Creative Dopes

The timelessness of Shiv Kumar Batalwi’s masterpiece ‘Zakhm’ amazes me. It is one of my favourites of Shiv that intensely reflects on the vagaries of war, conflict and the human suffering that it brings in its wake. It is a clarion call to those in power to wake up to its devastation. He had penned it during the Indo- China war.

Some poems stay with you throughout life and keep serving you, revisiting you for life. I first mugged up ‘zakhm’ as a 12 year old to recite it in an inter- house poetry recital in school. I had no clue what every metaphor meant. It was my mother’s favourite and she had it written in some old notebook of her’s. Remember, poetry was not a Google search away in those times. That’s how I first savoured and recited it as a child.

During mid 80ies and 90ies, in the middle of the conflicting times in Punjab, these lines kept haunting me as I was now able to get their essence. Reciting them felt cathartic.

During my B.Ed college days (around 1997), I remember reciting it from the stage of Ambala’s Devki Devi Jain College in an inter- college festival. I have a clear memory of me choking up with so many emotions as I recited it- I remember living every line. Also that I won the trophy for my college.

It has been revisiting me again lately, in these troubled war-struck times. As I sat down to randomly read it this morning, some lines just commanded that they be sung despite my limited singing skills. Pardon the shrill.



P.S. If anyone has a fine translation of this masterpiece, I’ll be grateful. I find it blasphemous to tamper with the immortal lines by loosely translating them.