Poetic Renditions
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Making a Fist
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Translated into Urdu
by Sukhan, Iqra Khan,
Taran Khan, and Asad Hussain
Introduction by Iraj Toosy
A rendition of a work focuses on conveying its essence while a translation of it focuses on accurately conveying the originally intended meaning. There’s a fine line between the two, and you may find a bit of both as you read each piece in this section, where different poets from around the world offer their version of the same poem in a new language. Together, they are a celebration of the original work.
Making a Fist
by Naomi Shihab Nye
We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men.
—Jorge Luis Borges
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.
Years later I smile to think of that journey,
– Naomi Shihab Nye, “Making a Fist” from Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab American Poetry. Copyright © 1988 by University of Utah Press. Reprinted by permission of Naomi Shihab Nye.
In ‘Making a Fist’ (1988), Naomi Shihab Nye recalls the time she was seven years old, on the road north to Tampico (Mexico). Nye recalls feeling as if life was sliding out of her. The young girl believes she has had a taste of death. Soon after, she asks her mother how someone could tell if they were going to die. The central theme appears to be the mother’s striking response to her child’s bleak question: ‘When you can no longer make a fist.’
The fist is an expression of solidarity, typically in defiance of oppression. A common, yet limited, image of a fist is a single hand clenched up into the air. The gesture acknowledges resistance against oppression and symbolizes one’s courage and resilience in that resistance. But Nye’s fist is a universal one. Everyone makes it and must make it in their everyday lives. It is a sign of perseverance, of life’s peculiarity and of persistence. It is a gesture suited even to a child and anyone who has kept their feet firm on the ground, withstanding the sandstorm called life. Furthermore, the diction of the poem is acutely reminiscent of migration including words like ‘journey’, ‘borders’, and ‘cross’, perhaps keeping in mind the political nature of the fist or owing to Nye’s identity as the daughter of a Palestinian father.
The difference of approach and overall distinctness in the Urdu translations is made visible in a number of challenging and crucial lines. For line three “a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear” all of the translators translate the word ‘desert’ in ways that are distinct from one another. Sukhan selects the word دشت whilst Iqra uses بیاباں preserving the desolate nature of a desert. Meanwhile, Asad Hussain and Taran Khan pick the simpler word sehra or صحرا. Interestingly, the phrase ‘harder and harder to hear’ is translated in an even more versatile fashion. The most compelling of questions, found in line seven, ‘How do you know if you are going to die?’ is grappled with in variable lengths. Sukhan retains the intriguing tone with یہ کیسے معلوم ہوگا کہ تم مرنے والے ہو؟ . Iqra Khan keeps the child-like curiosity with ہم کیسے جان پاتے ہیں کہ ہم مرنے والے ہیں؟ while Asad and Taran hold onto the line’s beauty and innocence with ‘Kaise samjhen ki maut door nahin?’
Sukhan’s approach at translation focuses particularly on the language of the poem. He gauges that it took considerable effort to select certain words that could reflect the poem’s meaning. Resultantly, his piece is a translation that is experimental in word-play and vocabulary, which is used to retain aesthetic harmony within the piece, while also creating rhyme, flow and movement.
Iqra Khan notes the poem’s ability to convey ordinary life. She feels that the essence of the poem, for one to be held onto, is its dual texture. Hence, her translation grapples with the poem’s everyday-ness and renders its context with careful precision. Khan is cautious to preserve Nye’s simple imagery, that of a little girl inside a car, against the backdrop of large, looming and existential questions, including questions about death.
Asad and Taran see their translation process as a path leaning into the meaning of the poem. They choose to bend their attentions towards the poem’s imagery and rhythm. On this journey, they find that at times literal translation, alone, cannot be reflective of the original poem. It could even pose as a barrier to comprehension in some circumstances. Through many tweaks, revisions and a shift from literality to implied meaning, the result is a collaborative translation that is concise, measured and saturated with emotion.
مُٹھی بنانا
پہلی دفع شمالی ٹمپیکو میں سفر کرتے ہوئے
مجھے اپنی زندگی لافانی دنیا میں پھسلتی ہوئی محسوس ہوئی
جیسے کہ ایک ڈھول دشت میں، بتدریج رُکتا ہوا
سات برس کی میں، گاڑی کی پچھلی سیٹ سے نظارہ کر رہی تھی
کھجور کے درختوں کو ایک گورکھ دھندا بنتے ہوئے شیشے پر
پیٹ میرا سراسیمہ، فکر سے بھرا ہوا
“یہ کیسے معلوم ہوگا کہ تم مرنے والے ہو؟”
میں نے اپنی ماں سے دریافت کیا
ہم کافی دنوں سے سفر میں تھے
ایک عجب پُراعتمادی سے انہوں نے کہا
جب تم اپنے ہاتھ کو مُٹّھی نہ بنا سکو
برسوں بعد میں اُس سفر کو سوچ کر مُسکراتی ہوں
وہ سرحدیں جن کو ہم نے خود پار کرنا ہے
ناقابل تردید روگ کے ٹھپے لئے
میں جو فنا نہیں ہوئی، ابھی بھی حیات ہوں
ابھی اپنے سوالوں کے جھرمٹ کے پیچھے لیٹی ہوئی
ایک چھوٹے سے ہاتھ سے مُٹّھی کھولتے اور بند کرتے ہوئے
§
Translation is a task I rarely undertake, for it is an art distinct from crafting a poem or making a new narrative. To masterfully convey the true essence of a work in a new language is a laborious task, often underappreciated. Initially, I thought about whether I could effectively translate the sentiments, meanings, and reflections of Naomi into Urdu. Urdu, a language both resilient and adaptable, assimilates words from diverse sources as its own. Thus, while finding suitable equivalents may not be burdensome, maintaining the aesthetic qualities of poetic expression is crucial. It took considerable effort to select words that not only mirrored the original meaning but also harmonised aesthetically within the poem. Naomi’s verse delves into themes of life’s fragility, courage, and resilience, eloquently conveyed through her adept use of symbolism and simile. I tried my best to uphold the integrity of these themes in my translation, striving to capture their essence with conviction. I trust that my efforts have done justice to the original work.
مُٹّھی بنانا
ہم بھول جاتے ہیں کہ ہم سب مردے ہیں، مردوں سے گفتگو کر رہے ہیں۔
پہلی دفعہ، ٹیمپیکو کے شمال جانے والی سڑک پر
،میں نے اپنی جان کو پھسلتا محسوس کیا
بیاباں میں ڈھول، جس کو سننا مشکل سے مشکل تر ہو جائے۔
میں سات برس کی تھی، کار میں لیٹی ہوئی
،دیکھ رہی تھی کھڑکی کے پار تاڑ کے درختوں کے چکرا دینے والے بھنور
میری چمڑی کے نیچے میرا پیٹ، اک چاک کیا ہوا خربوزہ۔
“ہم کیسے جان پاتے ہیں کہ ہم مرنے والے ہیں؟”
میں نے اپنی ماں سے ضد کی۔
ہم کئی روز سے سفر میں تھے۔
،ایک عجیب یقین سے انہوں نے جواب دیا
“جب ہم مُٹّھی نہ بنا سکیں۔”
،برسوں بعد میں اس سفر کو یاد کر کے مسکراتی ہوں
،وہ سرحدیں جو ہمیں علیحدہ ہی پار کرنا ہونگی
ہمارے لاجواب غموں کی مہر سے نشان زد۔
،میں جو نہیں مری، جو اب بھی زندہ ہوں
،اب بھی لیٹی ہوں بیکسیٹ پر اپنے تمام سوالات کے پیچھے
ایک چھوٹی سی ہتھیلی کو بھینچتی، کھولتی۔
§
In my attempt to translate ‘Making a Fist’, I hope to capture the poem’s delicate balance of everyday-ness entwined with cosmic anxieties. The essence to be preserved is the texture that comes from the simplicity of its imagery placed against the largeness of its ambition, a charged interface of innocence approaching a tender rupture. Its brief utterances aspire towards grandiosity of thought, and I hope to retain this balance of apparent stillness holding within itself, large movement— like a child in the backseat of a car, and the passage of time and place.
Mutthi Baandhna
Hum bhool jaate hain ki hum sab murde hain, murdon se guftagoo mein gum
– Jorge Luis Borges
Tampico se shumaal ki sadak pe pehli baar
Maine apni jaan ko jaate dekha,
Sehra mein ek saaz, uski har pal doobti awaz.
Saat baras ki main, gaadi mein neem daraaz
Sheeshe ke us paar dekhti khajoor ke pedon ka udaas raqs.
Meri jild mein qaid mera pet jaise chaak chaak tarbooz.
“Kaise samjhen ki maut door nahin?”
Maine minnat kee apni ma se.
Hum dinon se safar pe the.
Ek anokha etmaad tha unke jawab mein,
“Jab tum apni mutthi na baandh sako.”
Barson baad us safar ki yaad pe muskurati hoon main,
Sarhaden jo humein akele paar karni hain,
Apne be-jawab ranjon ki muhar lagaaye.
Main jo mari nahin, jo zinda hoon ab bhi,
Ab bhi pichhli seat pe sawaalon ke peechhe chhipi,
Apni nanhi hatheli ko kholti aur baandhti.
§
We began by translating the words literally. In this process, each line was laid on the page as a path into the meaning of the poem, as a way of finding our way into its rhythm and imagery. Over several renditions we moved towards a language that replicated the emotion of the child, and the poet recalling her seven-year-old self.
A few lines were more challenging than others.
A drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
We spent some time going back and forth over this, particularly over the word drum, which should have been translated as dhol. ‘Harder and harder to hear’, in Urdu, would be a receding dhaap. But we ended up using ‘doobti awaaz’ for this phrase, to maintain the emotion of the original. Which didn’t work with the word dhaap, or even with dhol ki awaz. So we so changed dhol to saaz, an instrument.
Then there was
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.
We opted to say chaak chaak tarbooz for a melon split wide. The repetition of chaak, or split, made it seem more painful, more urgent.
“How do you know if you are going to die?”
We came back to this line repeatedly, turning it over and over on the page. The literal translation was not conveying the beauty of the question, its innocence and its vitality. We opted for a less literal translation, that broke the meter of the rhyme in the next line.
Then, on to
With strange confidence she answered
We took strange to be meaning ‘unusual’. While ‘strange confidence’ worked in English, anokha etmaad, we felt, was closer to the sentiment in Urdu.
stamped with our unanswerable woes
This line too went through several revisions, and its beauty remained elusive. We had translated ‘unanswerable’ as lajawab initially. But then in Urdu we often use lajawab as meaning something extraordinary, synonymous with zabardast. And that usage was interfering with the meaning here. That’s why we opted for bejawab.
Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she later received her BA in English and world religions from Trinity University.
Nye is the author of numerous books of poems, most recently Cast Away: Poems for Our Time (Greenwillow Books, 2020). Her other books of poetry include The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, 2019); Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (Greenwillow Books, 2018); Transfer (BOA Editions, 2011); You and Yours (BOA Editions, 2005), which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award; and 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Greenwillow Books, 2002), a collection of new and selected poems about the Middle East. She is also the author of several books of poetry and fiction for children, including Habibi (Simon Pulse, 1997), for which she received the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award in 1998.
Iraj Toosy is a 19 year old student from Lahore, Pakistan. She likes to write in her spare time.
Pirzada Asjal Alvi, known by his takhallus Sukhan, is a Computer Science postgraduate from NUST with a deep connection to Karachi’s mushaira circuit. His familial lineage, steeped in Urdu, Persian, and Arabic proficiency, ignited his passion, further fuelled by the inspiration drawn from figures like Saleem Ahmad and Maulvi Muhammad Yahya Tanha. Qawwali, urs celebrations, and narratives of migration are an important part of his artistic expression. Drawing from the poetic legacy of luminaries such as Daagh, Kaleem Aajiz, Habib Jalib, Suroor Barabankvi, Khumar Barabankvi, and Pirzada Qasim, he integrates their philosophies into his compositions. In English literature, he delves into the realms of gore and mystery fiction. His literary prowess has garnered recognition from Teen Vogue and BBC World.
Iqra Khan is a Pushcart-nominated poet, activist, and lawyer. She is the winner of the 2024 Disquiet Prize in poetry and the Frontier Global Poetry Prize 2022. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, Southeast Review, Adroit Journal, Swamp Pink, The Common, The Rumpus, Malahat Review, Apogee, Four Way Review, HAD, Palette Poetry, Baltimore Review, among others. Her work is centred around collective nostalgia and the aspirations of her endangered community.
Asad Hussain writes for films and theatre, and has translated several plays into Hindustani.
Taran N Khan is a non fiction writer and the author of Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul.