Jamil Malik, a prominent Pakistani educator who passed away in 2001, is also a poet of national and international repute. We share Malik’s poem ‘New Generations Question’ (Nae Nasle Pûçtî He).

Jamil Malik*

Let’s believe, all right

The big bang was in full force

And a universe full of beautiful colours and scents

Was enlivened by sweet tunes

The heavens came forward

They started to shine too

So did, God knows, many moons, suns, stars

And galaxies.

But this does not mean now

We should get started with

One explosion after another

Saying, “So what,

Let all corners of the earth

Turn into hell!”

Yet, our real duty was

To illuminate the whole world

With the beauty of people

Making the unique fragrance of love immortal

And place this scent into the body of the universes

And into their souls like an attar.

Yet we, with our own hands,

Apparently intend to commit suicide.

Listen! What the new generations say:

‘Far from it, is this the respect for human beings?

The secrets of the space and the spaceless

Cannot be revealed this way

Nor can the worlds be conquered so

What’s required for human dignity

Is boundless beauty and love

We are also required to take pains

Fellowship is what we need

Loyalty is what we need.’

———-

(*): Born in 1928, Jamil Malik taught at a high school in Rawalpindi for many years, after graduating from the Gordon College, Rawalpindi, having completed his undergraduate studies in Urdu and his master’s degree in Persian. Jamil Malik, who received numerous accolades for his services to education to which he devoted 50 years of his life, is also known for his poems at home and abroad. His Urdu and Punjabi poems have been collected in 20 books, some of which were published after his death in 2001 and won many awards.