The winner of the 2024 Jawad Memorial Prize for Urdu-English Translation is Insha J Waziri for her translation of “My Journey” by Ali Sardar Jafri. The runner-up is Vinay Rajoria for his translation of Sahir Ludhianvi’s poem “That Dawn Will Surely Come Someday”. The winner will receive a cash prize of Rs 25,000 and a certificate, and the runner-up will get Rs 10,000 and a certificate. The jury has offered a special commendation to “Rise and embrace the right to die” by Habib Jalib, translated by Andleeb Shadani.
The theme in focus for this year was “Resurgence”, as interpreted by poets. The judges were writer Dr Syeda Hameed and translator and literary critic Prof Nishat Zaidi.
Winner: “My Journey” by Ali Sardar Jafri, translated by Insha J Waziri
A day will come yet again
When the flames of your eyes will dim
When the flower in your hands will wither
And every note in your speech will float away
Like butterflies in the wind
At the bottom of a dark sea
Like petals in bloom
Laughing like flowers
All the faces will be lost
The blood circulating in your body
Your beating heart
All music will cease? All melodies will fall asleep And this sparkling diamond
Studded on this velvety blue sky
This my heaven, my land
Its mornings and its nights
Unbeknownst, unfathomable
This handful of dust that is Man
Will cry like falling dew
All will be forgotten
From the beautiful temple of memory
Everything will be removed
Then no one will ask:
Where is ‘Sardar’ in this assembly?
But I will return here
I will speak from the mouth of babes
I will sing like the birds
When the seeds will laugh in the earth
And with their fingers
The buds will tease the layers of soil
Then, with every leaf, every bud
I will open my eyes again
Like scales, my blooming hands
Will weigh the fresh drops of dew
I will become the colour of henna
The music of a ghazal and the style of a poem Like the glowing face of a bride
I will trill through the veil
When the winds of winter’s skirt
Bring forth the death of autumn
From the soles of young wayfarers,
Like dry leaves
My laughter will be heard
Every golden river on earth
Every blue pond in the sky
Will be filled with my existence
And the whole world will see:
Every tale is my story
Every lover is ‘Sardar’Every beloved is ‘Sultana’
I am a fleeting moment
In the magic house of days I am an agonising drop
Forever busy, forever travelling In the heart of the pitcher of the Past In the goblet of the Future
I sleep and I wake
I waken and go back to sleep I am a centuries old game
I die and I become immortal
“[…] This poem was chosen as the winner since this translation not only aligns beautifully with this year’s theme of “Resurgence” [but] also captures the lyrical beauty of the poem in all its poignancy. Jafri’s abundance of phrases, exuberance, natural lyricism, energy, abiding hope, and commitment to life are beautifully rendered into English in this translation,” said the jury about the translation.
Insha J Waziri is a literature student. She has previously translated the short story “Usne Kaha Tha” by Chandradhar Sharma Guleri for the book The Great War published by Bloomsbury India, excerpts of the play “Rang De Basanti” by Bhisham Sahni for the book Jallianwalla Bagh: Literary Responses in Prose and Poetry published by Niyogi Books, and the poem, “There Is This Place…” for the anthology Contagious Tales by the New Weather Institute. She currently works at The Print.
Runner-up: “That Dawn Will Surely Come Someday” by Sahir Ludhianvi, translated by Vinay Rajoria
That dawn will surely come someday.
When the veil of night will slide from the head of these darkened centuries;
When the clouds of sorrow will melt, when the sea of bliss will spill;
When the sky will dance in abandon, when the earth will sing melodies –
That dawn will surely come someday.That dawn for whose sake, for ages, we have lived by dying every day.
That dawn, in whose immortal tunes, we have drunk cups of poison.
On these famished and craving souls, one day it will bestow some grace –
That dawn will surely come someday.I agree that, for now, our desires are worth nothing.
Even dust has some value, but the value of humans is nothing.
When the dignity of humans will not be measured in coins of deceit –
That dawn will surely come someday.When, for wealth, the honour of women will not be sold;
Affection will not be crushed; modesty will not be sold.
On its darkened deeds, when this world will feel ashamed –
That dawn will surely come someday.Someday, these days of hunger and unemployment will pass.
Someday, these idols of crass capitalism will shatter.
When the foundations of a unique world will be laid –
That dawn will surely come someday.When compelled old age no longer strays in the lonely lanes of life;
When innocent boyhood no longer begs in filthy alleys;
That day when those who demand their rights will not be shown the gallows –
That dawn will surely come someday.On the pyres of hunger, one day, humans will not be burned to death;
In the burning hells of our bosoms, aspirations will not be incinerated;
When this wretched world, filthier than hell, is rendered into Heaven –
That dawn will surely come someday.II
That dawn will come from us alone.
When the earth will turn a side, when prisoners will be freed from cages;
When abodes of sin will crumble, when fetters of injustice will break;
We will bring that dawn for sure, that dawn will come from us alone.
That dawn will come from us alone.In the cursed structures of society, when oppression will not be nurtured;
When hands will not be severed, when dignities will not be affronted;
In the absence of prisons, when governments of the world will be run –
That dawn will come from us alone.All the toilers of the world will emerge from fields and mills.
The homeless, displaced, and hopeless will crawl out of their darkened holes.
The world will be festooned with the flowers of peace and pleasure –
That dawn will come from us alone.
The jury chose “That Dawn Will Surely Come Someday” as the runner-up for it seamlessly renders into English, Sahir’s rich evocative imagery and progressive ideals.
Vinay Rajoria is an English prose writer, an academic, and a Hindustani poet. He is currently doing his Master’s in English Literature and Language from Jamia Millia Islamia. His philosophical poems and polemical essays have been published in Muse India, The Daak, CourseHero, Youth Ki Awaz, Live Wire, Amar Ujala, The Jamia Review, and Jamia’s ELA Magazine.
Special commendation: “Rise and embrace the right to die” by Habib Jalib, translated by Andleeb Shadani
The empire has seized our right to live,
Now rise and embrace the right to die
for dying is better than living in disgrace
Perish, or demolish the palace of oppressionThe friends of the empire are our enemies,
They have given us tears and sighs
Pain has been added to pain
every house, every courtyard wails in vain
The enemies have massacred our hopes and dreams,
the enemies have ravaged our garden of hopesHunger and nakedness
It’s all the gift of the empire
Don’t even dare to speak of your suffering to them,
They have taken away our right to live,
Now rise and embrace the right to dieMorning and evening, Palestine bleeds
When has humanity lived
under the shadows of death
Cease this folly, this overt oppression
The society echoes and wailsWhen tyranny rules
where can peace be found, my friends?
Erase this oppression and bring the awaited peace to the land
The empire has taken away our right to live
Now rise and embrace the right to die
Andleeb Shadani is a poet, essayist, and short story writer. His work has appeared or are forthcoming in the EPW, Salt Hill Journal, The Rumpus, OtherwiseMag, CriticalMuslims, The Aleph Review, and The Ex-Puritan among others. He is working on a collection of stories, My House, My Ruins.
