Gulzar’s Ek Tha Bachpan
Gulzar translated
from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates
“Once there was Childhood”
A fleeting fellowship midst childhood
Once there was a childhood
In that childhood there was a forbearer
An exceptional, authentic father
Amidst us there existed a very beautiful bond
Once when there was childhood.
When flowers adorning distant branches called me forth
My hands unable to reach a single sapling supplement
He would pick me up, enabling these two palms, tiny then
To shake hands with the blooms of trees way back when
Once when there was childhood.
Walking, walking, walking, walking on those paths
In the present-day
Don’t know when Father alighted on the embrace of my childhood
Those flowers remain locked inside my closed fists,
desiccated
He remains imprisoned within that grasp of desiccated
flowers
The fragrance of my life then, my father is my ambition to
live now
His voice still echoes in resonance from my lips
And the faith of his return upon my breath
Don’t know upon which turn we will meet
He will inquire into whether I still remember my childhood
He will ask me, “Do you still possess a perception of childhood?”
Gulzar translated
from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates
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