QUIVER: POEMS AND GHAZALS By Javed Akhtar, HarperCollins, Rs 350 Javed Akhtar's collection of Urdu poems, Tarkash, was first published in 1995. The original collection has been translated into various languages including Bengali and Gujarati. In Quiver,David Matthews translates the poems from Urdu to English. The intention is clearly to target the untapped non-Urdu speaking section of the reading public. Though Matthews has written an introduction, he does not tell us whether Quiver is the translation of all the poems in the original or whether some have been left untranslated. Javed Akhtar's father, Jan Nisar Akhtar, grandfather, Muztar Khairabadi, and uncle, Majaaz, were all well-known poets and writers. Apart from the translator's introduction, the book also contains a short autobiographical note by the poet, translated by Amit Khanna. Akhtar's prose is inimitable and interspersed with various humorous accounts. 'Which city do I call my own?' he begins. 'I was born in Gwalior, reared in Lucknow, grew up in Aligarh, played truant in Bhopal and turned wise in Bombay.' It is difficult to judge which is better, Akhtar's prose or his verse. There is a certain candour in his prose that touches the heart, while ease and spontaneity mark his poetry. Twenty-four poems and almost the same number of ghazals are included in this translation. His poems are certainly much better than his ghazals. Many of the couplets affect us by the novelty of their theme and the arrangement of the words. Poems like Journey of a Pawn, Riddle, Perplexity and Dilemma are thought-provoking. Whereas Time, Sorrows for Sale and Homeless appeal to our emotions. It is this delicate mix of ideas and emotion, of intellect and sensibilities that makes the poetry of Akhtar difficult to transcribe into another language. The jacket of the book recounts Matthew's earlier translations of classical Urdu poems. His translation of Akhtar's poems shows Matthew's sense of perfection. The struggle to retain the spirit of the original is evident in every page. His selection of ghazals and poems keeping in mind their varying rhyme patterns shows his subtle handling of a difficult situation. As he himself is of the opinion, he tries to steer a middle path in order to solve this tricky problem. Only readers of the Urdu original would realize the complexity of this task. Matthew's failure is due to the stumbling block every translator faces in the rendering of poetry from one language to another. For example, the couplet: 'Oonehi imartoon se makaan mera ghar gaya/ Kuch log mere hisse ka suraj bhi kha gay,' has been translated by Matthews as, 'My house has been surrounded with high buildings/ I have been robbed of my share of the sun today.' Some changes can be made in the last line, but the delicacy of thought conveyed in the original can never be captured. The translator has also placed alongside the translation Akhtar's original poems in Devnagari script, for the appreciation of his poetry. Although, Akhtar's poetry in any language is sure to affect readers, in English it can at most create ripples.