Marina Tsvetaeva: I'd Like To Live With You In Hindi/Urdu Translation Poem by Ravi Kopra

Us shaher main jahan ek hi ghoDa hai
jahan hamesha shaam hoti hai
ghantiaN bagti rehti hain
aur shraab khanoN ki purani ghaDian
clcik click karti rehti hain
aur kabhi kabhi sandya sameh
baal khaanay ki tulips se saji khiDki pe
koi bansuri bajata hai
wahan main tumharay saath rehna chahooN gi
aur agar tum muje pyaar nahin karo gay
to is ki parvaah main na karooN gi.

Kamray k beech main ek baDa aatishdaan
tiles se saja hua, har tile par ek image
- gulaab k phool ki, dil ki, kishti ki -
aur ek aikloti khidki
teen baar barf se laddi hui.

Tum jooth boltay raho gay
aalsi, udaseen, laa-parvaah ho gay
main tumain chahti rahooN gi,
aur fir kabhi kabhi maatchas pe
ragarDti teeli ki chamak hogi,

Tumharay cigrate ki tapash main
ruki hui, girti hui raakh hogi
aur tum itnay aalsi ho gay
is ko na jhatak pao gay
aur is tarah hamesha
har cheez pe aag lagi hui ho gi.

^

MARINA TSVETAEVA
I'd Like to Live With You
TRANSLATED BY HELEN MORT

in a one-horse town
where it's always dusk
and bells don't stop chiming
and the pubs echo
with old clocks
time drizzling
and sometimes, at sundown, from an attic a flute
and the player in the window
framed by big tulips
and if you didn't love me, I wouldn't care.

In the centre of our room - a huge tiled oven
each tile branded with an image
- rose - heart - ship -
and in the single window
snow three times.

You would lie - I love you
like this: idle, indifferent, carefree.
Now and then, the fizz
of a struck match,

the roll-up glowing down
to a tremble of ash
suspended
and you too lazy to even flick it
and everything always
on fire.

NOTES ON THIS POEM
I have been fascinated by Marina Tsvetaeva's life and work since I discovered the dreamy films of Andrey Tarkovsky. I learned about the turbulent friendship between Tsvetaeva and Tarkovsky's poet father, Arseny Tarkovsky, tinged by unrequited love on her part. Tsvetaeva hanged herself on August 31,1941 and Tarkovsky was hounded by guilt. What I find in Tsvetaeva's work is an intense, aching loneliness matched by searing intellect and wit. I have an almost physical reaction to her poems: they terrify me with their brilliance, the wistful quality that belies a deeper sense of isolation.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, I came across her poem ‘I'd Like to Live with You' and it set me thinking about the challenges of either being marooned on your own or of being confined with a partner. The piece is playful, dark, describing a sleepy town, an ambivalent relationship. I began to ‘triangulate' different versions of the poem, Google-Translating the original (helpfully, my stepson was in the midst of a university Russian exam at the time)and my own response emerged. I particularly wanted to bring out what I felt was an ambiguity in the poem around the words ‘you would lie'. In some translations, this was interpreted as ‘you would lie down', evoking an image of the lover, languid and sprawling. I wanted to preserve the other meaning of ‘lie', the sense of deception and betrayal, picking up on an earlier phrase: ‘and if you didn't love me, I wouldn't care'. Should we believe this? Tsvetaeva's work remains enigmatic.

- Helen Mort