Kobor (Graves) : The Best Poem Written By Jasimuddin
Satya Sandhani
Here, under the pomegranate tree, is your grandmother's grave;
For thirty years my tears have kept it green.
She was a litte doll-faced girl when she came to my home,
And she wept to be done with the play of her childhood days.
Returned from my travelling once, I suddenly knew
She had been in my thoughts all the time.
Like the dawn her golden face would blind my eyes,
And from that day I lost myself among small joys of hers.
There along that path I'd take the plough to the fields
And, leaving, would turn
For a last look at her to take with me.
How she'd smile, my long-wed sister-in-law, because of this!
When she went to her father's house she said, touching my feet,
'Do not forget to visit me soon at the village of Ujan-toli.'
So when I sold melons at market I saved a few coins
And bought her a necklace of beads, tobacco and toothpowder.
(And what's so funny in that, my lad?)
How happy your grandmother was when she got these small gifts;
If only you could have seen her fingering her nose-ring.
She said, 'You have come after so many days;
I have been waiting in tears,
Watching the path for you,' smiling now.
When we parted for a mere few days you couldn't console her;
I wonder how she sleeps in her grave in this lonely place?
Fold your hands, grandson, and pray:
'Come, oh merciful God,
Let Paradise descend for my grandmother.'
Empty the life I endured when she left me;
Yet it seems each one I embraced here has gone,
Following her to that distant land.
A hundred graves are carved on the stone of my heart;
I get confused counting the number, computing it over and over again.
These wrinkled hands that hold the spade
Have buried so many beloved faces under hard earth
That I have come to love it, press it to my heart.
Come, kneel and pray, grandson;
Perhaps tears will relieve this pain.
Here sleeps your father, and here your mother sleeps:
Still your tears, while I tell you their story.
One April morning my boy called out,
'Father, I cannot go to the fields today.'
I spread out a mat on the floor for him, said 'Sleep, my Son.'
How could I know that this would be his last slumber?
A dean coffin I made him, and as I carried him here
'Where are you taking my father?' you followed crying.
I could not answer, my litde son,
All the words in the world turned away grieving.
Night and day your mother's tears were unceasing,
Clasping your father's yoke and plough in both hands.
For sorrow the leaves fell from the forest trees,
The winds of April wailed in the empty rice-fields;
And villagers passing along that path wiped their eyes.
Even the leaves they trod underfoot crumpled and died.
From their stall the two bullocks regarded the unploughed fields
While your mother clung to their necks with heart-broken sobs
Till it seemed the whole village would drown
In oceans of her weeping.
Perhaps the tears of that lovely girl
Found a path to the land of the dead.
In the morning of her life she longed for evening;
Ah, poor girl, she wove her own shroud with her hands.
Before her death she summoned you to her:
My child, she said, my greatest pain is
Leaving you motherless in this world,
My darling, my jewel, my son.
What blessings she gave you!
Then to me, 'Over my grave hang my husband's wide wicker sun-hat;
It will swing in the wind.'
Long ago that hat fell and mixed with the dust.
But the pain in my heart stiIl cries out
For these two that sleep in the shade.
How lovingly the tree-boughs bend above;
The fire-fly maidens of evening light lamps
And the crickets make music with small bells tinkling.
Fold your hands, grandson and pray: 'O come, eternal God,
Let Paradise descend now for father and mother.'
Here is that fair litde maiden, your sister's grave.
We gave her in marriage to a high-caste merchant's family;
They did not love such a darling girl, they punished her,
Not with blows, but more cruelly, with words.
Message on message she sent me:
Grandfather, come tomorrow,
Take me to the land of my people
For one or two days.
The heardess father-in.law let her come one winter at last;
Her face was pale, a smile no longer bloomed there.
Some days she passed by her parents' grave
Till death's flute called her away, and here I made her grave.
See how softly the grass and forest flowers caress her;
The wild doves sing her litany.
Fold your hands, grandson, and pray:
'Let Paradise descend for my unloved sister.'
Here lies my youngest child of seven years,
A brilliant rainbow bursting the gates of Paradise open.
Who knows what her thoughts were
Losing her mother so young?
When I looked in her face
Your grandmother came to my mind,
And I clasped her to me
While tears washed the colour from the sky.
Returning from market one day
I found her stretched out in the dust
As if she had fallen asleep,
Hugging her doll, tired of play.
The black cobra that bit her
Had slithered away in the bush.
How bitter my tears were, laying my darling to bed in the grave.
Go soft, do not speak, little grandson, lest we wake her.
Slowly, dig slowly, slowly, let me see
How my heaven on earth lies sleeping
Under the black-baked bitter soil.
The warm-coloured sunset has kissed the fields
And great is my desire to hug the earth around me close today.
The call to prayer floats from the mosque;
Let us fold our hands, little grandson, and pray:
O come, eternal God, let Paradise descend for our loved ones.'
Culled from:
Sojan Badiar Ghat (Gipsy Wharf) by Jasimuddin (translated by Barbara
Painter and Yann Lovelock with illustrations by Hashem Khan, published
by George Allen and Unwin Ltd (under UNESCO arrangement), London,1969
SBN: 04 891035 X
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The main theme of kobor poem is a painful life of a Rural elderly. In last part of his life, he revealed his Mournful experience to his grandson.
He described the death of his wife, son, daughter, granddaughter and daughter with painful voice. The elderly is waiting for the last day of his life.
The elderly showing the grave-yards to his grandson and his sad memories of their tragic deaths.
At last the elderly told his grandson tearfully. “Let us fold our hands, little grandson, and pray: O come, eternal God, let Paradise descend for our loved ones.”
In this poem, we learn about the sad true about life. This poem show us how cruel this life is when we lost our family members.
