Some things are easier to say in your mother tongue.
I wrote this poem on a quiet December night in Bangalore when I was going through one of those stretches that felt deliberately difficult — the kind where nothing breaks badly enough to call it a crisis, but nothing feels right either. I opened a blank document, typed in Hindi without thinking too hard, and the poem came out in about ten minutes.
I am sharing it here because I think the sentiment is universal, even if the words are not.
The Original Poem (Hindi)
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कल तक जो मन था उदास
आज लड़ने को है तैयार
रोज़ निशा से लड़ के जैसे
उषा होती है तैयार
एक नयी उम्मीद लेकर
एक नयी उत्साह के साथ
है नयी उड़ान ये
एक नयी मंज़िल के साथ
~ तारेश शरण (Taresh Sharan)
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English Translation
The mind that was heavy with sorrow until yesterday
Is ready to fight today
Just as dawn prepares each morning
By battling through the night
Carrying a new hope
With a new enthusiasm
This is a new flight
Toward a new destination
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The Idea Behind the Poem
The central image is the relationship between nisha (night) and usha (dawn). In Sanskrit-rooted Hindi poetry, these two are almost always in opposition — darkness and light, exhaustion and renewal. What I wanted to capture is that dawn does not just happen — it fights its way through the dark.
I find that frame more honest than the usual "things will get better" reassurance. The night does not simply pass. Dawn has to earn it. And so do we.
That is the emotional core here: resilience is not passive. It is not just endurance. It is the mind actively deciding, each morning, to orient toward something new — a new hope, a new destination — even before it knows exactly what that destination is.
Why Write in Hindi?
I write almost everything in English — articles, documentation, research notes. But poetry in Hindi feels different. There is a directness to it that English does not quite replicate, at least not for me. Words like utsaah (enthusiasm, vitality) and manzil (destination, but also the purpose of a journey) carry weight that their English equivalents do not fully hold.
Writing in your mother tongue connects you to something pre-verbal — a way of feeling before you learned to analyze feelings. I would encourage anyone who writes primarily in a second language to occasionally return to their first. The poems that come out may surprise you.
On Short-Form Poetry
This poem is short — eight lines, four couplets. I think there is real value in brevity in poetry. The constraint forces you to remove everything that is not essential. What is left has to carry the whole load.
The two ideas I wanted to preserve were:
- The night fighting before dawn — resilience is active, not passive waiting
- New destinations, not just recovery — hope is not just getting back to where you were; it is the possibility of somewhere better
If the poem means something to you, I would love to know what. These things often land differently for different readers, and that is exactly as it should be.
— Taresh Sharan, December 2025
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Taresh Sharan