(though lazy) sons, and three dutiful (though expensive) daughters-how richly God has blessed this faqir' But indeed, one must move with the times Why not make poetry out of new realities7 In the old days great Sufi masters used sometimes to be summoned to the Royal Court—and nowadays it is hardly any different, it is merely the Traffic Court instead The knower of True Reality can see in the Daltonganj Traffic Code a mirror of the universe it judges both the heedless wanderings of the Lover and the cruel recklessness of the Beloved The Beloved is a hit-and-run driver—that is no more than the eternal Truth As I have recently put it in my musaddas, She steers with the wheel of fortune Makes U-turns makes you turn-Turns her mirrors inward, tosses back her hair Turns against the traffic, makes her tires shriek with pain Leaving the scene of an accident she never signals-she hears the sirens song loves the blood-red lights craves the screech of brakes guns her engine to kill And then, having set the scene, I describe the various provisions of the Code, with examples or prudent of rash judgement drawn from our matchlessly sophisticated Indo-Muslim cultural tradition Then I deal clearly with the consequences, so that our youth will not be misled Alas the Bird-catcher has trapped me1 This wing-clipped one now lives in a cage Lightning struck my nest my felonies outraged the Code, delivered me into chains I would seek Oblivion—but the lovers' Law Forbids even this release^ But finally I leave them with stirring words, for after all society must move forward against injustice, and the poet must raise his voice in defense of the oppressed Those who run down the helpless Those whose Jaguars roar for blood Those who turn against the Light Those with hot rods, arrogant as Nimrod— On Judgment Day, I appeal against them to God, but on earth, to the Daltongan] Traffic Code1 This final band, when first read to the Rotary Club, created a sensation People have Annual of Urdu Studies, #7 ]^27