Selected Poems of Shah Latif

As a child of Partition who has suffered and lived the worst human brutalities in 1947 when India was divided between Pakistan and India, many questions have remained unanswered during my long and distinguished career as a researcher and academic. My association with 1947 Partition Archive of Berkley, California since its inception has answered some of these questions, while there are a few which remain unanswered even today in the evening of my life. One such question was: why there was little violence in Sindh during the Partition in comparison to that of Punjab and Bengal and why Sindhis did not ask for a separate state in Independent India emphatically as was done by the Punjabis. Mr. Lakhi N. Paryani's Selected Poems of Shah Latif has partly answered this question for me and I am sure that some readers will find this book useful in understanding many salient features of the Sindhi culture that grew out of the great Indus Valley civilization discovered in Mohan-Jo Daro and Harappa. Reading Mr. Paryani's translations of 410 poems of the great Sindhi poet was a great pleasure as it provided me an opportunity to understand the mystical aspect of Sufism that connects oneself with the Creator without intervention by any agency. In the romantic tales woven around seven female characters who undertake long arduous journeys to seek their Beloved at all costs, the poet takes us on spiritual journeys of his characters that clean themselves of the evils around them to attain purity. Taking quotations from the Holy Quran, the poet keenly conveys his message in the following poem.