The Hidden Garden, Gopi Narang [cheapest way to read ebooks txt] 📗

life proved so treacherous!

chhor jaate hain dil ko tere paas

y hamaara nishaan hai pyaarey

I leave my heart

in your custody.

Take it as my souvenir,

dear one!

ae shor-e qayaamat ham sote hi n rah jaavein

is raah se nikle to ham ko bhi jaga jaana

O tumult of the doomsday,

don’t leave me behind while I’m sleeping.

When you pass this way,

make sure that you wake me up.

masaaib aur the par dil ka jaana

a’jab ik saaniha sa ho gaya hai

There were other calamities,

but the loss of my heart—

it was a disaster

of a different kind.

vajah-e begaangi nahien maa’luum

tum jahan ke ho vaan ke ham bhi hain

I don’t know the cause

of your estrangement.

I belong to the same place

where you come from.

aage kisu ke kya karein dast-e tam’a daraaz

vo haath so gaya hai sarhaane dhare dhare

How should I extend my hand

before someone for begging?

That hand has become numb

after staying long under the head.

kare kya k dil bhi to majbuur hai

zamiin sakht hai aasmaan duur hai

What can the poor heart do?

It is helpless.

The ground below is hard,

and the sky above is far away.

bahut sa’ii kariye to mar rahiye Mir

bas apna to itna hi maqduur hai

If you want to put in a lot of effort,

the most you can do is die, Mir.

That is the outreach of human destiny.

A Delightful Synthesis of Persian and Rekhta

laaya hai mera shauq mujhe parde se baahar

main varna vohi khilvati-e raaz-e nihaan huun

My passion brought me out from the veil.

Otherwise, I am the same secret—

a tiny secret among all the secrets.

The emphasis on Mir’s simplicity came at the cost of other significant aspects of his poetry. When Maulvi Abdul Haq and Asar Lakhnavi wrote about it, this line of thinking gained popularity. But it is rather strange that this critique continued even until Syed Abdullah, who wrote about Mir much later. He wrote, ‘There is no doubt that when Mir shows the Persian influence, he reveals something new and innovative, but this is not his original colour. There, something is missing.’ What this meant was that the appeal of Mir’s poetry essentially depends on the simplicity of his style. This view is highly limiting and may be viewed as an attempt to pigeon-hole the span of Mir’s work. He is simple and complex; he plays at the surface, but then he also reaches great depths. The following ghazal, written in an accomplished Persian style, is an excellent example of his strength:

main kaun huun ae ham-nafasaan sokhta jaan huun

ik aag mere dil mein hai jo sho’la fishaan huun

Who am I, my sweet friends?

One with a burnt-out heart.

There is a fire that burns inside.

I am a walking inferno.

However Abdullah commented, ‘this couplet is complete and without any fault. It could have been written by any of the medieval masters such as Kalim or Salim. But this verse lacks the special quality and flavour that we usually find in Mir.’1 It is surprising how as a serious reader of Mir’s poetry, Syed Abdullah, ignored some exceedingly beautiful, creative and well-crafted couplets from the same ghazal. This effort to look for only one kind of ‘quality and flavour’ in Mir was misplaced.

laaya hai mera shauq mujhe parde se baahar

main varna vohi khilvati-e raaz-e nihaan huun

My passion brought me out from the veil.

Otherwise, I am the same secret—

a tiny secret among all the secrets.

jalvah hai mujhi se lab-e dariya-e sukhan par

sad rang meri mauj hai main tab’e ravaan huun

I am the spectacle

on the shore of the ocean of poetry.

My tides show multiple colours

and I flow immaculately.

ik vahm nahien besh meri hasti-e mauhuum

is par bhi teri khaatir-e naazuk p garaan huun

My existence is nothing more

than a deception, a flicker of a thought.

Still I am a burden, an affliction

for your delicate heart.

Most often, Mir fulfils the strict and extremely ingenious requirement of Persian versification. There are many highly creative Persian-based phrases that we usually associate with Ghalib like kaav kaav, yak qatr-e khuun, saada o purkaar, shiisha baaz, yak biyabaan, hangaama garm-kun, hariif-e be-jigar, hariif-e nabard, etc. as pointed out by Asar Lakhnavi. But we forget the fact that they were originally crafted by Mir; and Ghalib and others borrowed them from him, as can be seen from the following couplets:

yak biyabaan ba-rang-e saut-e jaras

mujh p hai bekasi o tanhaaii

The faint caravan bells in the desert

melt into the darkness—

broken and helpless like me,

sad and forlorn!

hangaama garm-kun jo dil-e na-subuur tha

paida har ek naale se shor-e nushuur tha

The tumult caused

by the impatient heart

produced lamentation

that was no less than the noise

of the day of judgement.

aavaargaan-e i’shq ka puuchha jo main nishaan

musht-e ghubaar le ke saba ne ura diya

When I inquired

the fate of unfortunate

forlorn lovers,

the wind took hold

of a handful of dust

and flew it into the air.

dil k yak qatra-e khuun nahien hai besh

ek aa’lam ke sar bala laaya

The heart might not be

in excess of a drop of blood,

but it has brought calamity and ruin

to the whole world.

dil i’shq ka hamesha hariif-e nabard tha

ab jis jagah k daagh hai vaan aage dard tha

The heart always gave up

in the battle of love.

Where there is a scar now

was once the seat of pain.

Delightful Flavouring of Persian

The structure of couplets quoted above travelled straight from Mir to Ghalib. Both of these great poets of Urdu belonged to Agra. In Mir’s Divans, there is no shortage of couplets that contain a delightful mix of Persian phrases and colloquial Rekhta. The charm of his couplets rested on the hybrid amalgamation of Persian words with the syncretic and colloquial structures of Rekhta. Whenever and wherever Mir confronted cataclysms and misfortunes, he went deeper into his self, or he dived into metaphysics and talked about the mystery of existence, or he drowned himself into the wonders of contemplation. He often delved into a combination of Persian and Prakrit figures of speech. There is no difference of opinion that these couplets are among his best and in comparison to his other couplets, there is no dearth of a ‘lancet-like pointedness’ in such couplets as well.

zabaan rakh ghuncha saan apne dahan mein

bandhi muthi chala ja is chaman mein

Keep your tongue in your