Nawaazish-e-mukhtasar

After my first post in the "a sher a day" series I Googled (not binged - wow I can't believe that is already a verb...kudos to M$ for that) if there are any such blogs with a similar theme - and sure enough there is this one which is essentially a collection of articles exchanged on an usenet newsgroup. But that's not going to discourage me from posting my own version of a sher a day. It only bolsters the notion of writing something like this that is intended to help assimilation of Urdu poetry and mausiki in general by the masses.

I would like to talk about a beautiful couplet from a beautiful ghazal "Mere Humnafas Mere Humnavaa" by Shakeel Badayuni sung by many thus far including Vasantrao Deshpande, Sabri Brothers, Farida Khanum et al. The version that appeals to me the most is the one by none other than the un-paralleled genius of Begum Akhtar. The ghazal is set in Raga Darbari and has some amazing lyrics - the entire text is present here . The couplet itself is fairly straightforward but the meaning I am not so sure. Urdu ghazals in general can be discussed at two levels - there is an aspect where the poet is speaking about or to his beloved and then there is a spiritual context in which everything can be raised to a higher level where the poet is having an actual dialogue with god. I will attempt to discuss the couplet I present below at these two levels.

मुझे छोड दे मेरे हाल पर तेरा क्या भरोसा है चारागर।
ये तेरी नवाझिशे मुख्तसर, कहीं मेरा दर्द बढा ना दे।

Meaning:

Literatim:

चारागर = doctor, hakim
नवाझिश = caressing/care/soothing
मुख्तसर = short-lived/brief

Verbatim:

Please leave me alone O' healer of my wounds, as your far and few attempts at caressing and soothing me off my pains may only exacerbate the pain in the longer run.

Discussion:

Lets discuss this from the standpoint of the poet talking to his beloved. The meaning is fairly simple - the poet is asking his(er) beloved to leave him(er) alone as the short-lived companionship and the care (s)he offers will only bring more pain to him in future when those pleasures of "words of care" and "acts of love" would no longer exist.

When taken to a higher level, the poet speaks to god - contrary to most religious poems where worshippers want to be ONE with god, here the poet probably is past all of those emotions and knows that a brief encounter with god is only going to make his life miserable once that moment of ONE-ness is past. Overwhelmed already by his love and worship, he wants to get away from it cos he thinks that such yearning will only bring misery in the end even if he achieves this improbable goal of being ONE with HIM. The idea of firaaq (separation) on the contrary makes him want to be an atheist much like the beloved wants to NOT fall in love in the first place so (s)he spares himself the pain that beckons. He wants god to leave him alone...


-- Sifar.