Tu uroos-e-shaam-e-khayal bhi --- Suroor Barabankvi

A wonderful, wonderful ghazal by Suroor Barabankvi sung delightfully by Mehnaz Begum and a futile attempt at translation.

Tu *uroos-e-shaam-e-khayal bhi, tu *jamaal-e-ru-e-sahar bhi hai,

Ye zaroor hai, ke *ba i hamah mera *ehtimaam-e-nazar bhi hai

You’re the topic of the evenings of mentation, You’re the soul of the splendor of the morning’s sun,

Nevertheless, I realize that some of it could just be my imagination

Ye mera naseeb hai, humnasheen, sar-e-raah bhi na mile kahin,

Wahi mera *jaada-e-justjoo, wahi unki raah-guzar bhi hai

It was in my fate, that Our paths never crossed,

Even when the road I roam about on is the one which leads to Her home

Tere *qurb ne jo badha diye, kabhi mit sake na wo faasle,

Vahi paanv hein, vahi *aable, vahi apna *zauq-e-safar bhi hai

Your brief nearness to me did increase the distances between us, [i.e. aggravate my longing for Her?] which I could never traverse,

Although my feet's strength, blisters and the taste for wandering never faded

Bahaazar *daanish-o-*aagahi, meri *maslehat hai abhi yahi,

Mein *aseer-e-zulmat-e-shab sahi, meri *dastaras mein sahar bhi hai

I’m not very knowledgeable, but I know this,

Although now I’m suffering in darkness, light is also within my reach

--- Suroor Barabankvi

uroos = bride

jamaal = beauty

ba i hamah = nevertheless

ehtimaam = arrangement

jaada = path

qurb = nearness

aable = fatigue blisters (Thanks for the comment)

zauq = taste

daanish = knowledge

aagahi = awareness

maslehat = understanding

aseer = captive

dastaras = reach

Ye arzoo thi tujhe --- Haider Ali 'Aatish'

Wonderfully sung by both Amanat Ali and Abida Parveen.

Ye arzoo thi tujhe gul ke rubaroo karte
Hum aur bulbul-e-betaab guftgoo karte

I wished that I could make you face a flower
And then try to talk to the flustered nightingale
[In Urdu poetry, Nightangle and Flower are considered lovers. The writer is saying that She's so beautiful that the nightingale will get confused between Her and the flower and that he'll then enjoy talking to the nightingale.]

*Payaambar na *mayassar hua to khoob hua,
Zaabaan-e-*gair se kya *sharh-e-arzoo karte

It's good if a messenger couldn't be afforded
How would I have conveyed my heart through a stranger

Humesha maine *girebaan ko chaak-chaak kiya,
Tamaam umra *rafookar rahe rafoo karte

I always got my collar torn (metaphor for public disgrace)
And the cloth-menders spent their lives mending it
[Meaning that I got myself in trouble constantly and my friends always tried to salvage the situation]

Meri tarah se *mah-o-*mehr bhi hein aawaara,
Kisi *habeeb ki ye bhi hein justjoo karte

The sun and the moon also loiterers like me.
They are also, like me, trying to find a lover
[The relative rotation of the sun and moon around the earth is compared to loitering]

Jo dekhte teri zanjeer-e-zulf ka aalam
*Aseer hone ki aazaad aarzoo karte

If only they witness the charm of being 'fettered' by Your tresses
The Free would wish to be captured

Na pooch *aalam-e-barghashta-taala'i 'Aatish'
Barasti aag jo *baaraan ki arzoo karte

Don't even ask about the ill fortune of "Aatish"
It rained fire when he wished for rain.
[I think there's wordplay in this couplet. Aatish, the writer's nom de plume means fire (a common metaphor for desires), so he's wishing for rain, meaning fulfilling his desires? But instead, the rain Gods rain fire, giving him more desires. We get reminded of Momin's:
Maanga karenge ab se dua hijr-e-yaar ki,
Aakhir ko dushmani hai asar ko dua ke saath

Henceforth I'll pray for separation from my love,
Prayer and dispensation are deep hostile after all
]

--- Haider Ali 'Aatish'

payaambar : messenger
mayassar : afforded
gair : stranger
sharh : describe
rafookar : one who mends torn clothes
mah : moon
mehr : sun
habeeb : lover
aseer : captives
aalam-e-barghashta-taala'i : caprice of ill fortune
baaraan : rain

कुछ मेरी कलम से - २

*ज़िया-ए-हुस्न का उनके है किस-किस को पता नहीं
संवर के जब निकलते वो तो चाँद भी निकलता नहीं (The idea of this couplet and the poem itself came on seeing someone on a moonless night :))

जितना भी याद करो न होगी उनकी जुस्तजू कम
कितना भी समझाओ दिल को फिर भी समझता नहीं

होना चाहें खुदा से खफा तो भला कैसे हो हम
देता है जो मागो वो मगर उनको ही बस देता नहीं

नहीं मिलते हैं तो क्या ख्वाब में तो आतें हैं वो
खफा तो बहुत हैं उनसे हम लेकिन *अफसुर्दा नहीं

चहरे तो लाख़ों हैं दुनिया में दिल लगाने को लेकिन
तुझ दुश्मन-ए-जाँ के सिवा हमें कोई मिलता नहीं

*फ़न-ए-शायरी हासिल नहीं फिर क्यों लिखते हो 'मनु'?
दूसरों की शायरी से हमारा दिल अब बहलता नहीं

- मनु चतुर्वेदी

*ज़िया means splendor
*अफसुर्दा means depressed
*फ़न means talent (The concept for the last couplet might be subconsciously inspired by Siyaah's)

Breach and something I wrote

After a long hiatus, watched a movie today, 'Breach'. The last one was about two months back. The movie is about finding a mole in the FBI and how a noob is able to catch him red-handed when so many veterans fail. Well, there's one thing I can say, movies come nowhere close to novels when it comes to spy stories. I reckon it becomes very difficult to put so many details in the movies which give the story the flavour. Still, being a true story its a good watch. "The Spy who came in from the Cold" still is the best spy story I watched or read, they say it is the best ever written. :).

And yes, the following is something I wrote lately:

Ye soch kar hum unki tasveer mukarrar dekha karte the
Kabhi to kam-bakht humko vo nazar uthakar dekhenge

Unhone kabhi humaare payaam ka jawaab nahin diya
Socha tha vo yoon likhenge to yoon likhkar dekhenge

Na kisi ki aankh ka noor hoon

Came across a beautiful ghazal attributed to Bahadur Shah Zafar (might have been written by somebody else). Apparently written by him during his exile. It has been sung by various singers, I liked the one by Habib Wali Mohammad the best.



Na kisi ki aankh ka noor hoon, na kisi ke dil ka qaraar hoon
Jo kisi ke kaam na aa sake, mein vo ek musht-e-gubaar hoon

Mein nahin hoon naghamaa-e-jaan feza, koi sun ke mujhko karega kya
Mein bade bikrog ki hoon sadaa, mein bade dukhon ki pukaar hoon
(sung as: kisi dil-jale ki pukaar hoon)

Mera rang roop bigad gaya, mera yaar mujhse bichad gaya
Jo chaman khizan se ujad gaya, mein usi ki fasl-e-bahaar hoon

Na to mein kisi ka habeeb hoon, na to mein kisi raqib hoon
Jo bigad gaya vo naseeb hoon, jo ujad gaya vo dayaar hoon

Pae faatihaa koi aaye kyon, koi chaar phool chadhaaye kyon
Koi aake shamaa jalaae kyon, mein vo bekasi kaa mazhaar hoon
(Sung as: 'Zafar' ashq koi bahaaye kyon, ke mein bekasi ka mazaar hoon)

-Bahadur Shah Zafar

It has been translated to English by a Russian student of Urdu poetry, Philip Nikolayev, :).

not the light of any one's eyes,
nor the solace for any one's heart
of no use to anyone,
I am that one fistful of dust

I am not the song infusing life,
why would anyone want to hear me
I am the sound of separation,
I am the wail of much distress

my complexion and beauty is ravaged,
my beloved is parted from me
the garden that got ruined in autumn,
I am the crop of its spring

I am neither anyone's friend,
nor am I anyone's rival
the one that is ruined, I am that fate
the one that is destroyed, that land

why should anyone come to sing a requiem
why should anyone come to offer four flowers
why should anyone come to light a candle
I am the tomb of that destitution

Sham-e-gham kuch

Yesterday I got hold of ghazals sung by Vinod Sehgal. A not so popular ghazal singer I reckon. I noticed that there's marked similarity in the music in his and Jagjit Singh's ghazals. Here's the ghazal I liked the best.



Shaam-e-gham kuch uss nigaah-e-naaz ki baatein karo
Bekhudi badhti chali hai raaz ki baatein karo

Ye *sukut-e-naaz ye dil ki ragon ka tootna
Khaamoshi mein kuch *shikast-e-saaz ki baatein karo

Kuch *qafas ki *teeliyon se chan raha hai noor sa
Kuch *fazaa kuch *hasrat-e-parwaaz ki baatein karo

*Nakahat-e-zulf-e-parishaan daastaan-e-shaam-e-gham
Subah hone tak isi andaaz ki baatein karo

-Raghupati Sahai 'Firaaq Gorakhpuri'

sukut means silence
shikast-e-saaz means broken instrument
qafas means prison
teeliyaan here means the grills in the windows of the prison
fazaa means environment (I think here he means the atmosphere outside the prison)
hasrat-e-parwaaz means the desire to fly
nakhat-e-zulf means disarrayed fragrant hair

The last but one couplet shows the class of Firaaq's poetry, :).

Uploading mp3 files to youtube

After a long search did I find a way to convert an mp3 to avi format which is upload-able on youtube. I wanted to upload this beautiful ghazal by Mehdi Hassan, "Woh ke har ahd-e-muhabbat". Here's a nice script I found to do it. It can convert mp3 to avi which can be then uploaded to youtube.

# Starts here
input=$1
output=$2

background=/tmp/bng-black.jpg
convert -size 320x240 xc:black $background
duration=`ffmpeg -i $input 2>&1 | grep Duration | cut -f1 -d, | cut -f2,3,4,5 -d:`
ffmpeg -loop_input -i $background -i $input -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec copy -t $duration $output
# Ends here

You need to install ffmpeg, libavcodec-extra-52 to make it work.

Here's the video:



Woh ke har *ahd-e-mohabbat se mukartaa jaaye
Dil wo zaalim ke usi shaks pe martaa jaaye

Mere pehloo mein wo aaya bhi to khushboo ki tarah
Mein use jitna samentoon vo bikhartaa jaaye

Khulte jaayen jo tere band-e-kabaa zulf ke saath
Rang-e-*pairaahan-e-shab aur nikhartaa jaaye

Ishq ki narm nigaahi se hina ho *rukhsaar
Husn wo husn jo dekhe se nikhartaa jaaye

Kyon na hum usko dil-o-jaan se chaahen 'Tashna'
Woh jo ek dushman-e-jaan pyaar bhi kartaa jaaye

-Alam Tab 'Tashna'

ahd means promise
pairaahan means dress,robes
rukhsaar means cheeks

Ghalib, yet again

Ghalib at his best:

Mushkil hain zabas kalaam mera ai dil,
sun sun ke ise sukhanwaraan-e-kaamil,
aasaan kahne ki karte hain farmaish,
"goim mushkil wa gar na goim mushkil."

Too hard to grasp is my verse, O heart!
Hearing it, the connoisseurs of art
For a simpler style do ask.
"Difficult, if I write, difficult, if do not."

एक बस तू ही नहीं

एक बस तू ही नहीं मुझसे खफा हो बैठा
मैंने जो *संग तराशा वो खुदा हो बैठा

उठ के मंजिल ही अगर आए तो शायद कुछ हो
शौक़-ए-मंजिल तो मेरा *आबलापा हो बैठा

*मसलेहत छीन गई *कुव्वत-ए-गुफ्तार मगर
कुछ न कहना ही मेरा मेरी *सदा हो बैठा

शुक्रिया ए मेरे कातिल ए मसीहा मेरे
ज़हर जो तूने दिया था वो दवा हो बैठा

-फरहत शहजाद

संग=Stone
आबलापा= Exhausted/Fatigued
मसलेहत = Prudent Measure
कुव्वत-ए-गुफ्तार= Quvvat means strength and Guftaar means conversation. Hence the meaning.
सदा= Voice

Here the word "Khuda" in the first stanza refers to one of the qualities of God. God is considered to be shapeless in Islam.

आपको भूल जाएं हम...

आपको भूल जाएं हम इतने तो बेवफा नहीं
आपसे क्या गिला करें आपसे कुछ गिला नहीं

शीशा-ऐ-दिल को तोड़ना उनका तो एक खेल है
हमसे ही भूल हो गई उनकी कोई खता नहीं

काश वो अपने ग़म मुझे दे दें तो कुछ सुकूं मिले
वो कितना बदनसीब है ग़म भी जिसे मिला नहीं

जुर्म है गर वफ़ा तो क्या क्यों मैं वफ़ा को छोड़ दूँ
कहतें है इस गुनाह होती कोई सज़ा नहीं

Sung by Chitra Singh. Sorry couldn't find the writer.

Main chahta bhi yahi tha...

Main chahta bhi yahi tha vo bewafa nikle
use samajhne ka koi to silsila nikle..

Kitaab-e-*maazi ke *auraak ulat ke dekh zara
na jaane kaun sa safha muda hua nikle..

Jo dekhne main bahut hi kareeb lagta hai
usi ke baare main socho to faasla nikle...
[Wasim Barelvi]

This was sung by Jagjit Singh (with slight changes ;) ) ...
*maazi=past, *auraak=pages