At a satsang, Gayatri Lakhiani Chawla watched a group of women sing a kalam by Sachal Sarmast. They knew the words by heart. One woman sang with such abandon that Chawla found herself drawn into the moment, even before she knew who the poet was.
&ldquo;I think it was kind of a revelation because everybody knew the words of the kalam,&rdquo; she recalls, &ldquo;And the aura was such that I just completely got drawn to it.&rdquo;
That encounter eventually led to Redolence: The Greatest Poems of Sachal Sarmast, her English translation of the Sindhi Sufi poet&rsquo;s work, co-translated with spiritual teacher Lajwanti K Jaisinghani.&nbsp;
Published by Om Books International, the collection brings Sachal&rsquo;s poetry to readers who may never have encountered it in its original language.
<img src="https://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/oct/Book-cover_1793460364_s.jpg" alt="The book cover" /> The book cover
The book has now won the Best Poetry Book Award at the fifth edition of the YathaKatha Film &amp; Literature Festival 2026, held in Mumbai. For Chawla, the recognition is an opportunity to take a literary tradition beyond the community.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m over the moon actually. It&rsquo;s gratifying to witness that Sachal saeen (saint)&rsquo;s poetry is being appreciated,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;And also that the English translations of his work will reach the English readers, and younger readers as well.&rdquo;
Sachal Sarmast, who lived in Sindh in the 18th and early 19th centuries, is regarded as one of the foundational voices of Sindhi literature, alongside Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and Sami. His Sufi verse explores love, unity and the search for the divine, often through allegory and folk narratives.
For Chawla, his message feels especially urgent today. &ldquo;The message that his poetry carries is one of unity, love. And I think that&rsquo;s very apt, it&rsquo;s very much wanted in today&rsquo;s times.&rdquo;
Yet translating poetry shaped by centuries of language, music and spiritual thought presents its own challenges. Chawla does not read the Arabic-Persian script in which much of the original material is available.&nbsp;
A Devanagari edition of Sachal&rsquo;s poetry, Sachalji Kavita, by Lachman Hatwani helped her navigate the text. Even then, archaic vocabulary and meanings that have fallen out of everyday use required sustained work.
&ldquo;I was looking at a bridge between me and Sachal, and I found her,&rdquo; she says of Jaisinghani, whose spiritual knowledge helped her through the process. &ldquo;And well, it&rsquo;s been a labour of love for five years, it&rsquo;s taken us the longest time.&rdquo;
The translation also has to contend with what happens when a poem leaves its musical setting. Sachal&rsquo;s verses have long been sung and memorised, with their repetitions and rhythms helping carry their meaning. On the page, that experience can be harder to recreate.
&ldquo;And of course, when you&rsquo;re maybe using another language like Hindi, you can do a kind of a rendition but English is a little flat,&rdquo; Chawla says.
For Sindhis, the preservation of literature is pertinent. Chawla says when she writes, themes of displacement and isolation recur in her English poetry. &ldquo;How else do you save, preserve the culture or literature? This is how you do it, by documenting, by documenting our stories. And by documenting our poems, our kalams,&rdquo; she says.
The challenge is making that documentation accessible to people who may not read Sindhi. Chawla hopes her daughter and her daughter&rsquo;s friends will discover Sachal through the English edition, even if they cannot access his poetry in its original script.
She also wants the tradition to move beyond books. Dramatisations, films and digital platforms could introduce younger audiences to Sindhi folklore, including stories such as Sasui and Punhoon, which remain less familiar outside the community than other love legends like Heer Ranjha.
For Chawla, the award is a welcome beginning. She hopes to translate more Sindhi writing, including work by the writer Namano Fakiru. She would also like to see more contemporary Sindhi writers find readers.
<h2>Who was Sachal Sarmast?</h2>
Sachal Sarmast (1739&ndash;1827) was a celebrated Sindhi Sufi poet and mystic whose original name was Abdul Wahab Farooqi. Known as the &ldquo;poet of seven languages&rdquo;, he wrote across several linguistic traditions and explored themes of divine love, unity and spiritual truth. His poetry, often performed as song, remains a significant part of Sindhi literary and musical heritage. He is remembered alongside Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and Sami as one of the three major figures who shaped Sindhi literature.

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