Poems for the Unemployed

I love it when language seems to shed light on the politics of our times

I am making this post about the poetry of Parag Pawan. I have never met this young poet but I have enjoyed his readings, this one in particular, especially the poem he begins to read at 1:32. I’m pasting below first that poem in Hindi and beneath that my translation in English (“Unemployed—5”). Then, another poem (“Unemployed—3”) from the same series. The student protests in India have rightly focused on education; but they must also made employment a part of their demands. After all, how long will the people allow those in power to keep recruiting the country’s unemployed in their army of stormtroopers by talking about Hindu-Muslim and India-Pakistan? (The poet Parag Pawan has his own poetics of refusal. He doesn’t want hate. He writes: संसार में जो कुछ सुन्दर नहीं है मेरा नहीं है. “Whatever is not beautiful in this world is not mine.”)

I want to thank Satyanand Nirupam at Rajkamal Prakashan for making these originals from the collection जब हर हंसी संदिग्ध थी available to me for translation. Also, the photo above is by Ishan Tankha and the one at the end of this post is by Abhinav Saha. Both these images are from the recent student protests in Delhi. My thanks to both Ishan and Abhinav. (As a bonus, here is a link to a wonderful account on Instagram where a young woman reads beautiful Hindi poetry.)