Private Opinion

Reading A Ghazal Of Nasir Kazmi

March 29th, 2007 Posted in Featured, Music, Urdu Poetry

Poignant. That is Nasir Kazmi for you. Sorrow is pervasive throughout Urdu poetry but one striking feature of Kazmi’s poetry is the absolute lack of lament. He suffers but he hardly complains. Kazmi wrote a lot of musalsal Ghazals in which even though each couplet is unique, they are still based on a single theme.

Here is one of his very best musalsal Ghazals to which Ghulam Ali has done full justice while rendering it to music. In this Ghazal, Kazmi produces one of the most beautiful matlaas ever.

dukh kii lehar ne chheRaa hogaa
yaad ne kankaR pheNkaa hogaa

A ripple is different from a wave. A ripple can only be formed in a stand-still body of water. Silent and serene, cut-off from the rest of the world. Like a heart that has learnt to live alone. And then suddenly, as ripples appear when careless boys throw pebbles in the pond, an event triggers a memory. The memory didn’t come alone. It led to a chain of thoughts that are painful but precious. Note how he uses the term chheRaa in the first line. chheRnaa is different from dukhaanaa. In chheRnaa both sides are equally complicit in the act.

aaj to meraa dil kahtaa hai
tuu is vaqt akelaa hoga

The lover knows his beloved well and it is highly unlikely that she would be lonely. When he says aaj to meraa dil kahtaa hai, it implies that he has given thought to the idea many times before but the heart never found it credible. But today, as we say, dil se dil ko raah hotii hai, the lover’s heart believes that the beloved would be lonely as the lover.

mere chuume hue haathoN se
auroN ko Khat likhtaa hogaa

Possesiveness comes with intense love. It is difficult for the lover to accept the fact that his beloved is not with him anymore and the hands that he used to kiss are writing letters to somebody else. Here too, Kazmi is just stating it as a matter of fact than actually complaining about it.

bhiig chaliiN ab raat kii palkeN
tuu ab thak kar soyaa hogaa

The metaphor in the first misraa is breath-taking. The analogy of dew-drops as tears has been used beautifully by many poets but Kazmi takes it to a different level altogether in this couplet. Also the phrase raat kii plakeN is simply amazing. The emphasis is on thak kar in the second misraa and Kazmi is alluding to a lot of things in that one simple statement.

rel kii gahrii siiNTii sun kar
raat kaa jangal guuNjaa hogaa

Rail sirens are loudest in the night and a person who is lonely and sad, and for whom the night is wilderness personified, it just adds to the loneliness feeling.

shah’r ke Khaalii isTeshan par
ko’ii musaafir utraa hogaa

Imagine the hubbubb and chaos of railway stations during the daytime. Imagine the same station in the dead of night with a single passenger getting down on the platform. Now imagine the difference the time makes to the same place. Kazmi is trying to relate it to his own condition and how time has changed his mood and appearance.

aaNgan meN phir chiRiyaaN boleN
tuu ab so kar uThThaa hogaa

Birds are singing in the yard signalling the morning and it reminds the lover of his beloved who would be getting up now. Remeber her night was restless.

yaadoN kii jaltii shabnam se
phuul saa mukhRaa dhoyaa hogaa

After getting up from bed, people normally wash their faces. In this case, as dew drops appears on the flowers in the morning thus washing their petals, the beloved is washing her flowery face with the burning dew drops of memories. Such imagination!

motii jaisii shakl banaakar
aa’iine ko taktaa hogaa

The pearly white face is lonely in the mirror and the vacant expression is evident. The face is staring at the mirror with disbelief.

shaam hu’ii ab tuu bhii shaayad
apne ghar ko lauTaa hogaa

It is evening and people are returning home after a day’s work and the lover is thinking the same about his beloved.

niilii dhundhlii Khaamoshii meN
taaroN kii dhun suntaa hogaa

The stars are beginning to appear at the horizon and are rhyming in the blue haze of silence.

meraa saathii shaam kaa taaraa
tujh se aaNkh milaataa hogaa

This couplet is awesome. The lover has been spending restless lonely nights of separation which actually start at dusk. Kazmi calls the first star as a friend of the lover as it stays with him night-long. But the beloved would also be seeing the same star, especially if she is restless too, and hence a connection has been made between the lover and the beloved through that evening star.

shaam ke chalte haath ne tujh ko
meraa salaam to bhejaa hogaa

As the evening is growing into night, the long hands of would have surely conveyed greetings to the beloved. Please note that in order to offer salaam, one needs to move one’s hands and Kazmi has used that analogy so beautifully here.

pyaasii kurlaatii kuunjoN ne
meraa dukh to sunaayaa hogaa

Historically it has been believed that cranes mate for life and this has been symbolically used in poetry to express intense love. The lover thinks that only the cranes could have understood his pain and suffering and it would surely have been resonated in the cries of cranes.

maiN to aaj bahut royaa huuN
tuu bhii shaayad royaa hogaa

The lover has wept unconsolably today and he thinks that his beloved would have done the same. But he is not sure about that and hence the word shaayad.

“Nasir” teraa miit puraanaa
tujh ko yaad to aataa hogaa

The maqtaa summarizes the whole Ghazal that the lover is separated from his beloved and he still has not been able to forget her. It has been written in such a way as if a friend is talking to a friend and is more of an assertion with yaad to aataa hogaa than a question.

Thanks for reading this far. I hope my rambling makes some sense. And here is the Ghulam Ali rendition I was talking about.