The one who knows what a ghazal represents will look at this homeland of ours in a different light; the epitome of beauty tinged with a bit of melancholy, separation, and suffering...
HEART TO HEART
The one who knows what a ghazal represents will look at this homeland of ours in a different light; the epitome of beauty tinged with a bit of melancholy, separation, and suffering. A distant sound travels through the air, reaches your ears, and makes you wonder if this ghazal really asks you to mourn the loss of a non-existent forbidden lover or if it symbolizes something else.
Mujh se pehlisi muhabbat mere mehboob na maang
(My beloved, ask me not for the love, that once we shared before…)
Today, you look out of the window and see a row of seasonal flowering trees blooming and flourishing, adorning the green belts of the city. The sky reflects the blues of the weather and your conscious being; a waft of gentle breeze blows your mind away, and you are forced to contemplate how and why it makes your heart pound and a feeling of something like love emerges out of nowhere for the land you walk on and the ground that holds your feet when you stand straight and look up at the sky to check for the possibility of rain. A distant tune buzzes again;
Teri soorat se hai aalam mein baharon ko sabaat
(Your visage brings permanence to the seasons of spring in the world.)
You close your eyes and put your head down, hands in your pockets as you kick the dirt and rocks while walking along the roads of this enormous city consuming you whole. “What is there to look forward to? What is there to hold onto? Who do I call upon? I need to run off to a far, far land,” the bubbles of the questions keep forming and popping inside your brain, and you squeeze your head between your hands as if it will form legs of its own to jump out of your skull and run away, leaving you with an empty head behind. The ghazal singer hums;
Yu’n natha main ne faqat chaha tha yu’n ho jaye
(It was not so; it was only my wish that it were so)
You look out of the window once more, and the scenes your eyes witness throw you completely off guard. You become enraged and your blood boils. You think of a common, unprivileged man; the weight of an axe, a basket full of decaying fruits on his head, or a cart loaded with a bunch of hand-made toys pressing against his body, crushing his soul. A synapse shoots in your brain, and you remind yourself of that one “words/sentences” activity in school when you were taught about someone who has a hand-to-mouth way of living his life: the laborer. The ghazal reverberates;
Khaak mein lithrray hue, khoon mein nihlaye hue
(Covered with dust, all their wounds bleeding)
You see, you cannot live your life keeping your eyes shut against the atrocities of cruel life or count the names of the people to blame the circumstances on. You can choose to use your fingertips to count the uncountable blessings and hope to get more, but how far can this approach take someone until one realizes they have to give back to those whose time to shine never presented itself before them? The ghazal jingles too close to the eardrum now;
Laut jaati hai udher ko bhi nazar kia kijiye, Ab bhi dilkash hai tera husn magar kia kijiye
(My gaze, too, strikes back, what can I do? Your beauty, too, is still captivating, but what can I do)
The good and the bad, the black and the white, have always existed in each era and in every period of the world’s existence. It is imperative to look for the grays in current times. With the world falling apart, it is up to us to figure out where our grays lie as individuals. Surely, there is light on the other side, because all is never lost.
Mujh se pehli si muhabbat is a ghazal by the famous Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
