Quiver – Javed Akhtar

1. My Courtyard, My Tree
2. I Remember That Room
3. Hunger
4. The Journey of a Pawn
5. Before the Riot
6. After the Riot
7. Riddle
8. Perplexity
9. Defeat
10. Dilemma
11. Remains of the Past
12. Time
13. Crossroads
14. My Prayer
15. Crime and Punishment
 My Couryard, My Tree

My courtyard
How wide it was, How vast!
The yard in which
All my games fitted so well.
And in front of that yard stood that tree,
Which was much taller than I.
But
I was sure
That when I grew up
I would manage to touch the top of that tree.
After so many years
I have come back home
And I see how small
My courtyard really is.
But the tree is even taller
Than it was before.

************************************

I Remember That Room

Whenever
I was scorched by the burning sun of life,
Whenever
I grew tired of my own lies and the lies of others,
Fighting with everyone, losing against myself,
I used to go into that room.
That one room with its light and dark brown colours,
That room, kind beyond all bounds,
Which used to tuck me up in its soft sleep
As a mother
Might hide a child in the folds of her dress,
Scolding with love:
'Now what a way to go on!
Wandering about in the midday sun!'
I remember that room,
That heavy, solid wooden door,
Hard to pull open
As if a stern father
In his rugged breast
Had hidden an ocean of tenderness.
That chair
With its twin sister,
Both of them
Were my friends.
That insolent, loud-mouthed mirror,
 Which had a kind heart.
That clumsy wardrobe
Standing in the corner
Like an old nurse
Would reprove the mirror.
The flower vase
Quite tiny,
Very naughty;
Laughing at them both.
The window
Or a knowing smile.
And the creeper, bending over the casement,
Some green whisper.
Books
In the alcoves or on the shelf
Sat like some serious school-ma'am;
But they waited for me
To ask them something.
Pillows,
Companions of slumber;
Remedy for tiredness
That soft-hearted bolster
In whose lap I would rest my head
And gaze at the ceiling.
In the rafters of the roof
No one knows how many tales were begun.
Over the little table
On the facing wall
Hanging pictures
Used to look at me with affection and trust.
They smiled,
Never dreaming that
One day I would depart,
Never to return

The house where I live now

Is very, very fine.
But often I sit here in silence and remember
How that room would talk to me.

************************************

Hunger

My eyes, they opened with the dawn

And once again I was alive.
From the darkness of the stomach
To the haze, which clouds the brain,
A thought came creeping
Like a snake:
Three days today! Three days today!

Silence gathers in the room,

Strangely frozen, not a sound;
Just one ceiling, just one floor,
Just four walls that crowd around.
All seems to be detached from me,
All spectators looking on.
Through the window opposite
The harsh rays of the morning sun
Flood and fall onto my bed,
Sting my face with pointed barbs,
Sharp as my relations' taunts
Hurled against my poverty.
My eyes are open, but today
I am exhausted, Almost dead.
Of all I was a shell remains,
Lying empty
On my bed. My frame reposes
With dead eyes. I search and look
About my room.
Three days today!
Three days today!

In the midday heat I walk

With aimless steps
Along a street,
Along a narrow kind of street;
On both side shops stand in a line.
The only thing I can see
Are board displayed on every shop.
And now I cannot even read them.
People come, and people go,
Passing by me,
But how vague
As if they have no face at all.
The noisy shops
The rough, coarse words,
The jarring sound of radios,
Are echoes coming from afar,
Flooding in from miles around.
All I hear
And all I see
Greets me like some distant dream.
It is, and yet does not exist.
And in the midday heat I walk
With aimless steps
Along a street.
Then at the corner opposite
I see a pipe, I see a tap.
 But why then is the water hard?
Why does it stick inside my throat?
It seems as if a blow is thrust
Against my stomach.
Now I feel that I might faint,
And sweat engulfs my body.
I have no strength left.
Three days today!
Three days today!

All around the darkness swells.

I am alone upon a quay.
Before me there are steps of stone
And I lie down upon the steps,
Unable now to raise myself.
I gaze up to the sky above
Served up upon the sky's vast dish,
The moon is shaped like a chapatti
And now my heavy eyelids droop,
The landscape sinks,
The earth revolves.

Once in my house there was a stove,

And the food was cooked there every day.
Chapatties are like shining gold
And dinner's always piping hot.
My eyes are closing.
Will I die?
And what strange things my mother said,
As every day with her own hand
She used to feed me when she spoke.
Who puts his cold hands on my face?
'One mouthful for the elephant;
Another mouthful for a horse,
One more mouthful for the bear.'
Is this death?
Have I Collapsed?
Whatever, it is just as well.
Death or just unconsciousness.
Whatever, it is just as well.
Three days today!
Three days today!

************************************

The Journey of a Pawn

When he was still quite young

He learnt that if you want to stay alive
You have to be as cunning as you can.
 The board extends as far as the eye can see,
And he is just an ordinary Pawn.
He has to go from square to square, with utmost thought.
The game he played was never easy;
Far and wide, in all directions were deployed
Pawns
Heartless,
Bloodthirsty in the extreme,
Hard, merciless,
And very cunning,
Taking in their control
The entire board;
Intent only upon checkmating him.
Whenever he moved
He encountered
Each new square concealing a new ambush.
But he survived,
He progressed,
One house,
Another house,
A third house.
Sometimes he drew near to others,
Sometimes he moved far away.
But he survived,
He progressed.
Although he was a humble pawn, he won.
And so, one day, he became a great pawn,
Now he is safe within one square;
So safe that let alone his enemies
Not even his friends can approach him.

In one hand he clasps victory.

In the other he clutches loneliness.

************************************

Before the Riot

Today in this city

Why is everyone afraid?
Why
Are faces pale?
In the alleys and lanes
Why is there
Silence in the stupefied air?
And over familiar eyes
Why is there a veil of strangeness?
The city
Is hushed in its chains,
Looking like a fettered criminal.
 Here and there
Someone passes by.
Why is the scene clouded
By the dust of fear?
To earn their evening meal
A few people emerge from their houses;
But why do they turn and look back to their home?
Today
Even in the bazaar
The familiar noise is absent.
Everyone walks as if
The ground was made of glass.
Every glance
Avoids the eyes of others.
Nothing
Can be expressed openly.
Everything seems
To hold its breath.
Today
The city is like a frightened child,
Afraid even of its own shadow.

Look at the calendar.

I think
Perhaps there is some festival today.

************************************

After the Riot

There is a deadly hush,

From some houses rises silent,
Thick black smoke,
It's heart sullied,
Spreading far and wide, engulfing everything.
There is a deadly hush.

The street - lifeless as a corpse.

A broken barrow
Turned upside down,
It wheels in the air,
Gazes at all heavens in amazement,
As if it still cannot believe
What happened.
There is a deadly hush.

A smashed up shop,
Like a mouth wide open
After a scream,
Looks from its broken doors
 And the fragments of bangles
Scattered afar
With longing eyes, thinking
That yesterday these pieces of glass
Were teeth of a myriad colours
In this toothless mouth.
There is a deadly hush.

The silence speaks to the scene around:

'Listen, smashed up shop,
Smouldering house,
Broken barrow!
You are not the only ones;
There are others as well,
Who have been destroyed.
For them also we shall mourn,
But first let us weep for those,
Who came here to loot
And were themselves robbed.
They have no idea
Of what they have lost.
They see little,
For on this age-old civilisation
Those miserable people
Have no view at all.'

************************************

Riddle

The two of us were once just letters.

We met one day
And a word was made.
We found a meaning,
Then something happened.
And now
You are a letter
In one square;
I am a letter
In one square.
In between
How many squares of moments lie empty!
Let us make another word.
And let us find another meaning.
It could be so,
But we have to think
How we can fill those empty squares.

************************************
 Perplexity

Millions of faces
And following them
Millions of faces.
Are these streets or hornets' nests.
The earth is covered with bodies.
No place to walk, no room to squeeze by.
I look at this and think
That I might as well remain
Rooted where I am.
But what can I do?
Because I know
That if I stop,
The crowd behind me
Will trample me under its feet and crush me.
So now, as I walk,
Under my own feet is
Someone's chest,
Someone's arm,
Someone's face.
If I walk on,
I shall oppress others.
If I stop,
I shall suffer oppression
My conscience!
You are so proud of your sense of justice,
So tell me:
What decision have you reached today?

************************************

Defeat

He stands alone upon a high black mound and hears

The echoes in the air, the voice of his defeat.
Before his eyes
The battlefield spread out.
His valiant dreams are crushed and wounded bodies lie
Scattered, tossed around the field
On every side.
So many dead!
And those, who still have some breath left
Are sobbing,
Waiting for the hand of death to strike.
These are his dreams,
This is his army,
Stalwart men;
They left their homes, and on their way took many lands,
So many overweening royal heads they bowed,
 And ramparts crumbled, fell, submitting at their feet.
All they had to do was arrive
And quaking, shuddering gates
Were opened
Of every fort,
Of every palace
In those days every sight brought pleasure to their eyes.
The earth was bathed in gold,
The sky was clothed in blue.
But in this regiment of dreams who could have known
that every story, every fable has its end?
Let victory be heralded a thousand times,
But there always be a moment of defeat.
Far off like swarming ants
The enemy amassed.
He sees
They summon reinforcements to their side.
These hunters have come out to stalk their awesome prey.
The earth cries out:
'The siege is near and closing in!'
The winds call:
'Now the time has come to sound retreat.'
But there was never any plan of turning back.
As he advanced, he never gave a thought to this.
He looks around.
Before him is the open sea,
And nothing on the shore
Except a heap of dust.
That was his ship,
Which yesterday he put to flame.

The shouts of murderers draw nearer, ever close.

He stands alone upon a high black mound and hears...

************************************

Dilemma

Perhaps I should forget you.

This is now the proper thing to do.
But even if I wish to erase you from my mind,
Then how can I forget?
After all you are real,
Not just a dream.
That's how I feel.
What can I say?
Damn it!
I could never forget
Those events that never were;
That idea, that one idea
 Which was never expressed;
That word, that one word
Which I could not say to you;
That relationship
Which never existed between you and me.
I remember all those things
Which never happened.

************************************

Remains of the Past

A half-preserved stone statue,

A few old copper coins,
Mysterious jewels of blackened silver,
Some broken plates of brass
Were found in a desert
Under the ground.
People say that centuries ago,
Where the desert stand today,
There used to be a city.
And I imagine
That on some festive occasion,
In some assembly,
I come face to face with you even today.
For a moment,
Just for a second,
The fire of your body,
A fleeting glance,
The rustling of your clothes,
The perfume of your hair,
Sometimes in carelessness,
The delicate flower of your touch.
And once more that rolling desert,
That desert, where
Once upon a time
A city stood.

************************************

Time

What is time?
What is this thing that goes on without pause?
If it did not pass,
Then where could it have been?
It must have been somewhere.
It has passed.
So where is it now?
It must be somewhere.
 Where did it come from? Where did it go?
Where did the process start? Where will it end?
What is time?

These events
Incidents
Conflicts
Every grief
Every joy
Every torment
Every pleasure
Every smile
Every tear
Every song
Every scent,
It may be the pain of a wound
Or the magic of a tender touch,
Or lonely voice or cries around;
Success and failures assailing the mind;
The upheavals of care, the tumult of the heart.
All feelings
All emotions
Are like leaves
Floating on the surface of the water.
As they swim along
Now here,
Now there,
And now they disappear,
Gone from site, but
There must be something
Flowing along.
What is this river?
What hills has it come from?
To what sea is it going?
What is time?

Sometimes I think
When I see trees from a moving train,
It seems
They go in the opposite way.
But in reality
The trees are standing still.
So can it be
That all our centuries,
Row upon row, are standing still?
Can it be that time is fixed,
And we alone are in motion?
Can it be that in this one moment
All moments,
All centuries are hidden?
 No future
No past.
What has gone by
Is happening now.
I think -
Can it be possible
That this is true,
That we are in motion?
We pass by,
And what we imagine
Is moving
Is really motionless.
Moving, not moving?
Whole or divided?
Is it frozen,
Or is it melting?
Who knows?
Who can guess?
What is time?

This glorious universe

It seems
Even today is not content
With all its glory.
At every moment
It becomes wider and more vast.
It stretches out its arms
And with its fingers like galaxies
Touches other parts of space.
If this is true,
Outside the bounds of all we can imagine
Somewhere there will certainly be a part of space,
Which
So far it has not touched
With its fingers like galaxies,
Where nothing has happened.
A part of space,
Which has not heard the Creator's command,
'Be!'
Where God does not yet exist.
And in that place
There will be no time
One day
This glorious universe will reach
This untouched part of space.
And then with its whole existence
It will cry:
'Be!'
Time will be born there also.
If there is birth, then there is death.
 I think
It is not true
That time has no end and no beginning.
The thread is very long
But
Somewhere the thread will have an end.
Now mankind is confused
Because it was born in this cage of time.
It was brought up and raised here.
But now man has discovered
That outside the cage of time
There lies another part of space.
So he thinks,
He asks,
What is time?

************************************

Crossroads

For my daughter Zoya

Life is not a road,
Life is a crossroads.

The first path is very easy

It has no turn.
This path
Is not separate from the world.
On this path you find
Courtyards of rules.
On this path you find
Bonds of relationships.
But those who tread this path
Find all their pleasures in name alone.
They fall to pieces
And are divided amongst all those ties.
Nothing is left for them.
All that is left
Is confusion without name.
All that is left
Is fuel of the breath.
In which their sense of self and
All their dreams burn and go out.
those who take this path
Lose themselves to please the world
On the surface they live;
Inside they die.

The second path

Is very hard.
 On this path
No one goes with another.
No one lends a hand to give support.
On this path
There is scorching sun;
There is no shade
Where on consoles another with charity.
On this path
There is no such village.
This is the path of those
Who travel towards themselves,
Who discover their own true self.
Take this path.

I know
This path is not easy.
But one thing saddens me:
So far
You have not found yourself.

************************************

My Prayer

In the deep oceans of space

If somewhere there is an island
Where someone is breathing
Where some heart is beating
Where the intelligence has drunk from the cup of knowledge,
Those who can dwell there
Will come over the deep oceans of space
And moor their ships
And discover some other island
Where someone is breathing
Where some heart is beating

It is my prayer
That the colour of the bodies
Of those who dwell on that island,
Should be different from the colours of the bodies
Of the inhabitants of this island;
The shape of their bodies should be different from ours
Their form and looks should be different from ours.

It is my prayer
That if they have a religion
Then it should be different
From the religion of this island.

It is my prayer
That, having crossed the deep oceans of space,
One day
The mariners of that strange race
In their cosmic fleet
Should come to this island.
And we shall be their host.
We shall look at them in amazement.
They will come to us
An tell us in signs
That we look so different from them
But it seems to them
that the dwellers of our island
All look the same.

It is my prayer
That the dwellers of this island
Will believe what the strange race says.

************************************

Crime and Punishment

Yes, I am a sinner.
Let the court punish me accordingly.
I stand before you.

I confess
That one day
I put myself for auction,
And of my own free will
In the marketplace I made it public.
I even obtained a good price
But I was dishonest in my trading.
I mean
I kept a few dreams back.
I thought
Who has the time
To search my soul and my heart
I thought
Who will know?
How naive I was!
Can dreams be hidden?
Can light
Be concealed in a clenched fist.
The inevitable came about.
I stand before you.
Let the court punish me accordingly.
I am prepared for your decision.
Yes, I have sinned.
 The court reached its decision:
'All your dreams
Are no longer your property, Criminal!
All the journeys of your fancy
The flight of your heart,
The songs of the blood flowing through your body,
The instruments of your soul,
The power of hearing, your voice
Are no longer your property, Criminal!
The tales of lovers' meeting,
The book of separation's sorrow,
The flowers of your memories,
Your feelings,
All that you can think and see,
All your moments,
Night and day, evening and morning
Are no longer your property, Criminal!
Those who bought from you now have their justice.
And now the punishment:
You are not allow to die.
You are condemned to live!'

************************************