Our story couldn't have been much different than how it turned out.
We were young,
And in love.

When you proposed to me,
I said "yes" in a heartbeat.
Why wouldn't i?
You were practically the most eligible bachelor in school,
With your good looks,
And a seemingly prosperous future.

It took me about an year to come to terms with my feelings for you.
Before that,
We had a namesake friendship.

My friends used to talk about you all the time.
About how charming you were,
How polite in approach.
They were all secretly envious of how you only had eyes for me.
How smitten you were with me.
I didn't realise it back then,
But it was more with the image of you my friends had created that I fell in love with.

When we were together,
I felt invincible.
In your company,
There was a joy unlike anything I had known.

We had our romantic escapades.
We went for strolls,
Walked hand in hand,
Were often lost in the other's eyes.
It was like any love story,
We took each other's breaths in,
Longing for any accidental touch.

You loved me,
You couldn't stress it enough,
And I believed it.
I believed it with every bone in my body.

Until one day you left me.

You didn't inform me of this new arrangement.
You'd rather I be left in dark.

After the seemingly endless anguish I went through,
I received a letter.

In the letter was a painting,
A painting of the years we had spent together.
But the colours you had painted them in were...unfamiliar.

It read how I took your focus off important things.
How I was the source of your incompetence.
How I made you less happy by the day.
How I had lost all that you had once loved about me.
How I had changed.
Changed irrevocably.
How you knew I'd never be enough.
How I was just an infatuation,
Nothing, Nothing more.

Strange Currents
by Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O Khusrow, the river of love
creates strange currents:
the one who would surface invariably drowns,
while the one who surrenders, survives.

There are a number of translations of this poem, and they all involve some degree of interpretation. I can't claim that my interpretation is "correct" and sometimes poets are intentionally ambiguous. I based my translation on this explanation by Madhu Singh: “Ubhra-Floats: He who floats actually sinks (is lost) & and he who drowns actually reaches the other side (gets salvation).” In other words, one must stop struggling and surrender to the river of love. And this makes more sense to me than some of the other translations do.

###

Becoming One
by Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I have become you, as you have become me;
I am your body, you my Essence.
Now no one can ever say
that you are someone else,
or that I am anything less than your Presence!

###

I Am a Pagan
by Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I am a pagan disciple of love: I need no creeds.
My every vein has become taut, like a tuned wire.
I do not need the Brahman's girdle.
Leave my bedside, ignorant physician!
The only cure for love is the sight of the patient's beloved:
there is no other medicine he needs!
If our boat lacks a pilot, let there be none:
we have god in our midst: we do not fear the sea!
The people say Khusrow worships idols:
True! True! But he does not need other people's approval;
he does not need the world's.

*****-e-ishqam musalmani mara darkaar neest
Har rag-e mun taar gashta hajat-e zunnaar neest;
Az sar-e baaleen-e mun bar khez ay naadaan tabeeb
Dard mand-e ishq ra daroo bajuz deedaar neest;
Nakhuda dar kashti-e maagar nabashad go mubaash
Makhuda daareem mara nakhuda darkaar neest;
Khalq mi goyad ki Khusrau but parasti mi kunad
Aarey aarey mi kunam ba khalq mara kaar neest.

###

Amir Khusrow’s elegy for his mother
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Wherever you shook the dust from your feet
is my relic of paradise!

###

Paradise
by Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

If there is an earthly paradise,
It is here! It is here! It is here!

Amir Khusrow (or Khusro) was born in 1253 A.D. in Patiyala, India, His paternal ancestors belonged to the nomadic tribe of Hazaras. Khusrow called himself an Indian Turk (Turk-e-Hind). He was a Sufi mystic, musician, poet, composer and scholar who wrote in Persian (Farsi) and Hindavi (Hindi-Urdu). Khusrow has been called the “Voice of India” and the “Father of Urdu literature.” He introduced the ghazal to India and made significant contributions to its development. He also wrote in other musical and verse forms, including qawwali, masnavi, qata, rubai, do-baiti and tarkib-band.? Keywords/Tags: Amir Khusrow, Khusro, India, Urdu, Hindi, Farsi, Sufi, ghazal, love

chemical nights
city lights
and the isolation

farming dreams
while they scream
in my head

loneliness eats
and it repeats
in synchronisation

insects crawl
while people talk
in my head

gnarly roads
vapours from smoke
and annihilation

words i write
have already died
in calming insulation

and the rot
has set;

the dark coming down
all over me.

As I lie down on my bed I saw you pushing the half-closed door and entering
You wore a red saree
You are as gorgeous as ever
Sacred like a temple in the dawn
Like a woman who has bathed in night dew
Someone who knows everything about me and yet come to know me from the very beginning
The old door swings in the air
I can see your face as calm as neat as clean
Like the moon outside shining
Let it be cliche, but today it is truly a full moon night
I cannot say what I wanted to say you
Everything has been dusted in time
How do you find the old address of an expatriate?
The yellow envelopes and the red-inked words must have turned blue now
Once I sent within them the clouds
Which kissed you as rain
You in red saree stare at me
Ah! Is it really you?
Or it is all a surreal magic of hallucination
But at that moment you sat beside me on the bed and kissed me deeply
And whisper in my ear
Like a fairy tale told thousand nights ago,
"You still smell the same? And me?"
The last tram of the night goes through
On the empty tracks now lay, love.

Didn't i do right by pretending 'alright'?
Didn't i hold a sea of tears?
Shouldn't you appreciate this art of mine?
Haven't I averted a stormy flood?

Am not i hiding the wounds grave?
Don't i smile amid extreme pain?
Haven't i grown very skillful?
shouldn't you really applause for me?

Isn't it better to bear all alone?
Shouldn't i request them not to bother?
Am not i averting the mockery of my heart?
Don't i recognize the fake sympathies?

Don't my blames hit me straight back?
Didn't i let people spoil it all?
Isn't it maddening to regret all the time?
Haven't i waited for the doubts to grow?