We present this work in honor of the 45th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Exuberant with youth,
beautiful as an early monsoon cloud,
dark-skinned,
on languorous feet
the village girl comes walking,
proud, stately, graceful,
along the snaking path.

She trails her scarf behind
and pushes back her hair;
quick to be embarrassed,
she glances down at the twin pitchers of her breasts.
A woman, restless:
her laughter ripples
like a brook spilling over its banks—
her lips—from teeth as bright as foam.

Along the road she stops,
bending a little
to smooth her skirt; turns her face
when she hears her lover’s footsteps—
a village lad draws near,
her ardent suitor;
while steadily he stares at her,
surprised,
rejoicing,
she shuts her eyes.

Beside the well
enchanted man and woman!
When she draws up the heavy jug
filled to the brim,
her breasts, like overflowing pitchers,
are tensed so that they strain
against her tightening blouse.
She spills the water
in a shower of beauty,
then throws her scarf across her breast,
sets the jug upon her head
and starts the zigzag path for home.

Hibiscus at her ears,
she weaves a garland—
shephalika, white lily, oleander,
and trumpet-flower,
braiding blooming stars all through her hair,
and roams the woodland with her cattle,
calling out with lark and cuckoo.
In the deserted forest
she adorns herself through every season
with jasmine, cassia and fragrant herbs,
forest-flame and mango blossom.

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 225th birthday.

 

No, I wasn’t meant to love and be loved.
If I’d lived longer, I would have waited longer.

Knowing you are faithless keeps me alive and hungry.
Knowing you faithful would kill me with joy.

Delicate are you, and your vows are delicate, too,
so easily do they break.

You are a laconic marksman. You leave me
not dead but perpetually dying.

I want my friends to heal me, succor me.
Instead, I get analysis.

Conflagrations that would make stones drip blood
are campfires compared to my anguish.

Two-headed, inescapable anguish!—
Love’s anguish or the anguish of time.

Another dark, severing, incommunicable night.
Death would be fine, if I only died once.

I would have liked a solitary death,
not this lavish funeral, this grave anyone can visit.

You are mystical, Ghalib, and, also, you speak beautifully.
Are you a saint, or just drunk as usual?

Translation by Vijay Sashadri

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 115th birthday.

 

He who has destroyed all the creeds
With fire from his burning breast,
He who quits the temple, mosque and church
A drunken heretic, unblest,
Who sees the snares, and now comes running
From Pandit’s, Priest’s and Mullah’s cunning,
He, and he only, shall today
Be in my House, a welcome Guest.

We present this work in honor of Chhath Puja

.

 

My soul cries out,
Snared by the beauty
Of the formless one.
As I cry by myself,
Night and day,
Beauty amassed before my eyes
Surpasses numberless moons and suns.
If I look at the clouds in the sky,
I see his beauty afloat;
And I see him walk on the stars
Blazing my heart

We present this work in honor of Vikram Samvat New Year.

 

Where the creature is
there is the Creator,
but you wander elsewhere,
search in faraway places.

The first false step, says Akha,
was that you forgot
to look within.

So you forgot.
Go then, study
with a saint. What’s gained
by shows of piety:
one day all whiskers and beard,
the next day tonsured, sheared?

We present this work in honor of Gandhi Jayanti.

 

The land resists
Because it cannot be
Tempted, or broken
In a chamber. It records,
By carefully shuffling the leaves,
The passage of each storm, rain
And drought. The land yields
In places, deliberately,
Having learnt warfare from the armies
It fed. The land is of one
Piece and hasn’t forgotten
Old miracles: the engraving of a bison
On stone, for instance. The land
Turns up like an unexpected
Visitor and gives refuge, it cannot be
Locked, or put away. The land
Cannot sign its name
It cannot die
Because it cannot be buried
It understands the language
It speaks in dialect.