Pahle Mere Geet

Yesterday was one of those days where my belief in Cricket as a religion was stronger than my belief in blogging as religion. Hence the missed post. A bunch of colleagues from work and "one hop away" people got together to enjoy an evening of some nostalgic "Galli cricket" in a tennis court at a friends place. Needless to say by the end of it my fatigue had the better of me to preclude any constructive writing.

So here I am back to share another couplet today. We will continue to dwell on the ghazals of Ustad Ahmed Hussain and Mohammed Hussain. The sher we will discuss today is from a ghazal Pahle Mere Geet and is set in Raga Puriya (me thinks). Its a beautiful ghazal with a medium tempo and sung equally well by the duo. The blending and branching of the two voices when the two sing together and then go solo weaves a great fabric of swar that is appealing.

Jumping to the sher of the day - its lyrics are superlative:

मै था जर्रा कारवां के साथ मंज़िल तक रहा ।
चांद सूरज राह में आते रहे जाते रहे ।

Literatim:

जर्रा - atom, small particle of matter.

Verbatim:

Though I was the most insignificant element of the caravan, I stayed with the qaafila (caravan) till the very end. The significant ones like the sun and the moon accompanied the caravan, but only capriciously.

Discussion:

This couplet appeals to me in a way that it makes think every single time I read or hear it. The poet calls himself a miniscule atom or a tiny particle of dust which stayed with the caravan all through its journey through the desert. Several thoughts come to mind - the smallest particle which had the highest probability (owing to its insignificance) of losing out stuck with the caravan till the very end while the ones that mattered the most - the suns and the moons of the world never really accompanied the qaafila till the end; rising and setting to their whim.

I will probably revisit this discussion tomorrow adding more thought quotient to it. Although I have been told that I write way too serious stuff and to lighten up a little :).

On a side note, now that the weather is good my rusty camera needs to come out. I probably will get to shooting some pictures and posting them on here soon.

Stay tuned...