Doves

Interesting story.
What terrible times we Sikhs had to face in 1947.

Re: # 2

Oye!!! Stop this bullshit.Jinnah was a great visionary and leader.Peace and harmony can be preached in more civilised and gentleman like way.Why abuse anyone?
sala thhakela tamatar.

The doves cry and suffer at no faults of theirs........at the misdeeds of the crows like jinnah/nehru/gandhi.

if i ever meet their (jinnah/nehru etc) souls or ghosts, i will sodomize them to nonexistence so they do not come back in next lives to ghol more kanjarpana.

...i can see intelligent critique and conversation here... i am not fit for this place...

Re: # 5
Who is the Joginder Paul guy and why is he writing in Urdu?
He should be writing in Punjabi.

saman:

i haven`t had a chance to read your translation yet, and hope to when i have more time to focus on a short story for once besides battling windmills. :) but i do have a question for you -- how many pages was this in urdu? the reason i ask is because i`ve been working on translations of urdu stories, but bringing 10-12 pages seems a daunting task.

then again, if the story is good, it shouldn`t matter.

i`ll write more later this evening when i have the chance. thank you for bringing a translation to us. :)

saman:

yaar itna chota sa monitor hay...paRhtay paRhtay hum thuk ga`aye...did it tire you not?...and can we expect more translations?

...and oh...done any shoppping lately?...chooRiyaan, chappal waghera?;)

lve

t

=== Interact Removed ===

Brings a smile to your face and a tear to your eye. Good translation Saman.

Salam Saman Sahiba

Hope you are well...can`t comment on the translation since I have never read the story in Urdu, but the story itself is quite interesting. Thanks for translating it. I miss your own short stories...the ones with the hyderabadi phrases intermingled with english prose...Take care and hope all is well with your family.

Faiza Hussain

saman:

i would really like to read this in urdu now. it is just a little curious that he didn`t write this in punjabi since so much of the ethos in this is punjabi, the way the first names are pronounced, etcetera. you`ve captured it all quite well.

it was difficult, not because of the length, but because of how the flashback is utilized. this story is about memory, and the deceiving (not the word i`m thinking of, but the only one my vocabulary allows at the moment) nature of it, and we are deceived in the reading process.

like subroto said. . (and khalil gibran, i think) a smile and a tear. :)

are the breaks in paragraphs in the original version as well? am working on ashfaq ahmad translations, khudaiya, the man is heartless with run-on sentences and longish paragraphs!!

nicely done saman. and do bring more when you can.
--ana

Dear readers,
I am not guilty for the length of the story; blame it on Joginder Paul!
Anyways, thankyou all for appreciating the effort.
It was a tiresome task but had to it as I received the story as part of Katha`s Story Writing Competion some years back, a fact I forgot to mention in the foot note. Joginder Paul`s work is published by urdubazaar.com but it doesn`t feature this particularl story.

Ana:
Thankyou again. Your pat on the back means a lot. I don`t exactly remember the number of pages but the story indeed was as long as the translation. Since its a flash backcumpresent narration, the tenses seem to be a bit unnerving. I too was a bit perturbed but couldn`t help it.
My best wishes and good luck with your translation effort. Looking forward to read it.

T,
Kyon zakhmon per namak chidakte hain? Baaz aajayein!

Faiza,
A word from you at last!
Thanks for the appreciation..........
Alls well in the family........
Hope the same at your end.........
Gawd! This sounds like a letter!
Cheers!
And keep writing...

Subroto,
Thanks. How`s Nawab doing?

Regards,
Saman Khan.

Brilliant.

It takes a lot for any writing to make me weepy. This worked.

Only wish I read Urdu to truly get the flavour of the original. The translation works, but...

Good job, Saman.

Sameena:

This story is very touching! In my view, most victims of the partition were innocent pawns in the game that high-profile politicians pulled on a more-than-willing population (some of which “more-than-willing” specimens continue to grace these same web pages, WAY past their prime, no doubt!)

For many refugees, the pining for the “home” they left behind never stops. The reality of course is that such “home” only exists in their minds and if they do ever return, they will more than likely be very disheartened by reality. The last line of the story epitomizes it in some ways – the friend he was writing to had already passed away and only lived in his memories.

Another thing that comes through load and clear is that a letter can NEVER adequately substitute for the in-person, being there, and hands-on experience of little things of which, after all, life is made. A letter will always filtered by its writer, for a variety of reasons.

An aside – like others here, I detest the way the (original) author started every sentence in a new paragraph! It ruins the reading experience for me.

[We small people would meet just to embrace each other.]
Friends and neighbors always get to know, like, and even form close bonds with each other. The unfortunate fact is that does not stop those same folks from staying passive while other of their kith and kin are doing cruel things to other individuals that they don’t know on an individual basis – because their passive mindset is inherited, they are too ignorant or stubborn to change it, and many times just too chicken even to face up to it. It is my observation/opinion that in case of many on this web site (especially (but not only) Muslims), that remains the case, and the level of education appears to have a zero correlation with that mindset! I only hope that the next generation can call that bluff because obviously the current one is not going anywhere in solving this problem.

saman,
smooth transition from urdu to english of a good story reminds one of qasmi and bedi who wrote extensively on punjabi ethos so brilliantly... technical aspect of this particular mode of urdu afsana nigari probably goes back to the early days and the first name that comes to my mind is hijab imtiaz ali who was a master at weaving stories within stories and was influenced by french writers, but i digress...keep them coming.

Sameena:

Thanks for the story. Translation seems to lose some of the oiginal flavour. Is ``honour`` a translation for ``janab`` and what is ``welfare`` in original Urdu? Is the original available on the Internet?

This was brilliant: ``And the five waters of Punjab gushed from his eyes into his mouth and beard``.