Kabar By Jasim Uddin

Kabar

Jasim Uddin

 

Here lies your grandmother's grave

Under the pomegranate tree    

For-Thirty years my tears have kept it

Wet and green.

I brought her home a little girl

With a golden face,

How she cried when her

Doll playing days were over.

I wondered who spread all this gold

In my yard.

In the golden light of morning

Her face printed on my mind

I hurried toward the field

I would look back on many a pretence,

How my bhabishab would tease me at that.

Like this I lost myself in her tears and laughter’s,

I did not know how quickly

My life mingled with hers.

Before leaving for her father's home

She touched my feet and said

‘Don't forget to see me at Uzantali village.’

I sold water melons in the market

And bought a string beads,

some tobacco and toothpowder

Hiding these carefully

Iran for my father-in-law's home.

Don't laugh my boy, I wish you could see

How happy she was when I arrived with the string of beads. She noved the jewel in her nose and said

‘How I waited and cried for you to come soon’.

If she felt so much pain in parting from me then

How can she remain asleep in the darkness of a grave?,

Fold your hands, my child, come let us pray.

May their souls rest in peace.

 

Since then I have travelled down this lonely path

Whoever I held close has left me.

I count the number of hundred graves

I make a mistake and begin all over again all night long.

With these hands I have buried in the hard soil Many golden faces washed in my tears. I love this soil, my child, put your heart Close to earth and let us cry for some comfort.

Here lies your father, and here your mother.

Are you crying, my darling? My heart breaks.

One spring day your father said to me

‘Father, I am not feeling well today.’

I spread the mat on the floor and asked him to sleep

Had I known then that sleep would be his last.

As I carried him draped in white.

You asked, ‘Where are you taking my father?’

 I had no works to answer your question.

All the languages of this world went away crying.

Your mother clasped his plough and cried day and night.

The leaves would shed themselves in grief,

Wind in April sighed over the hollow ground.

Travelers passing by would shed a tear for her

Under their I footsteps dry leaves cried in pain

In the shed two working bulls lay idle.

Your mother held their necks tight

And cried in sorrow and in loneliness.

 

Perhaps the tears of the forlorn girl

Found their way to the dark land of graves.

Soon to her lost mate she was joined.

At the time of parting she called you for the last time. ‘Goodbye, my darling, my jewel, my precious son.

It breaks my heart that you have no one to call mother.’

With tears rolling down she gave you her last blessings.

She called me and said, 'Across my grave

Place my husband's turban softly',

That turban has rotted and mixed in the dirt

But pain in my heart knows no waste.

The two are sleeping in a pair under this tree.

The branches come down in love.

Glow worms stay up to light their nights

 and the cricket sings them to sleep.

Fold your hands and pray, oh, Merciful God

Please grant heaven for my parents.

 

Here lies your sister's grave, she was like a little fairy

I gave her in marriage to Kazi family

Thinking of their good name.

They didn't show her any love

If they didn't beat her with hands

They hurt her with words.

She sent message after message, ‘Ask my grandfather To take me back to my father's village for a few days’.

 Her cruel father-in-law didn't easily let her go,

After many a request I brought her home one winter.

That pretty face was no more full of laughter

Two black eyes like ponds filled with water

She sat by her parents' graves.

Who knew that death had planted its seeds in her as well?

She caught a fever and didn't recover.

Here I have laid her down, look my grandson softly

No one loved her in life.

Now wild black grasses have covered the grave,

Ghughu birds cry 'uhu uhu' in her absence,

Join your hands and pray Merciful God

Please grant Heaven for my beloved sister.

 

Here lies your youngest aunt, seven years old

She came to us like a rainbow from the gates of heaven

Who knew how much pain she bore losing her mother young In her innocent face I would see the face of your grandmother.

Then I held her in my arms and cried

Our tears washed the red sunset pale.

One day I went to the market leaving her behind,

On returning I found her lying by the roadside.

Her face and round arms were unchanged,

The snake had bitten my dear one.

With my own hands I buried my golden statue

My grandson, hold me, my bosom breaks

Come closer to this grave, closer, my child

Come softly, do not speak lest we wake her up.

Dig slowly till we find under the hard earth

How my heaven on earth sleeps in peace.

In the distant the sunset deepens

And great is my desire to hug the earth close to me

From far till my last day.

Fold your hands and pray O God

Grant heaven to all death-striken souls.