THE FABLE
On approaching the Banaras Canal
I saw cranes
Looking at the other end
I heard peacocks
They said: “The days of sorrow
Are over, O Khushal!
You faced Ranthambore Fort yesterday
Today, you are reuniting with your people
Both the fish and Joseph are gone
Only the fable remains!
______________
THE COWARD
A hyena slipped into a colony of starlings
Distraught, they flew about in different directions
Meanwhile, a vulture appeared from nowhere
And swooped on one of them
I was startled to see that
That strange behavior of the vulture
There was a wise man beside me
He said, “Don’t be surprised at all, O Khushal!
The coward always attacks the weak and unarmed.”
_____________
TWO UNRULY SERVANTS
I’ve two unruly servants at home
Who tease me to no end
However much I bridle them
They don’t rest till they receive their daily wages
They’re not manifest as such but hidden
One is physical pleasure; the other my tongue
The one demands its daily share of poesy
The other its own strange desire
________________
THE ONE
Mosque or monastery
They are both as one
Upon some introspection
I found the One in all
I soar to such dazzling heights
Where angels fear to tread
The squint-eyed has a double vision
Which is why, he incurs loss
Khushal is happy since he sees
None except the One!
About Khushal Khan Khattak: Khushal Khan (1613-1690) was a legendary Afghan/Pashtun warrior-poet, whose work consists of more than 45,000 individual couplets, on themes ranging from love, aesthetics, statecraft, ethics, philosophy, medicine, jurisprudence, war and falconry. He was the chieftain of a major Pashtun tribe, the Khattak, and served as the guardian of the Mughal Royal Road from Khairabad to Peshawar in the modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. He fell under the wrath of the orthodox Mughal king, Aurangzeb Alamgir, in 1664 and was put in the dungeon of the Ranthambore Fort, Rajasthan, India, for about two and a half years.
Upon his release, he started a freedom struggle and rallied the Pashtun tribes on the Pak-Afghan border to coalesce a unified block against the Mughal hegemony. The Mughals were, however, successful in making inroads in his own household by using underhand tactics, bribes and royal titles. His later life was marked by war, exile and hardship at the hands of his own sons. He died at the age of seventy eight in an area owned by his ally tribe, the Afridi. As per his will, his body was brought to his hometown, Akora Khattak, and was secretly buried in a place, where – to his own words – “the dust of the hoofs of the Mughal cavalry could not light upon his grave”.
About the translator: Sami ur Rahmanis a freelance columnist, contributing to different English dailies of Pakistan . He holds a master’s degree in political science and is currently working on his autobiographical novel, “The Muslim Rebel”. He hails from the same small town, which was founded by Khushal Khan’s great-grandfather, Akor Khan, and to which Khushal belonged.
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