Where Honor Lies...
 OCT
23: Mr Mehmood
Sham, who is the Jang group editor, came to New York last month to report
Gen Musharraf’s visit. I am fortunate to have met him along with several
other Pakistani sahafio(n)s in an environment reminiscent of Karachi's Coffee House and the
Press Club. The baithak ended with a late night dinner at the Haandi
- again a reminder of Burns Road and Pakistan Chowk picadillos.
After his return home, Mr Mehmood Sham wrote a poem in Urdu. It deserved to be
shared, says Mr Khalid Hasan, his friend and Washington
correspondent of The Daily Times. So he translated it into English,
a fortunate act by him for people like me who can neither speak or write in Urdu or
Punjabi as good as he does.
The English translation of
Mehmood Sham's Urdu poem is as crispy as the crisp Urdu in which it
is originally written, even though Mr Khalid Hasan does not agree.
He is of course entitled to self-criticism as much as he has been
delightfully mailing out his 'Postcard from USA" every week. But that does
not allow him to so matter of factly underestimate his own
creativity at the cost of garbaging good work.
Having said that, here is Mr Khalid Hasan's English translation of
Mehmood Sham's Urdu poem which has an English title ‘Access to
Information’:
Place all you carry on the floor
Cameras, bags, wallets and your brain
For our expert dogs to sniff
Empty your pockets please of all they contain
No metal should be touching your body
And your heart should be free of negative thoughts
Stand in one line, single-file, all of you
Put your feelings to sleep
A hand-held machine will go over you
It will ferret out any traces of self-respect you might still have
And any camouflaged sense of honor
But wait! what was that sound? A watch or what?
Turn around, raise your arms again
Is that your good sense that we smell?
And, yes, take off those shoes
Step on the bare floor where your honor lies
In our presence, you’ve to stand barefoot
Are there odd ideas in your head?
Well, next time you come, leave all that behind
Your feelings are best left back where you come from
Failing which, the hand-held machine’ll spring to life
And disgorge all that our hidden files contain
“You are all set now, sir.”
Let others be the judge of your work Khalid sahib!
Some years back I dared to pen some of my thoughts poetically.
Here's one:
Must you strut where they sit
Haven't you felt when day retreats
Jhoomkas are jerked away free.
And yesterday saw them
take away you....
My ears stood out like
opened doors of a taxicab.
If it be come to me also....
Will twirl poverty together
in a boiling pot of adventure
Its aroma would be
the day's booty...
A Pakistani-American friend of mine,
Jamil Usman translated it as follows:
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