Ten years have come full circle

On this strange road through familiar life, we meet again today—
The moment our eyes touched, you quickly looked away!
But I recognized you still, my old beloved you!

I saw those fiery eyes, now calm as the deep sea!
You don't wear your watch anymore, it seems. In this bustling city's black smoke, 
even old emotions have grown somehow slack.

Your hair has grayed, age weighs heavy on your face and eyes.
The stubble remains as before. It was so dear to me; it still is.

Does anyone torment you now the way I did?
When you fall sick, does someone want to be by your side?
Does anyone hide their face in your chest and cry like I did?
Dance with you in the drizzling rain beneath the kadamba trees?

Do you still fall asleep at your reading table with a storybook in hand?
Or do you forget everything, lost in joy thinking of someone new?

Does anyone stay up nights writing poetry about you the way I did?
Or do they sleep early instead?
Does anyone want to hold you close like shade from a sacred tree?
Or do they just pass time and slip away?

Does anyone suffer from insomnia like I do?
Keep sleeping pills by their pillow, thinking of you until dark circles form?
Or do their eyes only look good lined with kohl?

Do you still mix chilies with your rice?
You know, even the scent of green chilies brings you rushing to my mind!

Do you still love the rain? Cry alone on rain-soaked nights? When it rains...do you get wet?
Do you still walk alone in the silence of your tears?
When you had fever, you'd remind me to take paracetamol, remember?
I used to take it then. But see, now when doctors prescribe it, my chest trembles!
When someone floods their heart with tears of hurt, do you comfort them just like you did me?
And when comforting fails, do you angrily tell them too...
"You're a complete failure in everything about me!"

Does anyone cry for you now on the other end of the phone?
Do you fall silent holding the receiver when you hear someone weeping, just like before?

Does anyone write so much for you?
Keep writing with such care, knowing you'll never read it?
Remember how many thousand hours we talked, day and night?
You changed your number, didn't you? I called once—what nonsense they said!
You forgot your own phone number! Every digit still rests on the tip of my tongue!
If by mistake it matches someone else's, I just keep staring!

Who do you scold now in that same way? Who do you chide for the smallest mistake?
Remember, when scolding me you'd slip from formal "you" to intimate "you"!
You probably didn't even notice when you carelessly drew me so close!
You're so simple! Do you still pull others from formal to intimate? Does it happen like that?

You said you'd give me many books!
You know, I have plenty of books now! Only nothing comes from your address anymore!
Like a fool, I still check with couriers, stand before that office for a while.
Who do you buy books for now?
Do they wait with such eager anticipation as I did?
Do they burst with joy upon receiving a book...like I did?

To whom do you pour out your heart's secrets?
Do they listen with such attention as I did?
Are you still someone's entire world...just as you were mine?
Does anyone cling to you like a drowning person to straw?

Today I have a husband, yet I see only you in his eyes.
My husband is a good man, he loves me, keeps me with care.
He doesn't push me away like you did, doesn't neglect me so.
Yet when I try to write about him, my mind goes completely blank!
Because I couldn't have you, I think of you more, write only of you!
You were a rascal, the darling of my seven lifetimes!

If Majnu had won Laili, if Shirin had been Farhad's alone,
would their names have spread this way?
Getting everything completely—does anyone be born anew?
Because I couldn't have you, I was born anew!
I was in darkness for so long, alone...in Plato's cave!
You came, and suddenly the sun arrived!

Has your son grown? Does he talk a lot? Does he go to school? Which class?
I've decided, if I have a son, I'll name him after you. He'll be a fine man like you!

You listen to the doctor's restrictions, don't you?
Do you still eat too many sweets? Is your sugar high? Or is it fine now?
You know, whenever I see sweets, I remember you so vividly!

Do you still wear that sky-blue punjabi? Wear it—it looks so good on you!
Those two books I sent, did you even open them? Or did you carelessly leave them in some corner of your bookshelf?

I meet so many people! Yet I still haven't found anyone who draws words from my heart exactly like you did!
You were the first, and you're also the last! No one else could understand me like myself.
The first blow of this life—I received that too from you. Between understanding and misunderstanding, how could you leave me hanging like this?

Don't the ribs in your chest ever call out to me...even by mistake? Not even in these ten years?
I'm a householder now! I don't go mad for you anymore. You wanted me to have a family, my own address. It's all happened!
A new family formed, a solid address too.
Long ago I had a nameless family, an addressless love!
How is that family doing now? Who lives there now?
That house built of so much tender emotion's clay!

Now I have a husband, and you've become a stranger!
Now you have a home, and I've become a forgotten storm!
Whatever I've gained only pulls me toward what I never got!
Whatever you've gained—would it have seemed too little if you'd had me?

I know, even looking away, you recognized me perfectly!
You've always cultivated love in your heart while keeping your eyes steady! I understand all that.
If your heart hadn't twisted, if old scars hadn't clung to the corners of your eyes, would you have covered them with sunglasses like that? Why did you flee today? From your own fear?

Today we're both caught in time's net! How much each heart burned, how much each eye wore away—only time knows!
Just like before, I'm chattering on and on, while you build mountains of words from your silence!
Your wordlessness is stronger than all my words!

I think, trying to forget me, you end up thinking of me even more. If you didn't think of me, why would you look away the moment our eyes met?
However much you neglect me, you still think of me with mountain-heavy sorrow in your heart.
Let this small understanding live on for several ages...as an eternal signature...in this nameless home we share.

They speak of...the next life! I don't believe in this next life! Let our unseen family happen in this very life! Let our single day's love touch every flower of immortality!
Love takes years and years to happen...whoever thinks otherwise! How many true loves bloom in a single moment!

Do you still write late into the night? Do you still have that habit?
After finishing, who do you read to now?
Seeking unburdened refuge, in whose chest do you hide now?
Do they read you like I did—a thousand pages without fatigue? Or do they just pretend to read?

Do you still talk about 'Waiting for Godot'? You know, that Godot is my you, my beloved; utterly personal!
Days passed, years turned waiting for you alone, but you never came!
Thinking only of you, life passes in another's home! Do you understand anything?

Have you changed today? If you have, you have! To live, one must change!
But the love? Has that changed too? Does time have such power?

On sad days, does someone want you that close?
Do they hold you tight to their chest and listen to your heartbeat?
When sorrow comes to mind, who do you show it to? Do new people understand sadness? Or do they only gather happiness?
The new light in your life...is it so much better than me?

Maybe I was no good! Still, not having you yet having what I have,
the new person, the good person...has he gotten even that much?
The way I wander through your mind without notice,
can he truly roam like that too? Can he really?

One who doesn't love gets nothing even with much!
One who loves gets so much even with nothing!
I didn't get you in this life,
yet without you I've gotten nothing else!
Even having you, has he gotten even a fraction of this?
Let the accounting rest for now! When time comes, time itself will settle accounts!

Today, after ten years...
you're still my home!
In this life, the person who became my stranger,
living in another house, I still think—he is my beloved!