(Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi—an ex Naval Officer, possesses a multifaceted personality. Presently, he is serving as Senior Advisor in prestigious Supercomputer organisation C-DAC, Pune. An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad is involved in various Artificial Intelligence and High-Performance Computing projects of national and international repute. He has got a long experience in the field of ‘Natural Language Processing’, especially, in the domain of Machine Translation. He has taken the mantle of translating the timeless beauties of Indian literature upon himself so that it reaches across the globe. He has also undertaken translation work for Shri Narendra Modi, the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, which was highly appreciated by him. He is also a member of ‘Bombay Film Writer Association’.)
We present an English Version of Shri Sanjay Bhardwaj’s Hindi Short Story “आग ” . We extend our heartiest thanks to the learned author Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi Ji (who is very well conversant with Hindi, Sanskrit, English and Urdu languages) for this beautiful translation and his artwork.)
पुनर्पाठ…✍️
☆ लघुकथा –आग ☆
दोनों कबीले के लोगों ने शिकार पर अधिकार को लेकर एक-दूसरे पर धुआँधार पत्थर बरसाए। बरसते पत्थरों में कुछ आपस में टकराए। चिंगारी चमकी। सारे लोग डरकर भागे।
बस एक आदमी खड़ा रहा। हिम्मत करके उसने फिर एक पत्थर दूसरे पर दे मारा। फिर चिंगारी चमकी। अब तो जुनून सवार हो गया उसपर। वह अलग-अलग पत्थरों से खेलने लगा।
वह पहला आदमी था जिसने आग बोई, आग की खेती की। आग को जलाया, आग पर पकाया। एक रोज आग में ही जल मरा।
लेकिन वही पहला आदमी था जिसने दुनिया को आग से मिलाया, आँच और आग का अंतर समझाया। आग पर और आग में सेंकने की संभावनाएँ दर्शाईं। उसने अपनी ज़िंदगी आग के हवाले कर दी ताकि आदमी जान सके कि लाशें फूँकी भी जा सकती हैं।
वह पहला आदमी था जिसने साबित किया कि भीतर आग हो तो बाहर रोशन किया जा सकता है।
☆ Fire …. 
☆
For the rights of hunting, the people of both the tribes were always indulging in throwing stones at each other, relentlessly. Some stones used to collide with each other, leaving lightning like sparks, scaring people to run away in fear.
However, just one man always stood his ground, undeterred. Instinctively, gathering his guts, he threw a stone aiming at the other one, with all his might. Lo and behold, there emerged a bigger spark, lighting up the sky. Now, he became obsessed with it. He continued playing with different stones, experimenting extensively, mastering the skill of lighting the fire…!
He was the first man who sowed fire, cultivated fire, reaped fire… He was the pioneer who ignited the fire, cooked on fire; and, eventually one day, he died in fire…
But, in the annals of history of mankind, he became immortal as he was the first man who introduced the fire to the world. He explained the difference between flaming-heat and the fire. He demonstrated the possibility of baking _’on fire’ and ‘in fire’. He consigned his life to the fire so that the mankind could learn that the dead bodies could also be cremated by fire.
He was the first man who proved that if there is a fire inside, then outside world could also be illumined.
© Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi, NM
≈ Blog Editor – Shri Hemant Bawankar/Editor (English) – Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi, NM ≈
बहुत प्रेरक कथा का बेहतरीन भावानुवाद
शुभ कामनाएं