Khushi ne mujhko thukraya hai

Another gem by Beghum Akhtar. Written by Ali Ahmed Jalili.

An attempt at a literal translation.

Khushi ne mujhko thukraya hai, dard-o-gham ne paala hai
Gulon ne be-rukhi ki hai, toh kaanton ne sambhala hai

Happiness deserted me while pain accommodated,
Flowers snubbed me while the thorns supported

Mohabbat mein khayaal-e-sahil-o-manzil hai naadaani,
Jo in raahon mein lut jaaye, wahi taqdeer waala hai

Looking for shore in the ocean of love is immaturity,
Lucky are those who drown during their journey

Charagan kar ke dil behla rahe ho kya jahan waalon,
Andhera laakh roshan ho, ujaala phir ujaala hai

Why are people trying to ward off darkness (sorrow) by lighting candles?
There's only so much artificial lighting can do when compared to natural light

Kinaaron se mujhe ae naakhudaaon door hi rakhna
Wahan lekar chalo toofan jahan se uthne waala hai

Keep me (my ship) away from the safe shores, dear Captain (Naakhuda)
Take me where a storm is about to rise

Nasheman hi ke lut jaane ka gham hota to kya gham tha
Yahan toh bechne waale ne, gulshan bech daala hai

If only I was sad for just having my nest ripped off,
The sellers here, have sold the whole garden.

--- Ali Ahmed Jalili

Tabiyat in dinon

This is one of my favorite ghazals by Jigar. The whole ghazal is about depression in my opinion. It's a very complex emotional condition and Jigar describes it very elegantly. It has been sung rather nonchalantly by Beghum Akthar who has a flair for singing melancholic ghazals quite effortlessly, perhaps because she lived a life which was much more sad. I try to give an interpretive translation to it.

Tabiyat in dinon begana-e-gham hoti jaati hai,
Mere hisse ki goya har khushi kam hoti jaati hai

I have been forgetful of my sorrows of late,
The last few friends I had are also deserting me now  

Sahar hone ko hai, bedaar shabnam hoti jaati hai,
Khushi minjumala-o-asbaab-e-maatam hoti jaati hai

It's almost morning and the Dew is awake now,
Happy times are about to become the reason of sadness

[I think that he's showing how the objects of sadness and happiness are often the same. Like the dew, which looks beautiful in the night evaporates off in the morning heat causing sadness :)]

Qayamat kya, ye ae husn-e-do-aalam hoti jaati hai,
Ki mehfil to wahi hai, dilkashi kam hoti jaati hai

What's doomsday, it's just another trifle O 'beauty of both worlds'
The gathering is exactly the same, my interest recedes

 [In the first line, he seems to be giving an example of how much he's lost interest in the world, that apocalypse seems trivial to him.]

Wahi mai-khaana-o-sehbaa wahi saagar wahi sheesha
Magar aawaaz-e-nausha-nosh maddham hoti jaati hai

The same tavern, the same wine, the same is my globlet
But where is the the jubilation of drinking?

Wahi hai shaahid-o-saaqi, magar dil bujhta jaata hai,
Wahi hai shamma lekin roshni kam hoti jaati hai

The same is my sweetheart, the same cup-bearer, but my heart aches
The torch burns the same but the brightness retreats

Wahi shorish hai lekin jaise mauj-e-tah-nashin koi,
Wahi dil hai magar aawaaz maddham hoti jaati hai

Life's chaos has become like an undercurrent in an ocean,
My heart's the same, but the sound of heartbeats lowers

[Notice how a beating heart is compared to confusion in life.]

Wahi hai zindagi lekin 'Jigar' ye haal hai apna,
Ke jaise zindagi se zindagi kam hoti jaati hai
[This is depression explained in two lines :)]

My life is the same, nothing changed
I keep living, but the life in me is diminishing


begana-e-gham : without sorrow
goya : as if
minjumala : along with
asbaab: reason
maatam: mourning
husn-e-do-aalam : beauty of the two worlds
aawaaz-e-nausha-nosh: the calls of 'Cheers' while drinking
maddham: low
shaahid: witness, lover
saaqi: cup-bearer
shorish: confusion
mauj: wave
tah-nashin : under the surface


Full ghazal taken from here

Khatir se ye lihaaz se - Daagh Dehlvi

A very romantic poem by Daagh Dehlvi, sung by Shumona Roy Biswas.
The first couplet's a killer :D




Khaatir se ya lihaaz se mein maan to gaya
Jhoothi kasam se aapka eemaan to gaya

Dil leke muft kehte hein kuch kaam ka nahin
Ulti shikaayaten huin, ehsaan to gaya

*Go *naamaabar se khush na hua par hazaar shukr
Mujhko vo mere naam se pehchaan to gaya

Hosh-o-havaas-o-*taab-o-*tavan "Daagh" ja chuke
Ab ham bhi jaane waale hein saamaan to gaya

Go - Although
Namaabar - messenger
Taab - Patience
Tavaan - Strength

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)

A novel writing approach

I had almost forgotten about the great Chetan Bhagat. Only yesterday when I was at my relatives’ and saw that he has started coming in TV ads did I think of writing this post. He, I think, should be the most well-known novelist in India. If you ever decide on writing a novel, here are some points which you can learn from his success:

Target the youth.

Include the name of elite institute(s): Adding an elite institute’s name in the punch line of your book if not the title usually helps in the sale of the book. If your fertile mind cannot come up with such a title or a punch line, one of your characters can be a student or an alumnus, though this would greatly reduce the effect. The reason is, this gets you a set of assured readers, largely comprising of the candidates preparing for the entrance. You can see this approach has been followed by:
Anything for you Mam- An IITian’s love story
Five Point Someone- What not to do at IIT!
Zero Percentile: Missed IIT Kissed Russia

Keep it small, cheap and simple: It very important to keep the novel small. The youth which is to be targeted is generally busy in other amusing pursuits and doesn’t have time and patience to read pothis. Also, the language of the novel should not be abstruse; of course there should be some unnecessary GRE words to prove writer’s command over the language here and there, but just in the right amount. Ignorant Indian writers like Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie etc. overlook this point while writing their books- there are a lot of other points also which they overlook- and this amounts to a considerable decrease in the sales. And of course, the novel should be cheap, the youth should not mind buying it over burrowing it. (Don’t try to go for international readers also and get a foreign publisher.)
All Chetan Bhagat ‘s are for almost Rs. 100.

Write in English: Ignore it when people say that language is just a mode of communication. It isn’t in India. However good a command you have over your mother tongue, you should stick to English. Indians in general believe that English is the language of the learned and reading English novels is a good way of showing that one is learned which, at times might be the only reason for reading the book. However, when your novel is popular enough, you can get it translated to other regional languages and you would see a flurry of sales.
Five Point Someone was translated to Hindi and had a record breaking sale of 30000 copies in one month. (while 'Raag Darbari' is unheard of, :()

Write about appealing, general topics: Do you remember what the great MBA Chetan Bhagat’s novels are about?
Five Point Someone: College life; IIT (IIT/IIM sells better than IAS (heard of ‘English, August’?!))
1 Night @ the Call Center: Call center
The 3 Mistakes of My Life: Cricket
2 States: Romance
See how cleverly the subjects are chosen? Has he ever written about anything esoteric?! He never fails to add a love affair- if the whole novels itself isn’t about it. Romance is an indispensable ingredient to the novel.

Promote controversy, but only a little: It should not be fatal like it was in Salman Rushdie’s case, but a little bit of it helps. For starters, you can try having regionalist insults which can be covered up in the preface or a post-script.

Get an MBA: Getting an MBA of course helps a lot. There are a lot of other factors, that help selling your novel, which yours truly cannot comprehend and can only be conceived by an MBA.

The post is not an attempt at defaming CB, I am just awe-struck by his systematic approach to sell his novels. It’s just a collection of observations made by my deranged mind.

Reminiscence

Now that I am done with my DDP thesis submission and expect that the review committee would not see any hope of improvement in my incompetence and let me off the institute, other avenues like blogging await the show of my worthlessness. Today, I wish to recount a curious incident which happened in the first year of my college and how it affected my life.

It was a usually dull sultry afternoon of Chennai. I was in high spirits, the kind one is in when he's recently cracked the JEE and knows nothing about the placement season that awaits him in his final year, which in my case was 2009. One very 'influential' senior caught me, he lived on our floor. The seniors in our first year used to catch freshers generally to get water, get xeroxes, catch other freshers etc. Only the very 'trusted' got the privilege to be sent for booze, cigarettes and the other important items. I fell in the 'trusted' category I reckon for I was sent for cigarettes many times. But, that particular day, I was sent for getting some A4 papers, with the usual cigarettes of course.

I was unexpectedly fast at getting them. The senior was 'impressed'. First, moved by my sincerity in getting the stuff, he offered me the much coveted vol-ship for Shaastra. But, when I seemed uninterested, he lit his recently gotten cigarette in Godfather style, and started, as we call the phenomenon here, 'putting me fundaes'.

(To the readers who have read till here, I respect your forbearance and request you to not write any discouraging comments). I was confronted with a philosophical question, often addressed to one when one is new at IIT, 'What have you come to do here? Mug?!'. Be it for the interest I had in Physics, which I later realized was bogus, I was astounded. I gave a diffident 'Yes' as the answer. In the 15 min monologue which ensued, was all the wisdom, that one needs to become like my dear friend Shammo. To tell the least about Shammo, he having got 'influenced' by this 'influential' senior, started believing too much in the fact that Carbon is the second most abundant element in the human body, and started to add it in copious amounts to his lungs, body building you see.

Now patient readers, I have this habit of disregarding advices when they come very strongly and mocking them wholeheartedly. I acted myself. After the long monologue he asked the question again, 'Phir, Vol banega kya?'. I beamed and said 'Nahin'. The senior was frustrated, and asked my to f**k off.

Insignificant though the incident might seem, it had a very profound impact on my life and career. That day, I took a resolve that I won't do any activity which can be possibly classified as extra-curricular in my five year stint here. Blame it apathy or the resolve, I kept it. I found nothing wrong in that before my final year while applying for companies. Still, the latest point in my 1 page resume under the head 'Extra-curricular activities' is about something I did in my class X. :D.

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