بنتِ حوّا

[vc_row full_width=”” par­al­lax=”” parallax_image=“”][vc_column width=“1/1”][vc_column_text css_animation=“”]Dr. Sar­wat Zahra inspires me at sev­er­al lev­els: she is a ded­i­cat­ed, com­mit­ted and expe­ri­enced Emer­gency  Room physi­cian at a very busy hos­pi­tal, and she stands between life and death try­ing to help very sick patients lit­er­al­ly every day and night; she is a moth­er of two very beau­ti­ful and intel­li­gent chil­dren who have great per­son­al­i­ties to reflect Dr. Sar­wat’ s avail­abil­i­ty and nur­tur­ing moth­er­ing; she is an accom­plished poet­ess with two great poet­ry books to her cred­it, as she is equal­ly known in India and Pak­istan and abroad, not only in UAE but also in entire Mid­dle East, Europe and now even in North Amer­i­ca. I am total­ly puz­zled to see how she bal­ances all these three pil­lars of her life- work, home and lit­er­a­ture.  In my opin­ion, she is an ulti­mate role mod­el for a mod­ern woman who is accom­plished at so many dif­fer­ent lev­els and still strives for the best. Her style of poet­ry impress­es me the most as she does not com­pro­mise her thoughts or ideas in the con­forms of styles and forms. I find her most true and hon­est at her writ­ing table. She is will­ing to write the bit­ter truth about life no mat­ter how hard it sounds to the soci­ety and how dis­turb­ing it is for the sta­tus quo. She chal­lenges every injus­tice in our soci­ety and demands equal right for her­self as a human being with­out any con­ces­sion for her gen­der. Her poet­ry sounds like a resis­tance ask­ing for a change and does not sound like a polit­i­cal slo­gan ask­ing just for atten­tion. I am con­vinced that her poet­ry should reach out to oth­ers who can­not read or write Urdu. India is a prime exam­ple of a mul­ti­lin­gual world we live in. Once trans­lat­ed or trans-cre­at­ed into Eng­lish we cross the lan­guage bar­ri­er not only in the East but also reach out to our fel­low human beings in the West. Lan­guage should not be a rea­son to restrict any idea, it should just be a tool for us to com­mu­ni­cate.

(I am a psy­chi­a­trist, liv­ing, teach­ing and prac­tic­ing psy­chi­a­try in Vir­ginia, USA, for the last 22 years. I enjoy Indi­an clas­si­cal music and read­ing and writ­ing poet­ry. Hav­ing book (Becom­ing a psy­chother­a­pist)   Recent­ly, with friends, I have start­ed a web-based group, called ‘Lit­er­ary Forum of North Amer­i­ca’ which has almost 280 mem­bers from nine dif­fer­ent coun­tries. The focus of the forum is to pro­mote lit­er­a­ture in Urdu as well as Eng­lish, includ­ing trans­la­tions

Dr Rizwan ali .Translator)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”” par­al­lax=”” parallax_image=“”][vc_column width=“1/2”][vc_column_text css_animation=”” css=”.vc_custom_1475943083005{background-color: #e0e0e0 !impor­tant;}”]

Eve’s daugh­ter

I am Eve’s daugh­ter, that’s my crime.

On top of that—poetry!—the great­est crime.

I am not a spec­ta­cle. I must speak my mind.

I can think, so I should be hanged!

My every word, every cry is a crime.

On top of that—poetry!—the great­est crime.

I’m a woman, so why should I have feel­ings?

Why be alive? I just meet a need.

This insight itself is a crime.

On top of that—poetry!—the great­est crime.

If my hem catch­es fire I must stay qui­et.

Always, I bear injus­tice and must stay qui­et.

If I open my mouth it’s a crime.

On top of that—poetry!—the great­est crime.

I must lock my feel­ings away in my heart’s prison.

How dare I insult you!

Even to utter your name is a crime,

On top of that—poetry!—the great­est crime.

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Image: Lin Tianmiao[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]