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I stared at thenightof the city
207
to myself, avoiding every
kind of gathering. In both
body and soul, I felt it
was not I who had written
those poems, not I who
had drowned in a sea of
ghazals at night. There was
an estrangement between
my self and the peculiar
performances that took
place in another world.
My self, one part of which
swam in one world and
the other in another, was
enslaved to a war in which
I knew not on which side I
fought, nor on which front
I was supposed to stand.
For a whole lifetime, lust
tore me in one direction,
modesty
in
another;
propriety confined me
while fantasy let me take
flight. Honour imprisoned
me in my body, while lust,
like a wild beast, dragged
me away. Day after day,
night after night, I was
torn into ever more pieces
... but who among us is
not in pieces? Let him
who does not contain a
double-sided being and
a many-headed soul step
forward and stone me.
We are all two-sided
creatures. Many of us see
only one side of ourselves
because we dare not look
at our other side. One
night, the other creature
within me simply emerged
and, boldly and without
shame, introduced himself
to me. He said, ‘I am you,
your self and nothing but
your self.’ He was arrogant
and self-centred. He was
handsome but his beauty
bore no resemblance to
any other thing. I still
wonder why I let him live.
Why did I not put him to
death? It would not even
have been murder or have
counted as a crime. Why
then did I not do this?
Every human being has