The Audacity of Hope

Yesterday India and Pakistan finally signed the much-awaited liberalised visa regime, which could set the stage for people from both sides to be able to meet and visit each other without being made to feel like suspected terrorists. True, the tortuous history of Indo-Pak relations is littered with false starts and shattered dreams; but hope springs eternal in the human breast...

When one experiences a rare moment of hopefulness, or optimism, or joy, one naturally wishes to try and somehow capture that ephemeral feeling, to hold on to it, to pin it down before its inevitable and all-too-swift departure. One wishes for something like Dumbledore's pensieve, to be able to bottle up and preserve forever cherished memories and experiences, to be able to relive them again and again. This world of ours may not have pensieves (yet); but it has its own forms of magic, one of which is poetry. Poetry, too, is a means of attempting to encapsulate for posterity those fleeting thoughts and emotions which make us human. Thus the laboured justification for my desire to recall a little item of Urdu verse I jotted down at the time this visa regime was first proposed. Not that my crude lines can be claimed to possess any magical qualities; but here goes anyway (including Devanagari transliteration and a rough English gloss):

سرحد کے اس پار سے کچھ پکار آئ ہے
لمبی شبِ یاس کے بعد شاید سحر آئ ہے

پنجاب و سندھ و خیبر و گلگت میں آ رہا ہوں
بڑی جستجو کے بعد منزل شاید پاس آئ ہے

सरहद के उस पार से, कुछ पुकार आई है
लम्बी शब-ए-यास के बाद, शायद सहर आई है

पंजाब-ओ-सिंध-ओ-ख़ैबर-ओ-गिलगित, मैं आ रहा हूँ
बड़ी जुस्तजू के बाद, मंज़िल शायद पास आई है

From beyond yonder border, some voice calls out to me;
After the long despairing night, maybe the day has dawned

Punjab and Sindh and Khyber and Gilgit, I'm on my way;
After the long hard quest, maybe the destination approaches