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January 11, 2004
Articles: The final countdown
AFZAL Ahmed Syed was born in 1946 in Ghazipur, India. He was educated in Dhaka and then at the American University of Beirut where he completed his MS in Entomology. He now lives in Karachi.
Afzal started writing poetry in 1973. His first collection, Cheenee Hui Tareekh was published in 1984. Other publications are Khaima-i-Siyah (1986), Do Zabanon Mein Saza-i-Maut (1990) and Rococo aur Doosri Dunyaein (1999). He received the Prime Minister of Pakistan Award for poetry in 1989.
He has also translated literature of other languages, particularly Western, into Urdu. His forthcoming work would be a collection of parables which according to him is closer to his heart than any other poetic genre he has so far chosen to express himself. Syed tried to infuse his ‘ghazal’ in Khaima-i-Siyah with a new diction and a non-conforming thought content but this stands out more prominently in his prose poems.
His poems, whether personal or socio-political in theme are carved out of a deep, reflective sentiment, most of the time self-inflicting and intensely creative. “Injustice is what compels me to write,” he says. “Poetry is my raison d’etre. For me all experiences of my life, whether mundane or sublime are poetic in essence.”
The poem selected for translation is entitled ‘Phaansi’ in the original Urdu and is taken from the collection, Do Zabanon Mein Saza-i-Maut published by Maktaba-i-Danyal, Karachi in 1990.
The hanging
The first person I met
was a blacksmith.
In a day he had prepared
the contrivance for my execution
but he did not know the art of making a lock.
A locksmith stood by him.
After selling off my lock
he had sold its key to me which I swallowed while I was being searched.
The person next to him
was a thief
who had stolen the stream
where the wood for the scaffold was soaked.
After that was the empty space
where the planks were dried and hardened in the sun.
And then stood the weaver
on whose spindle was woven the thread
for the convicts’ clothes.
With the weaver stood his step-sister
who, twisting threads into ropes
ended up making the noose.
Next to her stood the man
who had pushed me into the well while I drank water.
He was the same man
who had written the notification for my arrest.
This way I was spared of meeting another person.
After them, among the workers
Stood the man
who was appointed to hang me.
The hirelings putting up the scaffold,
people of a lesser status who were not to
stand among those introduced to me
looked at me in amazement.
There was also someone between me and the hangman.
This was God.
The last thing brought forward
was my last wish.
I wanted the national anthem to be played on my death.
The hangman promised to send for it from the seat of the rulers.
Commotion arose in the meanwhile
Agents had arrived from there with wages.
There was confusion among those who were lined up.
Only the hangman stood firm and walked me forward
because, according to the new directive,
the convict’s clothes were to be passed on to him.
In my moment of death
I was alone with the hangman.
I wish the wages had not arrived on that very day.
Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed
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