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    Let Life Live: An Anthology of Poems
    Let Life Live: An Anthology of Poems
    Let Life Live: An Anthology of Poems
    Ebook158 pages1 hour

    Let Life Live: An Anthology of Poems

    By Dr SS Bhatti (Ta’meer Chandigarhi)

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    About this ebook

    English and those transliterated and translated by the author from Urdu is his favorite language for using poetry as an apt mode of creative self-expression in the area of literary arts. Apart from their lyrical value, these verses on diverse subjects and themes carry the authors philosophic outlook that persistently puts his highly individualized experiences in the universal context, making him a modern-day rishi (seer) of far-reaching consequence. His lifes oeuvre is distinguished by its enormity of quantum, originality, sustained high quality, and amazing versatilityall couched in what he calls holistic humanism.

    He insists that we humans must wean consciousness from money mindedness to moneyed mindedness as their own pathfinders to the realm of lifes spiritual realities.

    This anthology has substantial material of diversity that will benefit the modern-day youth in getting rid of many illusions that cloud human wits and prevent us from seeing Gods most precious gift (the soul) lodged inside the eye-catching wrappings (body) that mislead us into blind alleys of maverick ambition. It is not unlikely that it will inspire some to discover their own native creativity and conscientiously develop it to its full potential.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPartridge Publishing India
    Release dateDec 12, 2016
    ISBN9781482886108
    Let Life Live: An Anthology of Poems
    Author

    Dr SS Bhatti (Ta’meer Chandigarhi)

    The author has imparted new dimensions and freshness to poetry and its architectonics. He has published three anthologies of poetry—two in English and one in Urdu. Two of them, like the present anthology, carry illustrations done by him.

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      Book preview

      Let Life Live - Dr SS Bhatti (Ta’meer Chandigarhi)

      Copyright © 2016 Dr SS Bhatti (Ta’meer Chandigarhi). All rights reserved.

      Cover Design by DS Kapoor, Graphic Artist

      ISBN

      978-1-4828-8611-5 (sc)

      978-1-4828-8610-8 (e)

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      www.partridgepublishing.com/india

      12/12/2016

      5226.png

      LET LIFE LIVE

      AN ANTHOLOGY OF POEMS

      BY

      Dr SS Bhatti

      [Ta’meer Chandigarhi]

      Contents

      PREFACE

      QUATRAINS

      EXPOSITION OF URDU POETRY

      URDU-ENGLISH QUATRAINS

      URDU-ENGLISH COUPLETS

      ENGLISH RENDERING OF MY URDU GHAZALS

      URDU-ENGLISH QUATRAINS

      URDU-ENGLISH COUPLETS

      INTRODUCING QUATRAINS…

      MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

      Prefatory Note

      Poetic Exposition of Theme Paintings

      EARTH,

      SATYAM-SHIVAM-SUNDARAM

      THE VIRGIN MARY AND LORD JESUS CHRIST

      SAVE ME I’M TREE

      LORD SHIVA

      HAIL! MONARCH OF LOVE-FILLED HEARTS

      LORD JESUS CHRIST

      RHYTHM-IN-WHITE

      GODDESS DURGA: AN INVOCATION

      ARCHITECTURE: The Great Mother Art

      LUST NEVER AGES; IT’S FOREVER YOUNG

      DEDICATED

      To

      ALLAMA IQBAL

      Poet of the East

      And

      MIRZA GHALIB

      Master Poet of the Urdu Language

      By reading and contemplating their Complete Works over the years I have mastered

      The Architectonics of Urdu Poetry and written over 4,000 poems of different genres

      *

      My Tribute to Two Greatest Poets of the Urdu Language

      Ab diyaar-i-she’r-o-naghma mein nahin

      Ghalib-o-Iqbal jaisi hastiyaan

      In the region of verse ‘n’ melody aren’t there at all?

      Those creative personalities such as Ghalib and Iqbal!

      *****

      Shed all illusions and Let Life Live that you may Live too

      A mysterious symbiosis exists between Life ‘n’ You

      You belong to Life, but Life doesn’t belong to You

      If it really did, you wouldn’t let it ever leave You

      PREFACE

      This anthology named Let Life Live is a piecing together of quatrains (four-line verses) written both in English and Urdu over several years in the contemplative calm that is in the eye of unceasing emotional storms and psychic upheavals. To my experience, which is now my essential credo, Creativity is the healthiest and most beautiful way of Life’s incurable sickness and its invariable emergence as the supreme victor! Of course, included in this selection many poems of other genres too, including short and long ones, written in the classical style as well as blank verse. A distinguishing feature is that there are 45 illustrations in this book of drawings and paintings which were done to illustrate poetic themes or used as basis and motive for Creativity in the realm of Literary Arts, notably, Poetry.

      In Urdu, a quatrain is called a ‘qit’a’, and consists of two couplets (two successive lines or hemstitches of verse that rhyme with each other). A quatrain or a qit’a is a genre of verse in which one complete idea is poetised in incredible compactness that is pregnant with multiple meanings. While I have produced a fairly large number of quatrains in English my qit’at (plural of qit’a) exceed 2,500. The ones featured in this book are largely those that were written and recited in public lectures and seminars dealing with specific themes.

      In most cases, they were first written in Urdu; then, rendered in English poetry. In the case of quatrains which I have illustrated with my own drawings the verses were penned in English; then, transcreated in the graphic language. However, when I decided to include them in my Urdu anthology titled Shu’oor-i-Bekhudi I translated the English original in Urdu verse. This work is being published separately in two volumes.

      Practice makes Perfect: Years of practice has given me a felicity of expression that has become the envy of many formally trained poets. When I recite them in Urdu and English in symposiums nobody can figure out which of the two creations is an original, and which one is a translation. The present collection also contains some famous couplets of great Urdu poets like Ghalib and Iqbal, which carry my poetic rendering in English. In a similar vein I have transliterated my Urdu qit’at, each appearing before its English version. Though couplets do not belong to the genre of quatrains their presence is intended to arouse my readers’ curiosity to look for great couplets in Urdu poetry—if only to wonder how complex and profound thoughts and elusive feelings which most humans have and experience can be versified in their pregnant fullness in just two lines!

      What is Poetry?  Poetry is the Language of Prophecy. All Prophets are essentially Poets although not all Poets are Prophets. In this special sense, Poetry is Musical Meditation on the Nature of Reality in which metaphors become colourful images of an elusive Presence whose palpableness can be felt only in the Silence of the human Soul. The rest depends on the Reader’s own receptivity and psycho-emotional preparedness—the Mind has to be in perfect sync to dance to the mute Sounds of Silence!

      Forays into Poetry: Though trained as an Architect, I have been dabbling in many fields which are customarily supposed to be not my own as a qualified professional. My student days [1955-1960] at Sir JJ College of Architecture in Bombay, India, provided me a great learning experience in interactive cosmopolitan enculturation. Our hostel on Land’s-End was housed in the Second World War military barracks situated on the seaside in Bandra, an important suburb of Bombay. The fury of the high waves during full-moon nights sang a raving rap no modern version in East or West could ever beat. The salubrious breeze cleansed as much my lungs as my mind—and I learnt to view Life’s many-splendoured beauty without the coloured glasses of prejudices and biases, which one inescapably inherits, nurtured on the hearsay and gossip spread by sick souls—everywhere, all the time, in every community of the Homo sapiens species.

      Omar Khayyam’s Influence: I had written a few poems in those days as a pastime in which most humans during adolescence—the crucial passage from childhood to maturity—often indulge as an instinctive response to life whose soul-stirring beats nobody could possibly ignore. The beauty and bounty that life entering this wonderful phase begins to reveal as psycho-emotional growth is an essential accompaniment of the

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