Poems by Tushar Dhawal Singh 

Solitary 
​
Wandering in this wilderness
the ghost of solitude says
Look at me
Know yourself
The coming light recedes
The boons received melt away
 
A clod of earth dissolves in the puddle
No message arrives
for the dead fish
 
I myself am you and your journey
solitary
I will walk with you
to the other shore of your breaths
 
Collapsing the bazaar of pretensions
I put out the light
In a moment like this
steadying my gaze on light
I announce
I am no more
I never was
 
 
Translated from the Hindi by Sarabjeet Garcha
 

 
Deception 

I have preserved
a few cowries of existence
in the future’s almirah
 
These egret-like days
aren’t as immaculate
                 as they look
 
Battling these wicked sorrows
I realised
what’s being conveyed
and against which
a war has been waged
              is not the truth
 
My friend
                  you know
that the truth
is exactly
what was between us
in those innocent days
                  when the world
                  and its ways
did not define us
 
Wherever definitions went
the secret doors of agony
                  o  p  e  n  e  d
                  the truth died
 
Although the war of truth
is raging over our corpses
we know
                  that none of it
                  is the truth
 
 
Translated from the Hindi by Sarabjeet Garcha
​

Tushar Dhawal Singh is the author of three books, including Ye Aawazen Kuchh Kahati Hain and Magic Muhalla. Also a visual artist and landscape photographer, he has held exhibitions of his paintings in different cities of India. He has been associated with Hindi theatre and has acted in several plays. At present, he is Commissioner of Income tax in Kolkata.
 
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​Sarabjeet Garcha is a poet, editor, translator and publisher. His five books of poems include All We Have, A Clock in the Far Past and Lullaby of the Ever-Returning, in addition to a volume each of poems translated from Marathi and prose from Hindi. He has translated several American poets into Hindi, including W.S. Merwin and John Haines, and several Indian poets into English, among them Mangalesh Dabral and Leeladhar Jagoori. He has received the Fellowship for Outstanding Artists from the Government of India, the International Publishing Fellowship from the British Council, and the Godyo Podyo Probondho Award. His poems have been translated into German, Spanish, Russian, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi and Hindi. He is the founder and editorial director of Copper Coin (www.coppercoin.co.in), a multilingual publishing company based in Delhi NCR.  

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