When the world was still to be born When Adam was still to receive his form Then my relationship began

When I heard the Lord’s voice A voice sweet and clear I said “yes” with all my heart And formed a bond with the land I love When all of us were one My bond then began
An exile now by destiny I am nearer home than my heart’s beat I wonder: when will I be free To return to Larkana
From dust to dust Loved ones return To what they were When will I walk home from Arab lands To my own sweet Motherland.
Waiting for news in dreams and day Waiting for messengers in dreams and day When will the message come Taking me from here to there I want the answer to my heart I want to pass God’s test O God, I await the messenger Taking me to where I belong Although the tyrants do not care Strands of white my hair now shows My face is gaunt with sadness I to my people want to go I came in the winter of repression I pray to return in different times Like the joy of a seasonal rain The peoples support I will reclaim. Almighty God, Let Mother’s sickness not worsen in exile Trapped in a mind wanting to forget A heart weeping for young sons killed O let Mother first her homeland see
O where is my husband gone? His life’s prime and his grace? Prison Walls confine him Court rooms frustrate him Judges are frightened Courage has fled Salaries are more important Than honour for which men gave lives
Pakistan, my health is worn My joy is gone And yet my heart is strong For the fight For our people lost rights
Each day I smile for the world, For my children and my self They ask: when can we return?
I speak of justice fled From hearts of men Into the breasts of beasts
I tell them We will smile and we will eat When freedom from chains is freed
I think of the poor people A better fate they deserve Than the military conqueror’s boots
Yet the lust for land grows Plazas and Plots for the elite lot Government homes too Not one but two All on starving backs of people robbed
The sweet lands lie parched For water people pray The crops perish The cattle die The stoves grow cold As labour is sent home Fair Pakistan’s face is blotted Mug shots and finger prints are demanded Worshippers live in fear and dread Tenants are ejected Soldiers in snows abandoned
The poets in the mountains and the deserts Speak of another time When the country and the individual had respect Before the Benazir Government left
One pension is too little for some One state, two jobs, two salaries and two pensions For retired Khaki specials Democracy is for those in Mufti Dictatorship the dream of Generals in Khaki
The British left last century Their space the Khaki filled The Father died too quickly In an ambulance in Karachi One day the tyrants will depart Public opinion will set us free There will be dancing in the streets, Music and song Laughter will fill the air As people rejoice in their destiny
Larkana, Loved-one, I remember The sweet scent of roses Of fresh rain on desert sand Of trees washed by nature’s hand Away I live in a mansion grand But I long to campaign On long and rocky roads In bumpy jeep rides With flags and banners With selfless zeal to change The sad present Into a smiling future I want to breathe the breath Of home, a breath both fair and fine My spirit is in one place My body in another My mind torn asunder
The Elections were so Unfair Made of Broken Promises Billions spent in marketing A dictatorship as a democracy That too unsuccessfully. The European Union called Foul So did the Office of the Commonwealth Boxes were filled Ballots torn Peoples verdict shorn By cowards masquerading as patriots The presidential palace is ugly In a land with widespread poverty Parliament has yet to dress itself With Constitutional power The phoenix rises from the ashes Peoples Power will be born again
Centres of learning I will build for the children of the poor Provide the aged and the young Dignity, hope and security We will raise buildings Where there are deserts And stop the weeping of the women of the land Cry not For change is in our hands To reject wrong and embrace right These days of despots will soon go Just as other despots did
Memory forever recalls Quaid e Awam The sword of truth Who gave his life So we could live With legal rights and economic security With knowledge and Opportunity With representation and success With peace and with progress His name will forever shine Who can forget him That historical memory embraces Forever in its folds. He who wore threads of fine gold Tore them for prison cells He who slept in silken sheets and fed with silver spoons Threw them aside for the darkness of the death cell Defying death
The rulers offer comfort In return they demand conscience Don’t offer comfort To history’s children To the brave and the bold The Kurds fought for decades The Kashmiris do too The Palestinians refused to surrender In every continent In every era The brave and the bold Carved history with their bare hands One has might The other right One has the sword The other the pen Guns rust and fall apart Ideas live forever Tyrant: do not offer comfort Comfort leaves me cold Much dearer do I hold Marvi’s ancestral shawl Symbol of our Treasure From Marvi I learnt From past mystic saints From my dear brother Shah I learnt That handsome youth who fought another tyrant That Were I to breathe my last, living Away from the home I loved My body won’t imprison me. Shah returned home while his soul went free No stranger to the soil Embracing his body in death Making it part of the legends of our land When his last breath came We carried him to the hidden coolness of the desert sand Pride and sadness mixed in our hearts Swaying emotions Knowing that his life was given For a clear cause of liberation From a Dictator’s occupation We buried him lovingly In the land that was his In a sea of people That loved him For his life And for his death Killed and yet the struggle lived
The cranes fly to their native hills My heart longs to fly with them Invisible chains Hold me prisoner The wounds of the past Fester again For my country and me As I see people denied rights Denied opportunities Youth looking for hope Democracy separated from the polity Dictatorship cuts cruelly to the bone Undermining the economy Undermining the society Introducing suicide Economic suicide for those too poor to live Political suicide for asymmetric warfare Joy left when the stove turned cold Joy fled when the church and hospital blew
Some sent messages To forget about politics To leave the people To find happiness They thought it foolish That the weight of persecution Could be borne With a Mother ill And children small With the pain of exile Of a husband separated by prison walls. They thought it generous To offer freedom for abandonment The abandonment of a people, of a land Of a struggle, of a dream Of principles and of conscience I thought it wrong
I know I will return On a wave of peoples support Led by the bravest Party of them all A Party of martyrs A Party of struggle A Party that serves A Party of the people My enemies wish I never was born For them it was a torture and a shame That I became The first woman leader of a Muslim State Crumbling centuries of control Triumphantly proclaiming The equality of men and women The pristine message of Islam
Hidden under prejudice and discrimination Destiny’s hand moves on Writing its own tale Of triumph and tragedies, Of wars and peace, Of bombs pulverising houses Above the stench of death Life begins again The tide of sorrow turns The sea of happiness awaits The patient pray and persevere Loved ones parted meet Prisoners are freed Fresh ones take their places Or flee Destiny’s moving finger writes on Seasons change Realities change The rest is a test Better a life of test Than a worthless life of rest
The land reclaims its own When the dead die They live again Becoming part of a land Centuries old Holding secrets Of great civilisations Of heroes and heroines of bygone times Shaping history and heritage Shaping culture Shaping the future Time begins Time ends We decide What to do with time
Remember the poor and the wretched Remember the desperate and the hopeful Remember God’s sacred trust The children of the land Do not let your conscience die For Power and Pride The scent of the homeland Wafts through the ocean air Through continents Its insistent call A reverberating sound Through sunset and dawn Calling Through walls Calling Through mountains Seeking to reclaim Its own
To my dear ones I say Worry not Shed no tears Bear no regrets These days will pass After night comes day After sorrow comes joy The daughters of the desert know That Destiny Cannot Chain The dream of a people free Of a youth redeemed Of a land Where the sweet scent of justice Fills the air Where human rights And economic rights Break the prisons of poverty Break the dungeons of disease The repression of retrenchment The despair of downsizing The evil of unemployment
Prisons hold Those that defy dictators Those that pay the price for freedom Knowing the chains holding liberty will break That the desert men Will write of desert courage Of integrity, loyalty and unity Baptised in suffering That a desert maid Will return home Hear the wind It carries the message: Of dictators that came and went Of tyrants now particles in the sands of times How many armies came and went How much blood was shed Conquests proclaimed Kingdoms fell; Tyrants too The desert sands speak The desert winds whisper Truth will triumph The desert maid will return Travellers travel bringing news Of political developments, I hear of miseries Of families without income Of fear of hunger I hear And my own suffering retreats
Days pass Life passes I am shackled To the dream of democracy Unhappy are the days Far from Malir and Multan Far from Mardan and Makran My countrymen are far No one can reproach them For they stand strong As the October elections showed
One day I will recall these days And forget the pain One day I will recall these days When political storms roared When thundering threats filled the air One day I will recall these days Knowing my commitment to my land Was purified and sustained. I think of those exiled from their homelands In Los Angeles, London, Dubai Of the days they pass Some in despair, Some in frustration Some with determination
The seasons change My face with them Theirs too Will my fellow villagers recognise A face Reflecting the seasons of fate
Night falls The world sleeps Darkness fills the air I raise both my hands And ask my children To raise their little hands Marvi, of Maru and Malir, In the mists of time She raised her hands While the world slept To God Full of hope Praying to see her homeland Marvi, We raise our hands As you raised yours To God In hope For the homeland I was born in Buried my Father Buried my brother Married Had my children Served a Nation Helped a people Without telephone or electricity Computers or emails Polio drops or iodine Enter the modern age
But the bullets were fired Piercing my tall and handsome Brother His precious blood on the pavement fell Where once we walked The angels came And took him away To my Father and my Brother As the Martyrs watched In July we met His warm embrace I recall In the chandeliered Prime Minister’s Hall His special goodbye as he left His voice on the phone When we talked As family members do The phone came It spoke of bullets fired Of Murtaza wounded I took a plane With Holy Book in Hand To the Hospital where he lay God, do not take The brother that I love It was too late He was gone Again I buried a brother
The killers buried the Government Husband was imprisoned Tiny children exiled With ailing grandmother Midnight raids and imprisonment Torture and terror Perjury and Perversion Billions spent on false cases On propaganda Psy war and special operations On a Mother Courts calibrated With different orders Caught flights daily From one to the other Lahore to Rawalpindi Then to Karachi The persecutors fell In divine retribution The military marched In
Hear the wind It carries the sound Of horses that galloped Of caravans that came Of tanks that rumbled Of planes that flew Before the torch of time Was passed As history’s pendulum swung The desert wind calls Marvi calls A timeless call A call The desert wind carries. Children: Hear the desert wind Hear it whisper Have faith We will win.
(Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, assassinated on December 27, composed this poem to mark her 50th birthday on June 21, 2003. In an email she wrote to Khalid Hasan: “I am going to be half a century old and that makes for reflection. I have written a poem called Banazir’s Story inspired by Marvi of Malir, written by Shah Latif. Marvi was in exile from her land and pined for it as I do too. I was moved when I read it and adapted it to the present circumstances.”)
(Courtesy: Khalid Hasan)