says in pain
You have changed to the most expensive of watches
After partition
you have not looked at the time
I scream for help
Then in the echo I hear destruction
After a long silence
I return to whisperings
You can ask me anything
Don't ask about my culture
Don't ask about my history
Don't ask about the traditions of my people
Don't ask about my way of life
Surely one evening we'll sit down
drink late into the night
and in the dying night
together we'll begin a bhagat
In the last act of the bhagat
we will begin to speak in memory
we will stop the train of sadness
that builds its own momentum
Verses of remembrance and grief
are shadows of death
Let the rising notes
be free of them
My falling notes are riddled with
a cough
With the salt-shot sand
make a house for culture
To etch on its walls
I'll bring the names of our brothers
and their money
Warm sand will go in
through my skin
Cold sand
will drink your blood
Sitting by the head
of my dead body
you recite a sher
I'll recite a poem
by the legs of your corpse
You give the people a testimony of my last breath
I'll show them signs of your wide open eyes
Distress will be your shroud
My shroud will be sand
Surely one evening we'll sit down
drink late into the night
and in the dying dark
together we'll perform a bhagat
Bhagat
Prem Prakash
translated from the Sindhi by Gopika Jadeja and Prem Prakash
Listen to the poem in the original Sindhi read by the author:
The bhagat is a folk form performed by two persons (the main character is called the "bhagat") on a simple stage with special costumes. It includes song, dance, drama, and narration presented through the night before an audience of thousands. Sometimes it runs for three or four nights. Popular in Sindhi, the bhagat is now a disappearing art in India due to the scattering of the Sindhi population during and after the Partition of India.
What struck me first about Prem Prakash's "Bhagat" was its sound. This might be because my encounters with the poem have been mostly through its recitation. I do not have any Sindhi, so I asked Prem Prakash to read the poem out to me several times. I had previously read a Hindi translation of the poem and could have translated from the Hindi alone. Even through the slightly academic Hindi translation, the sonority of the poem is difficult to miss; in fact, the Hindi conveys the sound with a little more accuracy than the English. While it is difficult to recreate the sound of Sindhi, the focus of my translation has been sound as much as meaning. Prem Prakash and I created a rough, slightly literal line-by-line translation together, which formed the basis of my final translation.
Reading and translating "Bhagat" has been part of a longer journey for me in mapping the political and literary landscape of the western Indian state of Gujarat. The sound of Sindhi evokes for me the sights and smells of Kutch. It reminds me of polyphony in what is usually presented in official narratives as a singular political and cultural space. The sense of dislocation that the poet conveys in "Bhagat" is what drew me to it.
What struck me first about Prem Prakash's "Bhagat" was its sound. This might be because my encounters with the poem have been mostly through its recitation. I do not have any Sindhi, so I asked Prem Prakash to read the poem out to me several times. I had previously read a Hindi translation of the poem and could have translated from the Hindi alone. Even through the slightly academic Hindi translation, the sonority of the poem is difficult to miss; in fact, the Hindi conveys the sound with a little more accuracy than the English. While it is difficult to recreate the sound of Sindhi, the focus of my translation has been sound as much as meaning. Prem Prakash and I created a rough, slightly literal line-by-line translation together, which formed the basis of my final translation.
Reading and translating "Bhagat" has been part of a longer journey for me in mapping the political and literary landscape of the western Indian state of Gujarat. The sound of Sindhi evokes for me the sights and smells of Kutch. It reminds me of polyphony in what is usually presented in official narratives as a singular political and cultural space. The sense of dislocation that the poet conveys in "Bhagat" is what drew me to it.
Prem Prakash is a dramatist and poet. Born in Hyderabad, Sind in 1946, he is a founding member of the Sindhi Drama Workshop and a former member of the Sindhi Advisory Board for the Sahitya Akademi (the Indian Academy of Letters). He was awarded the Sahtiya Akademi Award in 2001 for his poetry collection Bhagat. He lives and works in Ahmedabad.
Gopika Jadeja is a poet and translator from India who writes in both English and Gujarati. She publishes and edits a print journal and series of pamphlets for the performance-publishing project, Five Issues. Her work has been published in Asymptote, The Wolf, Indian Literature, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Vahi, and Sahcharya, among others. Gopika is currently working on English translations of poetry from Gujarat, besides writing her Ph.D. thesis on Dalit literature in Gujarat.
