I came across Manglesh Dabral’s poem वर्णमाला (The necklance of Alphabets) today. I love how it confronts how violence corrupts even the innocence of our alphabets. Letters that once bloomed with fruit, flowers, and animals are now forced to spell disaster, cruelty, and murder. Dabral reminds us that language is not neutral—it can be stolen, distorted, and weaponized. And this reminds me of so much in writing and life.
My translation attempts to preserve this tension: the tug between what words should mean and what oppressive realities make them mean. This struggle is not limited to Hindi or to India. It is a global condition: when language loses compassion, society loses it too.
This thinking is vital because poetry is one of the few ways we can reclaim our letters. To write anar instead of anarth, phool instead of fear, is to resist. To hold on to the gentle, the humane, the flowering potential of words is to hold on to the possibility of justice.
एक भाषा में अ लिखना चाहता हूँ
अ से अनार अ से अमरूद
लेकिन लिखने लगता हूँ अ से अनर्थ अ से अत्याचार
कोशिश करता हूँ कि क से क़लम या करुणा लिखूँ
लेकिन मैं लिखने लगता हूँ क से क्रूरता क से कुटिलता
अभी तक ख से खरगोश लिखता आया हूँ
लेकिन ख से अब किसी ख़तरे की आहट आने लगी है
मैं सोचता था फ से फूल ही लिखा जाता होगा
बहुत सारे फूल
घरो के बाहर घरों के भीतर मनुष्यों के भीतर
लेकिन मैंने देखा तमाम फूल जा रहे थे
ज़ालिमों के गले में माला बन कर डाले जाने के लिए
कोई मेरा हाथ जकड़ता है और कहता है
भ से लिखो भय जो अब हर जगह मौजूद है
द दमन का और प पतन का सँकेत है
आततायी छीन लेते हैं हमारी पूरी वर्णमाला
वे भाषा की हिंसा को बना देते हैं
समाज की हिंसा
ह को हत्या के लिए सुरक्षित कर दिया गया है
हम कितना ही हल और हिरन लिखते रहें
वे ह से हत्या लिखते रहते हैं हर समय।
I want to write in a language.
With “A” for anar (pomegranate), “A” for amrood (guava).
But I end up writing “A” for anarth (disaster), “A” for atyachaar (oppression).
I try that “K” should be for qalam (pen) or karuṇā (compassion),
but I find myself writing “K” for kroorta (cruelty), “K” for kutillta (deceit).
Until now, I wrote “Kh” for khargosh (rabbit),
but now “Kh” carries the footfall of khatra (danger).
I used to think “Ph” could only mean phool (flowers)—
so many flowers,
outside homes, inside homes, within human hearts.
But I saw all those flowers being taken away,
strung into garlands
to be hung around the necks of tyrants.
Someone grips my hand and says:
Write “Bh” for bhay (fear), which is now everywhere.
“D” signals daman (repression), “P” signals patan (decline).
The oppressors snatch away our entire alphabet.
They turn the violence of language
into the violence of society.
“H” has been reserved for hatya (murder).
However much we go on writing “H” for hal (plough) or hiran (deer),
they go on writing “H” for hatya—
all the time.
Singing oneness!
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