Lahore Street Scene

I bet the driver of the `car who honked is Mr. Fizz who believes ,``...I don`t think a child on the street ever gets `terrified` by a car...``

Fizza: Dont feel bad - you in fact hit upon the precise point I am trying to make in the poem. That is, just as ``thats the way it is`` for the girl, similarly the rest of us in society (i.e. the better-off people) have become inured to the daily miseries that poverty brings upon Pakistanis. And that is why I had added the third stanza (that some people had complained about in some of the posts below as being redundant) - to remind us that while ``thats the way it is``, thats NOT the way it should be.

urstruly: Thanks for your comments and glad you liked it. I chose the ``free verse`` route for this poem (perfectly acceptable method of course) because I felt it more appropriate in terms of tailoring the wording in each stanza to the situation. But no doubt, it could have been written in rhyming words.

Re: # 27

Oops! I know why you`d think that. I feel bad about making an impression of an insensitive zombie.

I`d like to recover by emphasizing (again) that if a girl is on the streets 24/7, she wouldn`t get `terrified` by a car. She could be immune to cars suddenly appearing on her way; not the poverty she`s surviving through.

The idea of the poem is compassionate, the wordings don`t reflect that strongly.

After all, poetry is about awakening what`s dormant within the reader.

not bad; would have been much better if it rhymed. See what difference the first stanza makes.

rahul_capri:20

You have it. You got it.

there are also some other subtle points which no amount of `higher-education` can muster. Either in writing or in understanding poetry.

he was a natural.

I am delighted & impressed to know that you read insha--in that `other` script. Urdu is safe!

``hUm iss dil kay mehram tehray, yeh kisi Misr kaa zinDaaN thhaa
Lekin kUl kyaa baat thhe jaanay, kUl yeh qasr chraaGHaaN thhaa

aisaa vaisa noor thhaa iss meiN, noor bhhee noor-e kinaaN thhaa
chaanD sitaaray dUr kay vaali, Khwaja-e bRq jo durbaaN thhaa
....................................................................................................................................
Jaan miri, kUl kaun khaRRa thha, dUr pay tiray kshkoal b`dUst
yaa bsray kaa vaali thha vo, yaa Dilli kaa sultaan thhaa

Mulla jee taadeeb krO, kuchh upnay br`khurdaaroaN kee
kUl bhhee Quais miyaaN kay bUr meiN, Inshaa jee kaa DeevaaN thha.

w`salaam.

epiphany #25: you write ``But the most important and significant reason is that the government (with the exception of the leadership of the Quaid or the present guard) never cared for the people.``

I basically agree with you, although I dont think there is any particular reason to consider some pakistani leaders to be significantly more caring for the lives of the poor people than others. After all, Bhutto too raised the slogan of ``roti, kapra aur makaan`` and that was the only time I saw poor people in Pakistan get really excited about politics. And even he let them down badly by ruining Pakistan`s economy by nationalizing banks (which was more to give more power to himself as government leader, than for any particular concern for the poor) and by bad mouthing the entrepreneurs.

you write ``If you have a plan behind your poem, tell me and you will find me standing next to you to sharpen your plan and put it in action. ``

Unfortunately there is no magic bullet to ending poverty. I will say that I spent a career in a major international development agency spanning 25 years, and so have learnt a few things on what works and what does not.

First, what works:

1. Respect for the innate abilities of the poor: the Grameen Bank is a shining example of this, where one man entrusted the poor with loans - and the poor made a life for themselves and proved to be excellent credit risks. Thus starting the micro-credit revolution. So: if you are pakistan based, you can look into this further and participate in some manner to the microcredit operations in Pakistan.

2. Patience: a child takes a long time to be educated and matured into a productive adult. So, dont look for immediate returns or quick fixes. So: again you can participate in one of the many organizations that promote education for children (real, not madrassah, education, btw). My favorites are DIL (Developments in Literacy) and SOS (orphanages, where children receive not just an education, but also a ``house mother`` for every 5-6 children).

What does NOT work:

1. Government: They are hopeless. They are ``sahab logs`` with a miserable attitude. Stay away from any government run ``initiative``.

Fizza: I am not sure why you say that. For some reason your remark reminds me of a nice young lady in the Pickwick Papers (19th century novel by Dickens) who says that she understands that the poor dont feel the cold when they sleep in the streets, and that they dont feel the pain when they get whipped.

kamath: thanks for reading, and appreciate your comments. It is true that such sad scenes are to be found not just in Pakistan, but in developing countries all over the world. If one looks at these children at reflects on the fact that ``There, but for the Grace of God, goes my own child``, the true horror (hope the word ``horror`` does not sound too dramatic, but that is what it is) of a young child laboring in the streets for her evening meal strikes home.

Tauheed Ahmed,

To beg for money is also, most largely, an institution in Pakistan created and propagated by many reasons chiefly civic helplessness and civil ignorance and arrogance.

Tell some stiff collar in Islamabad to curb this problem, and the most popular response you`ll get is, ``This is not included in my list of duties to be performed.``

So I have to ask, ``Now if the innocence of poor children be ravaged, who is responsible?``

There are many reasons, collosal number of theories for this: one being that the father of these little ones may be a drug addict who as a `living dead` relies on income by the family to sustain his habit; The mother of these children may then work at a home as an aid of sorts while the children may beg or steal or worse ... learn to rob at gunpoint.

But the most important and significant reason is that the government (with the exception of the leadership of the Quaid or the present guard) never cared for the people.

Eradicate poverty from Pakistan and the world. But start at Pakistan. For as the famous proverb goes: Charity begins at home.

If you have a plan behind your poem, tell me and you will find me standing next to you to sharpen your plan and put it in action.

Otherwise, if you wrote an emotional poem to the fancy of the hoi polloi, you will always find stangers who will venture forth in hoards and hoards to work together on perfecting the scansion to make it an immortal verse.

Peace!

I don`t think a child on the street ever gets `terrified` by a car.

Sad little poem with such a compassion for the unfortunate.

It is no different elsewhere too. It is the same story like hers in Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta, Bangkok and Manila too.

Lyalpur2Del, Rahul_Capri, drlokraj, hamidm: Thanks for your appreciation.

hamidm/Lyalpur2Del: The third stanza could be taken out, I agree, without loss of meaning. As I mentioned to mr. t, I had originally taken it out, then stuck it back in out of concern that the point being made in the final stanza may not be too obvious. Obviously I underestimated the subtelty of people on chowk. :-)

Anyway, while fellows like me can only write about it, the real tragedy of seeing young lives doomed to going waste can be seen everyday in Pakistan in everyday scenes. With a tiny fraction of the amount that nations spend on armaments, this girl (and millions like her) could have turned out to be a competent professional or even a brilliant scientist and we would all have been better off as a result.

simple
to the point
thought provoking
yet poetic

echoboom, #17, In my amateur opinion, the recurrence of the `t` syllable in both lines makes it more phonetically correct.I would like to hear ur comment on this.

good job, tahmed ....... since i was introduced to billy collins by ms saminasha, i have rediscovered poetry ....... temporal does have a point about the third stanza - the poem does have more impact without it............

#5 by dl
i agree with you on that. many helpless childern bear more helpless children.

rahul_capri:16
Disturbing is the right word.

I c&Pd it but just discovered that it has three errors . From my memory I knew the two words which should be there. So you find them here in bold `corrected` (and as written by the poet.)

With your shairee-mizaaj, you`ll soon know why.


Once riding through old Baltimore
Heart-filled, head filled with glee
I saw a Baltimorian
who kept looking straight at me

Now I was eight and very small
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue and called me ``Nigger``

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December
But of all the things that happened there
That`s all that I remember

tahmed, good poem. Stoic and poignant.
echoboom, #7, That was very disturbing and touching,Thanks.
I am reminded of a nazm by the great Ibn-e-insha -``ye bachcha kiska bachcha hai``.
He proclaims with an innocent finality- ``Is jag me sab kuch rab ka hai, jo rab ka hai wo sab ka hai``` And from another nazm- ``Narasaee ka ab jee me dhaRka kahan, par wo chhota sa alhaR sa laRka kaha``.

A poem like this is supposed to leave a clear impression of the reality its trying to portray--and this poem does this so beautifully with just the right amount of words.

this part has a good impact, a refreshing style

She walks as before
With an expressionless face
Or do I see a tear?
No.
That`s the way it is

this part is a little less strong than the rest of he poem:

You should not be out here child
You should be at home
In a cool living room
Learning and playing, joyfully

delhiwala: Thanks for your appreciative comments.

Ansari: I too once saw a similar scene at Lahore as you mention - the leftover chicken from our plates at Government College Lahore hostel was being placed on the bare floor at the back of the kitchen where young children and old women were busy chewing on the leftover bones. I can still see that scene today, decades later. As for these nouveau riche who talk about their mercedes and vacations and what not - the less said the better.

echoboom: Thanks for the appreciation.

malik: Thanks for the appreciation. But please dont shoo me away from politics and religion. :-)

jang #1 I tend to agree with you on this point of whether people should bring children into this world only if they are capable of giving them a decent life. Indeed, poorer people tend to have more children compared to wealthier people. The reason of course is understandable to so extent - children have always been a form of old age social security for the poor. What is particularly infuriating is that today the nations of the world together produce enough resources that poverty could be eliminated within a generation. 30 percent of south asian people live below the accepted line of extreme poverty (a dollar a day, the amount that is just enough to keep body and soul together).

Mr. t #1: Thanks for pointing out the punctuation. btw, I wrote this poem back in 1969 when I was a student at Government College Lahore and actually witnessed this scene. Wrote it as an outlet for my own feelings of helplessness at the tragically poor living conditions for people there. Never shared it with anyone else until now.

With respect to the third stanza, I had written it back then - and in fact my initial submission to chowk had left it out for the same reason as you indicate. But after looking a the result, I sent a re-draft to chowk with the third stanza. The reason being that I felt that just as the girl in the poem takes her sad lot in life for granted, so in fact do too many of us who grew up in that society. Thus, felt it useful to err on the side of being explicit rather than of subtelty. So, while understanding your point, I think it is useful to leave that stanza in. Only someone who did not grow up in Pakistan (or another poor country) would not need to be reminded that we must not take poverty for granted.

Thanks for your review, and I will correct the punctuation although unfortunately it is too late to do so on chowk. But glad you share with with me the sadness at the daily tragedy that millions of pakistani children go through every day.

I am finally convinced that tauheed (tahmed32) should leave discussing religion and politics. His strength and talent lies in his poetry. This is another good piece of poetry with vivid imagery and evocative description. Good job!

#1 Jang,

Tidh sub kujh karwa dinda.

This is the harsh reality. Some of these unfortunate little girls have to bear more than just the `startle`.

This is the sign of cheap society. a `cheap` and hocha or a sadist does such things.

Echoboom sahab: no, I hadn`t read that poem before. Thank you for sharing!

temporal: no, I haven`t I`m afraid. Insha-Allah, will keep an eye out for it. I`m not sure how similar Mira Nair`s film is to the original even on its own Salaam Bombay! is a very powerful film, especially since it is made in a language and an idiom that we can all relate to. It hits closer to home.

tahmed:
Good sentiments expressed.

You will like this following poem as well. Mr. Ansari, I`m sure with his vast reading of english poetry must have read it. If not, then he & perhaps so many others might like it.

---

Baltimore

by Countee Cullen
...................................................................................................................................
Once riding through old Baltimore
Heart-filled, head filled with glee
I saw a Baltimorian
Keep looking straight at me
Now I was eight and very small
And he was not bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue and called me ``Nigger``

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December
But of all the things that happened there
That`s all I remember

Countee Cullen, African American poet who wrote this poem when he was in his late 30`s.

aamir:

have you seen the original by hector babenco called pixote?

digression: mira never credited babenco

Re: # 1 Jang

Thats an assumption we so easily make about the poor and even the not so poor (though I`ve seen the choice of to have a child or not to have taken away from women across the board in terms of class). The choice is not always theirs to make. Domestic violence, rape, childhood marriages, forced marriages, complete ignorance with respect to contraception. The list goes on. The parent (and I deliberately chose not to say parents) in the social strata the poem talks about - if it can be dignified with such a term given the way society at large treats it or ignores it - rarely has a choice.

dL

Well-said, Tauheed sahab. Have you seen Mira Nair`s Salaam Bombay!?

I remember we were eating out in Karachi once, one of those roadside arrangements with the beggars loitering around. During our meal, a woman came over with her child and we gave them some money. After we`d finished and were waiting for the waiter to clear the plates away, they came back again and we started shooing them off, saying we`d already paid them and they shouldn`t be begging. The woman said, ``We don`t want money but can we just take the food you`ve left on your plates?`` And they scraped away the bones and whatever little salan there was on our plates and walked away to a corner to eat it.

You can`t help but think of people like these when you are at these 5-star buffets where the uncles and aunties are comparing the foie gras they had in a little chateau in Nice with the caviar on a Mediterranean submarine cruise. As somebody once said, ``Misery is not only a social issue. Its cause it not only the privation but also the evil in human souls. Deprivation is its external side and sin is its internal side.``

Tahmed Saab,
Very Good Poem.
It is very sad to note that the scene is still the same in India an Pakistan for Child Labor.
They don`t even question their fate just accept it as reality.

tahmed:

powerful subject matter...please pay a little more attention to words...they are a poet`s precious tools...and highest respect if not awe should be displayed when using them...even a little bit of carelessness magnifies a thousand fold...e.g. summers should be summer`s...re: punctation- either use them or don`t...avoid being selective ...also...if you do not mind...paste this tried dictum on your monitor...show! do not tell...the editorialising in the third stanza could have been done away entirely...as also the explanation in the end...trust your readers to find their own meanings in what you write:)

rgds

t

ps: would you mind if i use your words (and thoughts) to make this compact and perhaps more powerful as an exercise?

Lahore Street Scene

On a hot summer`s day
A barefoot child, carrying a load
Crosses the melting street

A blow of horn startles her
Terrified the child jumps
As the amused driver smiles

She walks on as before
With an expressionless face
Or did I see a pearly tear
Mocking life

tahmed, very nicely captured in straightforward poem. i am invariably upset at the parents who bring children into this world knowing very well how cruel it is and how much protection they need. it sounds un-pc but thats how i feel.