Norjang Syangden
Ensconced in gardens
this city of Chandigarh
We arrive here
Walking on the invisible footsteps of life’s destiny.
Opening up the closed cupboards of the heart
As gifts-
We exchanged pains
We exchanged our locations
Making a wreath of wounds woven with words
we garlanded each other.
We exchanged tears also.
the railway junction is coming near
I am sending my tearful hands to say you goodbye.
Homebound, seated on a rickshaw
Please lick the wounds of this parting
in the sunshine of this farewell.
I too shall drink it
till it’s spilled over the eyes.
Green clouds of Darjeeling am I.
Krishnaji ! you are a scorching street of Jaipur.
Mangaleshjil you are the sprawling field of U.P.
You are the shining dunes of Rajestha, Bikramji !
You are the dark ridges of Jammu, Shamesherji !
You are the serene, lissome lake of Kashmir, Faiyaz Dilbarji !
You are the adolescent mendicants of the Golden Temple Bediji !
In this young, but age-old journey of our strength and dreams.
A world in ourselves we are.
If ever your soft moments get pricked
Against the sharp thorns of memory
If ever you remember me:
Look at the face of a procession
I shall very much be there.
Look at the youthful smoke
Puffed of by a youth somewhere in a crossroad.
Behold me in the plight of a collegiate friend
who is still painfully unable to call a bicycle his own.
The other one, they say, is an M.A.
You find me in the shoe of his age wearing out like an autorickshaw,
Behold me in his testimonials long ailing inside a rickety box.
Yes I shall very much be there.
Plodding through this life with alcohol in taverns-
Singing pathetic songs.
Behold me at the vagabond face of the barren denuded landscape.
behold me at the embrace of young lovers under a shady tree.
I shall be there.
Behold me on the pall-bearing son of a dead father
Behold me but in the empty and cold pockets and wallets
In spite of the compulsion to take home chocolate to a young
brother.
Yes, look at your feet
I shall be there somewhere.
Yes, I shall be there somewhere in your memory
If ever you remember me
Look at the sun reigning in the sky
I shall be there.
Behold me on the posters pasted on the wall
I shall be there.
Yes, my friends, a memory I am
A memory I will remain ever on.
(Translated by late Norden Rumba)