Khuda jannat main hai. haan hai.

Arts & Culture Poetry ( Intikhaab & Sho'ra-e-Gupshup)
1

mujhay jung k baaray kuch nahin kehna hai
kuch bhi aur nahin jorna hai.
mujhay is baat ki sharm hai

jo kuch bhi zindgi main seekha thaa
ab usay choe raha hoon
jaisay registaan panni ko chor deta hai
main un cheezon ko bhool raha hoon
jinnay bhoolnay ka kabhi socha na thaa

aur jung ki wajah se hi
main us seedhay say akhri ras k liyay kehta hoon:
Suraj zammen k chakkar marta hai. haan hai
zameen ek khoee huey tkahtay ki tarah maidaan hai. haan hai.
Khuda jannat main hai. haan hai.

-tr. Ravi Kopra
translated from the following English version:

I have nothing to say about the war, nothing
to add. I’m ashamed.

All the knowledge I’ve absorbed in my life I now
give up, like a desert
that has given up water.
I’m forgetting names that I never thought
I’d forget.

And because of war
I repeat, for the sake of a last, simple, sweetness:
The sun goes around the earth, yes.
The earth is flat as a lost, drifting plank, yes.
There’s a God in Heaven. Yes.

  • Yehuda Amichai
    The original is in Yiddish
2

Re: Khuda jannat main hai. haan hai.

It's not making any sense to me. I must be very dumb. Sorry :(

3

Re: Khuda jannat main hai. haan hai.

Even in the English version?

Yehuda Amichai is an internationally recognised poet whose poetry is mostly in Yiddish. Edward Hersh, a well known English poet from the USA selected this poem to put in his new anthology, the Poet's Choice, that was published last year.

Read the following lines:

The sun goes around the earth, yes.
The earth is flat as a lost, drifting plank, yes.
There's a God in Heaven. Yes.

And think of the ideology/faith of the people who are engaged in war in the middle East.