Sukhan

Urdu for Expression

Ghalib again


Posting Ghalib after quite sometime today. It is a quite well known ghazal, and represents a state of mind which I relate to quite often. Especially after meeting a few people. :-)

बाज़ीचा-ए-अतफ़ाल है दुनिया मेरे आगे,
होता है शब-ओ-रोज़ तमाशा मेरे आगे।

[बाज़ीचा-ए-अतफ़ाल == child’s play] [शब-ओ-रोज़ == day and night]

होता है निहाँ गर्द मे सहरा मेरे होते,
घिसता है ज़बीं ख़ाक पे दरिया मेरे आगे।

[निहाँ == indistinguishable] [गर्द == sand] [सहरा == the desert ] [The line means, that I seem to be living for so long that the sand of the desert is getting created in front of me]
[ज़बीं == forhead] [ख़ाक == soil] [Again, the line signifies that I seem to have been alive to see the river erode the soil in front of me]

मत पूछ कि क्या हाल है मेरा तेरे पीछे,
तू देख कि क्या रंग है तेरा मेरे आगे।

ईमाँ मुझे रोके है, जो खींचे है मुझे कुफ़्र,
क़ाबा मेरे पीछे है, क़लीसा मेरे आगे।
[ईमाँ == integrity, truthfulness, religion] [कुफ़्र == irreligiousness, lure of the material gains] [क़ाबा == kaaba] [क़लीसा == technically is a Church, but used here to signify place where कुफ़्र happens]

गो हाथ को ज़ुंबिश नही, आँखों मे तो दम है,
रहने दो अभी सागर-ओ-मीना मेरे आगे।
[ज़ुंबिश == motion, energy] [सागर-ओ-मीना == the glass of wine]

Many Indian and Pakistani singers have beautiful renditions of the gazal. One of the more famous ones is by Jagjit Singh from the serial Mirza Ghalib. Here’s the clip on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybAJ2xsYd4A

Filed under: Gazal and Poetry, Jeevan Darshan, Sukhan — nikhilesh.ghushe at 8:23 am on Monday, June 16, 2008

3 Comments »

Comment by Jeet

June 16, 2008 @ 5:37 pm

Kalpu ki favorite ghazal thee yeh :) Aaj main din main jaggu bhai ko sunoonga.. enthu dila diya tumne :)

Comment by रवि

June 16, 2008 @ 9:25 pm

ग़ज़ल की लिंक के लिए शुक्रिया. अंग्रेज़ी अनुवाद से अंग्रेजीदां लोगों को इसे समझने में मदद मिलेगी.

Comment by nikhilesh.ghushe

June 20, 2008 @ 4:04 am

@Jeet

:D … good… abhi mai aur enthu dilata tumko!!

@Ravi

धन्यवाद रवि! :)

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>