The Woman On The Metro Gives Me Back My Handkerchief, A Lithuanian Poem By Agnė Žagrakalytė In Hindi/Urdu Translation Poem by Ravi Kopra

Tum pe khawah be vajah
log ilzaam laga dete hain
un k peechay sabab hamesha hota hai.
Saal guzar jaatay hain
dukh roop apna leta rehta hai
lakin tum khamosh rehtay ho
hamesha aahaiN bhartay rehtay ho.
Zulm isay hum kehtay hain
Jab ham ko ye khaata hai
helium ki roshni se chamakata ha
pait iska gubaaray ki tarah ful jaata hai.
Gubaara har raat tumaray oopar tairata rehta hai,
har raat is ki parcHHaee
tumaray khawaabon ko ragaDti rehti hai.

Marlin macHli ki tarah cheerti hai
Sword macHli ya needle macHli ki tarah kaat-ti hai,
jaisay ek aurat k haath main chaara hota hai,

Dard k cHad mere andar khul jaatay
ek cHatay ki tarah, ek maans khaati stickleback machli k kaantoN ki tarah
- bachay is macHli ko tittlebats kehtay hain -
ya saahi macHli kehtay hain:

Jo ek baar mere khamosh badan par
khamanchi fehnki gayi thee
us par ab mera badan jal raha hai
aur main tukray tukray ho rahi hoon.

***

The Woman on the Metro Gives me Back my Handkerchief
by AGNĖ ŽAGRAKALYTĖ

TRANSLATED BY FRANCES LEVISTONJULIJA GULBINOVIC

you can be wronged
for no reason
but never without
cause. The grievance takes shape
as the years rain past,
an insult to which you have never given voice
prying your gills apart. There it is: injustice,
its bites light as helium, its belly ballooning. Every
night it floats above you,
every night its shadow bumps and rasps
against your dreams.

It slashes like a marlin,
it cuts like a swordfish, a needlefish,
a lady-with-a-saw,

spokes of pain open inside me
like an umbrella, like a stickleback — boys call them tittlebats —
or porcupine fish:

what was once a splinter
darted into my body on a tide of silence
and now I am skewered, now
I am coming apart.