After Learning Numbers

 
If I were to die right here today,
which of you would notice, tell me?
Then who will you say would stay beside me till the very end?
Do any of you even understand what that final moment means?


You have never seen me grieve,
perhaps never seen me weep.
You've only seen me hurt, and that too…sometimes.
You've watched and thought, pain doesn't really touch me.
God has written all the world's tears in your names alone!
Without seeing waterfalls in the eyes, how many truly understand crying, tell me?


I used to grieve before,
I still do—but now it's not grief, it's more than grief.
No one weeps from too much sorrow,
people weep mainly from…little sorrows or just sorrows.
I have seen myself laugh even while suffering deeply.
And you? You have only seen me laugh!
I have seen myself sing with full voice
until my throat broke and bled...
You saw none of this...you only saw me sing!


You think people cry when they hurt!
Oh foolish ones, people don't cry when they hurt,
people cry only when the crying comes to them!
Being moved to tears and being hurt—these two are not the same!


Tell me, why is there so much sorrow in your songs?
Why so much thought in your laughter?
I watch you and think,
truly, you have never once touched anguish!
To you, anguish means—merely the absence of happiness!
You have no idea how helpless happiness can make a person.


When hungry, people eat; even when not hungry, they eat.
But one who has no food at all loses even hunger—
you live believing this too! How do you manage, tell me?
Truly, for the sake of staying alive,
you can believe almost anything.


This life has come for you alone, live it as you wish!
Laugh at sunshine, weep at rain.
When winter comes, sit before the fire and shiver.
In spring, invoke Rabindranath...when autumn falls, sleep in the folds of words.
On such water-floating shadow-paths...ah, how freely you wander!


The life beyond this doesn't even enter your calculations.
The people of that life don't even catch your eye.
You are preserving life...wonderfully, vibrantly...just like this!
Yes, this is how life becomes...yours...utterly personal!


Never say to me "I love you."
Hearing that makes me feel foolish;...sometimes, disgust even sets in!
Never say to me "I hate you" either!
Looking at your faces and seeing processions of hatred makes me feel too precious!
Keep both your love and hatred stored away...
for someone else, who still lives staring at your masks...!


You don't even know,
accepting all of you, I have learned perfectly...how to smile!
You refuse to accept,
you still haven't found what plays in your own eyes!
You don't understand,
imposing what you can grasp upon my shoulders is not civilization!


Don't keep me in your city anymore!
That city, my breathing ground...is no longer so today!
Yet, if you insist on keeping me by force, the one you're keeping is not me!
You don't know me, you just keep bothering me with the arrogance of knowing!
With all your self-earned assumptions...you stay well.