THERE IS NO SORROW IN THE CAGE, . . . by Mah Laqa Bai Chanda, translated from the Urdu by Sheema Kalbasi

There is no sorrow in the cage, no grievance against the hunter,

let that cruel one never forget its own captive, never.

I held back my sighs and cries through all this separation,

so that my complaint would not show through my lamentation, never.

Let the cage be torn open with the blood of spring’s blooming,

give the prisoners the good news of freedom, hold it back never.

The painter of creation fashioned the beloved’s image so precisely

that neither Mani nor Behzad achieved such a portrait, never.

This is Chanda’s unwavering hope in faith and in the world:

O Master, you will never forget to help those who need you, never.

Mani: a third-century Persian prophet and founder of Manichaeism, celebrated throughout Persian and Urdu literary tradition as the supreme master of painting and visual art. His name became a byword for artistic perfection.

Behzad: Kamal ud-Din Behzad (c. 1450–1535), a Persian miniature painter widely regarded as the greatest artist of the Islamic world. His exquisitely detailed portraits set the standard against which all painters were measured for centuries.

Author and translator bios:

Mah Laqa Bai Chanda (1768–1824), born in Aurangabad in what would later become British India, was a poet, courtesan, and diplomat who became one of the most remarkable women of the ruling court. Appointed to the highest tier of nobility, she authored the first published diwan by any woman in Urdu literature and was the first woman permitted to recite at a poetic symposium previously closed to women. Fluent in Urdu, Persian, and Arabic, and trained in classical music and Kathak dance, she moved through the worlds of art, war, and statecraft with equal authority.

Sheema Kalbasi is an Iranian-Danish-American writer, Pushcart Prize winner, and recipient of a United Nations humanitarian award. Her books include Jahan Malek Khatun: The Princess Poet of Fourteenth-Century Persia (Daraja Press, 2026), Spoon and Shrapnel (Daraja Press, 2024), Echoes in Exile (PRA Publishing, 2006), and the chapbooks Starfish Regrow Their Arms (Anhinga Press, 2026), winner of the Rick Campbell Chapbook Award, and The War Took Our Names (Seven Kitchens Press, 2026), selected for the Allison Joseph Series. She is also the editor and translator of Seven Valleys of Love: A Bilingual Anthology of Women Poets from Medieval Persia to Present-Day Iran (PRA Publishing, 2008) and The Poetry of Iranian Women (Reel Content, 2009). Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Asymptote, and PEN America, among others.

© Mah Laqa Bai Chanda. Translation © by Sheema Kalbasi. All rights reserved.