Taklamakan Desert, A Korean Poem By Ko Un In Hindi/Urdu Translation Poem by Ravi Kopra

Main Taklamakan k registaan ko
kyoN ja raha hoon:
wahan to kuch bhi nahin hai.


75 saal ki umr main
sub dunia ko choDtay hue
main Taklamakan k registan ko
kyon ja raha hoon:
wahan to khaalipan ki sirf chillhat hain.


Main Taklamakan k registaan ko
kyoN ja raha hoon:
Kyon k main duniya ka aur apna
laaluch ab seh nahin sakta.

Wahan, Taklamakan k registan main,
ek hazaar saal purani khopDi chup-chaap hai.

***

Taklamakan Desert
BY KO UN
TRANSLATED BY SUJI KWOCK KIM AND SUNJA KIM KWOCK
Why I'm going to the Taklamakan Desert:
the emptiness there.

Why I'm going to the Taklamakan Desert
at seventy-five, leaving all words behind: the cry
of the emptiness there.

Why I'm going to the Taklamakan Desert:
I can no longer stand
the world's greed
or mine.

There, in the Taklamakan Desert,
the silence of a thousand-year-old skull.

Translated from the Korean