Shalim M. Hussain

Shalim M. Hussain is a writer and translator based in Assam. He teaches English at a college in rural Assam.

Translator’s Reflections

I found Begum Asma Khatun and Heena al-Haya on Facebook. I have been on the lookout for poets from the Char Chapori Muslim community of Assam (also called Miyas) for many years now and have spent significant amounts of time scrolling through social media for poems that might make me stop and calculate how fast I can translate them. Heena’s ‘After my Death’ was a lucky find. It’s a poem that places itself in the sentimental tradition of Assamese poetry while at the same time reaching out of the boundaries of individualistic lament into strong political assertion. I liked that unlike earlier waves of poetry from the community, which were precise and direct, the political commentary in Heena’s poem is gentle, measured and hopeful. Translating her was fun because I had to first allow myself into the tradition of sentimental poetry, feel Heena’s use of soft sibilants and replicate them in English. I can only hope that I have done justice to her poem. Begum Asma, on the other hand, is a poet on the opposite end of the spectrum as it were, and a more prolific writer. While ‘Independence Day’ is a fine poem, ‘The History of Stones’ took me by surprise. Stones and water are again recurring motifs in Assamese poetry given our geography but the manner in which Begum Asma traces the entire history of stones from dust to solid form and back to dust, drawing a parallel with the development of human communities and its inherent structures of oppression was really masterful and drawn on a cosmic scale.