Translation Notes
I first encountered Bhai Vir Singh in college, reading his work in my Punjabi classes. I was drawn to these poems for their sense of incompleteness, the way the language reaches toward what it cannot fully contain. This is especially visible in the image of light from The Wrist That Trembled, where it appears as something untouchable, present yet never fully grasped. In The Begging Bowl of Knowledge, the tension between ilm (knowledge) and amal (lived understanding) informed several choices. I retained the phrase “begging bowl” for kachkaul to preserve its sense of humility. The turning point, where the bowl is emptied and cleaned, remains central, suggesting that knowledge must be unlearned before it can become meaningful.
My approach moved between staying close to the original and attending to its lyric quality. Rather than explaining or resolving, I have kept the poems open, allowing their images to carry meaning.
While working on these poems, I often felt as though I had returned to those college classrooms, hearing the cadence of the language again as my professors once spoke it, and the care with which they taught these texts. That memory stayed with me through the process, making it as much an act of return as of translation.
—Mannat Sandhu
You came to me in a dream
I rushed forward, arms open
But you were pure light,
Nothing that hands could hold
My wrist kept trembling.
I bowed my head to your feet
But could not touch them.
You stood above; I below
Empty-handed before you.
I rose and ran to grasp your hem,
But it shattered into lightning waves,
Flying forward
Haunting me.
The lifeless dust caught a glimmer
You shimmered through every pore.
The lightning leapt and was gone–
Only glare now, a phantom.
I turned my head into a begging bowl
And wandered the homes of the learned.
From door to door, I carried my bowl
Begged for scraps and stuffed it full.
Seeing it full, I swelled with pride
Convinced I had turned into a learned man.
My feet no longer touched the ground,
I walked taller and taller.
One day, I took this begging bowl
And placed it before my teacher.
He called it impure and flipped it over,
Leaving it empty.
Then he scrubbed and washed it thoroughly,
Removing the grime of empty knowledge
Look – how the bowl shines,
Blooming like a lotus.
I have bound my love to a stone,
It neither laughs nor speaks
It appears lovely, it enchants the heart,
Yet the knot inside will not yield.
Try as I might, I cannot let it go
No warmth when I touch it.
So be it, if this is your will–
Only do not turn your eyes away.
Acknowledgements
Image credits: Image Licensed under the Unsplash+ License
Translator | Mannat Sandhu
Mannat Sandhu is an editor and translator from Punjab currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Economics, an arrangement she insists makes perfect sense. She works across English, Hindi, and Punjabi, and is always interested in learning new languages. She has worked on translating interviews of Partition survivors, engaging closely with memory and voice. She is currently working on editing and translating books, from fiction to non-fiction, everything under the sun. She also likes to run, when she remembers to. 🙂
Author | Bhai Vir Singh
Bhai Vir Singh (1872–1957) was born in Amritsar, Punjab, and became one of the most influential figures in modern Punjabi literature. He worked across genres as a poet, novelist, and essayist, and played a key role in shaping Punjabi literary modernism. His poetry often explores inner experience: longing, humility, knowledge, and transformation—through simple, symbolic imagery. Bhai Vir Singh is the author of several important poetic works, including collections such as Dil Tarang and Matak Hulare. His writings had a lasting impact on the development of Punjabi poetry in the twentieth century.
