[Poet Farrukh Ahmad (1918-1974) is one of the best poets of Muslim Renaissance. Farrukh’s ‘Sat Sagorer Majhee’ (The Sailor of the Seven Seas), written in 1944, is one of his best known poems. It is also one of the most popular and beautiful poems of Bengali literature. Here is the rendering of the poem by M.Mizanur Rahman]
I do not know, overcoming how many curtains of darkness
the day has dawned.
Green leaves of the orange groves are fluttering.
At your door tidal foams of the seven seas are heaving.
Are you not waking up? Are you yet to wake up?
The sailor of the seven seas tows the ship at the door.
That’s a motionless picture, as it were, the picture is retraced today!
There’s no water for rudder; the ship is not sailing.
O sailor, keep up my words, come up,
come to the team of the sailors.
And see that the ship starts sailing on sea-waters;
As if, a full moon on the blue sea.
It overcomes all the barriers to get over the waves of the clouds.
Then you wake up. Even when the sweet-scented
white Hasnahena flowers fell of the morn
yet you are not waking up from your sleep!
You are yet to wake up! Are not you?
Do you hear the hissing sound of snakes at your door?
What a innumerable starving people crowded there!
O sailor, spread your business. Do you hear me?
Otherwise everything will rend asunder!
Don’t you see them following false allurement and
continuously going downward?
Oh sailor, you know well that your star has not put off its glow.
This desert has dreamt of your moon-lit night.
Your masters have assembled and helmsmen are at the horizon,
then what makes you shivering for unknown fears?
Are your ship getting its ripped bottom open?
Have the clouds overwhelmed your stars?
That’s the reason why the starved ones are tottering over the sea
and the empty sails are fluttering by the swelled winds?
I don’t know why I call you, O sailor of the seven seas!
For sounds of coconut branches of the coral islands are heard.
Your sailor has no patience in this sleep!
The growing grudge of the seven seas heaves enormous foams.
Whereas the unknown voyagers get along the sky;
the green leaves of the orange groves are fluttering.
Who will fulfill your business in hardened time?
You are hearing only the rhymes of bad dreams!
Has not yet been repaid the debt of the violent night?
The day has dawned yet you are not waking up!
Are you yet to wake up?
Have you forgotten the clove flowers and the season of cardamom
where saffron bud opens its grit adorned day out of dust
where one kisses the charming white face of jasmine
and where comes the dream of flower-decked fairy land?
Have you forgotten the first voyage when the ship sails
for the unknown land of flowers?
Have you forgotten those emerald eyes dazzled in moon-shines
where the ship’s faring through saline water untiringly inquisitive
and rending the blue curtain of the horizon
moving through the seven seas?
I cannot remember the unknown port where the ship landed
but I felt it struck the hardened rock.
When had your sail torned by the turbulent storm
for your dream turned into the nightmare of snakes today?
They raise their hoods around your worn-out port of death
and have envenomed your humble sky.
Do you hear me then, O the sailor of the seven seas?
Has the dry air shocked your doors already shut down?
It’s not the dreamy sounds of moon-lit night at the coconut branches.
It’s not the windows of fairy lands at the port of orange groves.
Now the cries of the starved children
along with the distressed human beings are heard inside your closed rooms.
Today you ought to sail the ship, you ought to patch up your torn sail;
no matter who laughs at the broken mast, you must sail on today.
Who knows when have your dreamy nights gone away?
But the turbulent stormy winds strike at your doors today,
snake’s thin tongue poisons the air of death and its tail
breaks your minerate with its tremendous strength.
O sailor! Do not stop your journey on seeing this symbol of death.
The ship must go on sailing through the dead-ends of this century.
The night has set in now
but the Gateway to Hera could not be seen afar!
The royal doors are already opened
where lunar lights have covered up its premises.
O sailor, won’t you take off your anchor now?
Is that yet to be late?
Your sails are fluttering in the air.
Don’t be late this time.
As soon as the saline water touches your rudder
trumpet the drum of your voyager’s victory this time.
Let the voyagers come O sailor, do not be late
You know that you are already late,
so many sea voyages have left the shore off the seasons.
The storm has taken away so many cardamom seeds.
Cinnamon branches have been shattered from woods after woods.
Fragrance of musk has been taken away by the winds.
Death has throttled you to the neck now; the tidal waves are at your door.
Your Hasnahena flower has already been fallen off.
All that scents from your garden has gone off.
All green leaves of your orange groves
seem to have been fallen off grey and wan at last
for its unknown roots know
that how the green dream has since been faded away!
That’s it in the know.
That’s it in the know.
Still it will regenerate the purple orange again
though the leaves are fallen off grey
and death fell off lives cold.
Still there’s light of endless hope and dream.
O sailor, do not fear this time.
Gather the wonderment of the star, you are the traveler of Hera.
Let leaves of orange fell off from the storm.
There are more leaves.
There are innumerable crowds where
the royal gateway to Hera is awaiting abroad the sky.
That’s the way
where one has to come across the desert and saline water of the sea.
Still therein lies the goal, shades of groves and savory water.
Then unfurl your sail,
then take off your anchor.
Now at the end of the path
I know the gateway to Hera omward.
Now take off your anchor, unfurl the sail…
Now unfurl your sail.
– Translated by M Mizanur Rahman
