A Thousand Yearnings

by Ralph Russell

  These examples show that hospitality is an excellent quality in Eastern peoples, and no instances of guests being pests should make us abandon it. We can learn from the west how to avoid the evils of hospitality, but to lose the quality of hospitality would be to turn our backs on our culture and our standards of good conduct.

  * The New Light: Adopting British ways and abandoning traditional customs. See p. 289.

  †Maulvi: see note on p. 43.

  * qul ho vallah: ‘God is one’. But there is a play upon words here. The Arabic words are thought to sound like the rumbling of an empty belly.

  †auz o billah: ‘Refuge in God’—the key words in the sentence, ‘I seek refuge in God from accursed Satan.’

  ‡ Ibrahim: see p. 121. Hazrat is a title of great respect.

  * A common form of address for a saintly man.

  LOVE POETRY

  GHAZALS OF MIR AND GHALIB

  Classical Love Poetry

  From the time that Urdu speakers first began to use their mother tongue as a vehicle for literature, poetry dominated the scene; and poetry remains to the present day that part of their literature which Urdu speakers most value. Urdu speakers most emphatically do not suffer from that ‘successfully cultivated distaste for poetry’ which the English have, with much justification, been accused of by one of their fellow countrymen.

  Their classical poetry includes verse in a number of different genres, but by far the most popular of these was, and still is, a form called the ghazal. It is the ghazal therefore, which forms the subject matter of this section, and other genres are not represented in this book.

  Love in Muslim Society

  The ghazal’s central theme is love; and to fully appreciate ghazal poetry, one needs to understand how the society and time which produced this form of poetry viewed passionate love.

  The ghazal celebrates a love which, in that social context, could only be illicit. Romantic love was regarded as a menace to ordered social life—and indeed, it still often is. Marriages were (and often still are) alliances between two families, not unions of two lovers.* The purdah system evolved as a way of making falling in love impossible, and when it could not be prevented it was drastically punished. From puberty onwards boys and girls were kept strictly apart. Houses were divided into two separate parts, one for the men and one for the women, but a boy and a girl from the same neighbourhood might perhaps catch an accidental sight of each other, which might be enough for them to believe themselves in love. To persist in the course of love took great courage, especially on the part of the girl, who (as in almost all societies) was penalized even more cruelly than the boy. Even where she returned his love, she would feel the need to put his steadfastness to the test, treating him with what seemed to him great cruelty until she felt sure that no matter what it cost him he would be true to her.

  All these situations are frequent themes in ghazal poetry; and it is not surprising that the illicit—often dangerous—nature of the love it depicts gives rise to particularly intense expressions of feeling.

  Ghazals and Mushairas

  Though a ghazal is primarily a love poem, it has many other possible themes as well. It consists of a series of loosely linked couplets, each independent in meaning—called sher in Urdu, as well as in English (by Urdu and Hindi speakers, mostly). In a typical ghazal there may not be common theme between the couplets. So you can think of a ghazal as a collection of independent two-line poems. (Rarely will a poet compose a ‘continuous’ ghazal on a single theme. I have included a couple of examples; but these are exceptions.)

  For Urdu speakers, the ghazal is primarily something they hear, not read. Poets air their ghazals in gatherings called mushairas; only later will some of their poems get into print and be read. You will get a sense of the atmosphere of a mushaira in a later section of this book, in Farhatullah Beg’s A Memorable Delhi Mushaira. The form of the ghazal is intimately connected with this way of presenting it. Every couplet is spoken and appreciated separately, and the audience responds immediately. The mushaira is often an all-night affair, and therefore, monotony of theme and mood has to be avoided if the poets are to make their impact. Within one ghazal the mood may vary startlingly from couplet to couplet, so that lines of intense sadness might be followed by others of broad comedy. Poets enable their audience to relax between the highly charged couplets by including verses that say nothing much,but say it competently. Urdu speakers know all this—they take it in their stride, and enjoy it all; but what they remember afterwards are the good verses.

  What binds the couplets together and makes them part of the same ghazal is not their theme, but a very strict unity of form—rhyme and metre—and, as this is poetry to be heard, ghazals work best when these features are strongly marked. All the couplets of a ghazal must use exactly the same metre, and follow a strict rhyme scheme: the lines of the first couplet rhyme (AA) and in all following couplets the second line must rhyme with that initial couplet (BA, CA, DA and so on.) Once the audience has heard the first couplet they can anticipate the shape and sound of all those that will follow, and this enhances the pleasure they feel. Sadly, this is a pleasure largely lost in translation. The metrical patterns in Urdu are far more complex and varied than those commonly used in English, and while in Urdu rhymes are abundant and rhyming is easy, that is not the case in English. Only very rarely can a translator find a good, consistent rhyme which can be maintained throughout the poem.

  Two other conventions of the ghazal need explaining. First, every ghazal poet takes a pen name, a takhallus, and they must introduce this in the last couplet of the ghazal, rather like a signature. So in the last couplet it often sounds as if poets are addressing themselves, or as though they were someone else talking about the poet.

  Then there is the question of grammatical gender. Mushairas were traditionally part of cultured aristocratic society, and largely male affairs, though courtesans were an accepted part of their social world and many were skilled poets. But the grammatical convention is that it is the male lover who speaks. In medieval literatures conventions of this kind were strict and binding, and though it was true that the poet generally was masculine and that this fixed the convention, it was no less true that convention was binding on all poets, so that women ghazal poets also spoke of themselves in the masculine. The beloved, too, is always spoken of in the masculine, and though this could in some cases have reflected a real-life love of man to man, in most cases it is clear that a female beloved is intended: this is a grammatical convention only. A similar but opposite convention is found in much of Bhakti poetry. There the archetype is that of the love of Radha—a woman—for Krishna—a male god—and all lovers, male and female alike, speak of themselves in the feminine gender. In both forms of poetry both men and women listening feel no difficulty in identifying with the poet-lover.

  Illustrating the Themes of the Ghazal

  Because English readers encountering the ghazal for the first time are likely to find it difficult to put aside the expectation that a poem should have a unity of theme and tone, I have taken the sher—the couplet—as the essential poetic unit, rather than presenting whole ghazals. I have illustrated the ghazal’s recurrent themes primarily through a selection of couplets taken from two of its greatest exponents. Mir (1723–1810) is by universal consent the greatest eighteenth-century ghazal poet, and the greatest love poet of all Urdu literature. Ghalib (1797–1869) is the greatest nineteenth-century poet, and in many people’s view the greatest Urdu poet of all. His ghazals are extensively quoted today, and far more Urdu speakers know by heart large stretches of Ghalib’s ghazals than educated English speakers know of Shakespeare. At the end of the section, to give you a feel of a typical ghazal where each couplet is on a different theme, I have included several couplets from a number of well known ghazals of Ghalib.

  A few ghazals—untypically—do have a continuous theme, and I have included examples of this at the beginning of the section, one ghazal each b
y Hasrat Mohani (1875–1951) and Momin (1800–1851).

  Readers who know Urdu will want to know the originals of the couplets I have included, so I have given these alongside the translations, in roman script. Many different ways are used to transcribe the sounds of Urdu in English letters. I have not used diacritics but rather, employed a simple transcription using the phonetic sounds of the words. For help with pronunciation, see my note on Urdu pronunciation in the appendix.

  * See the earlier extract by Shaukat Thanavi, Love and Prudence.

  Lovers’ Meetings

  I begin with two continuous ghazals which vividly capture the social context of love in traditional society. The first, by Hasrat Mohani, gives a picture of how lovers will manage to find moments to be together, despite the restrictions. In older parts of towns the houses often adjoin one another, and in the hottest weather people take their midday siesta up on the flat roof and sleep there at night. Lovers who are bold enough may stay awake and cross surreptitiously from one roof to another:

  I still recall when first I fell in love

  The silent tears I shed, all night, all day.

  The thousand fears, the hundred thousand longings

  I felt when first I gave my heart away.

  The days when I would gaze up at your window

  And you would meet the challenge of my eyes.

  When first we met, the boldness of my passion,

  Alarming to you, taken by surprise.

  I quickly raised the corner of your curtain

  You raised your scarf to hide your face from view.

  I made to kiss your feet, thinking you sleeping

  You smiled and pushed my head away from you.

  The days when no one else but I yet loved you

  Just tell me, do you nurse those memories too?

  At nights, when there was no one there to see you

  And stop you, you would steal away to me

  In the midday heat, you’d come barefoot to call me

  And tell me all you had to say to me.

  The secret places where I used to meet you

  Long years ago, I still can see them all

  And though I pray to God to make me pious

  Those lusty days are days I still recall.

  chupke chupke raat din aansu bahaana yaad hai

  hum ko ab tak aashiqi ka vo zamaana yaad hai

  baa hazaaraan iztaraab o sad hazaaraan ishtiaaq

  tujh se vo pehle pal dil ka lagaana yaad hai

  baar baar uthna usi jaanib nigaah e shauq ka

  aur tira ghurfe se vo aankhen laraana yaad hai

  tujh se kuchh milte hi vo bebaak ho jaana mera

  aur tira daanton mein vo ungli dabaana yaad hai

  khainch lena vo mera parde ka kona daffatan

  aur dupatte se tera vo munh chhupaana yaad hai

  jaan kar sona tujhe vo qasad e paabosi mera

  aur tera thukra ke sar vo muskaraana yaad hai

  jab siva mere tumhaara koi deevaana na tha

  sach kaho kuchh tum ko bhi vo kaar-khaana yaad hai

  dopehr ki dhoop mein mere bulaane ke liye

  vo tira kothe pe nange paaon aana yaad hai

  chori chori hum se tum aakar mile thhe jis jagah

  muddatein guzrin par ab tak vo thikaana yaad hai

  bavajuud e iddi’a e ittiqa Hasrat mujhe

  aaj tak ahd e havas ka vo fasaana yaad hai

  This poem expresses the exuberance of youth, and a mood in which the lovers give no attention to the price they would have to pay for their love if it were discovered. But the price could have been a formidable one. Lovers who were discovered could be killed by their families, and where the families shrank from so violent a punishment, forcible separation and the strongest condemnation of the lovers was the norm. So the joy that the lovers felt in loving each other could seldom last. The lovers’ relationship usually ended because they themselves accepted the prevailing social values and gave in to pressure. This ghazal by Momin conveys the sense of inevitable loss:

  Once we made a pledge we would always love—

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  And that come what may we would still be true—

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  In those days you always were kind to me,

  days when in every moment you cherished me

  And I recall every smallest thing,

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  Ever new complaints, ever new resentments,

  and with it, stories of all our joys

  Times when all I did would provoke a frown—

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  I would sit in company, facing you,

  and our gestures served us in place of words

  That proclaimed our passion quite openly—

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  When fortune favoured us we would meet,

  and with every breath would speak our love

  And complain of kinsfolk who censured us—

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  And if something happened to cause you pain,

  and you had a mind to complain of it

  You forgot it all before words would come—

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  Those were days when both of us were in love,

  days when both would want to communicate

  Days when you and I were each other’s love—

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  Yes, some years have passed since you promised me

  you would always, always be true to me.

  Have you kept that promise? I ask it now—

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  I am he whom you called your lover once,

  he who you were sure would be true to you

  I am still that lover of whom you spoke—

  and I wonder, do you remember it?

  vo jo hum mein tum mein qaraar tha, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  vuhi yani vaada nibaah ka, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  vo jo lutf mujh pe the beshtar vo karam ki tha mere haal par

  mujhe sab hai yaad zara zara, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  vo nae gile vo shikaayatein vo maze maze ki hikaayatein

  vo har ek baat pe ruthna, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  kabhi baithe sab mein jo rubaru to ishaaraton hi se guftagu

  vo bayaan shauq ka barmala, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  hui ittifaaq se gar baham to vafa jataane ko dam ba dam

  gila e malaamat e aqriba, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  koi baat aisi agar hui ki tumhare ji ko buri lagi

  to bayaan se pehle hi bhoolna, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  kabhi hum mein tum mein bhi chaah thi kabhi hum se tum se bhi raah thi

  kabhi hum bhi tum bhi thhe aashna, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  suno zikr hai kai saal ka ki kiya ik aap ne vaada tha

  so nibaahane ka to zikr kya, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  jise aap ginte thhe aashna jise aap kehte thhe baa-vafa

  main vuhi hoon Momin e mubtala, tumhein yaad ho ki na yaad ho

  Mir: The Ideal Ghazal Lover

  The eighteenth-century poet Mir is often described as ‘the poet of love’. Throughout his ghazals and other semi-autobiographical poetry, he wrote movingly of his own intense and often traumatic experiences in love. He exemplifies the concept of a lover who is steadfast in his love, regardless of the obstacles.

  In couplet after couplet he describes the immediate, overwhelming impact of a woman’s beauty:

  I caught a glimpse of you with hair dishevelled

  And my distracted heart was yours for life.

  zulfein khole tu to tuk aaya nazar

  umar bhar yahaan kaam e dil barham raha

  She came but once, but do not ask what left me as she went—

  My strength, and faith, and fortitude, and will and heart and soul.

>   hosh o sabr o khirad o deen o havas o dil o taab

  uss ke ek aane mein kya kya na gaya—mat poochho

  Where lovely women gather my beloved shines among them

  As when the shining moon appears among the twinkling stars.

  jama e khubaan mein mera mehboob is maanind hai

  jun mah e taabinda aata hai kabhu taaron ki beech

  Until you see her walk you will not know

  What grace and poise and matchless beauty are.

  sargarm e jalva us ko dekhe koi so jaane

  tarz e khiraam kya hai, husn o jamaal kya hai

  Now and then she passes smiling, and for me the roses bloom

  All the advent of spring is in the grace of her approach.

  aa nikalta hai kabhu hansta to hai bagh o bahaar

  uss ki aamad mein hai saari fasl e gul aane ki tarah

  A body beautiful as hers I never saw or knew of

  As flawless is her form as if cast in a perfect mould.

  itni sudaul dehi dekhi na hum suni hai

  tarkeeb us ki goya saanche mein gayi hai dhali

  As the pure pearl shines through the limpid water

  So does the beauty of her body shine.

  saath us husn ke deta tha dikhai vo badan

  jaise jhamke hai para gauhar e tar paani mein

  For you I live—whose tightly clad, firm body

  Teaches my soul what joy it is to live.

  tangi e jaama zulm hai e baais e hayaat

  paate hain lutf jaan ka hum tere tan ke beech

  Her body yields such joy, I know no longer

  Whether it is her body or my soul.

  lutf us ke badan ka kuchh na poochho

  kya jaaniye jaan hai ki tan hai?

  Her wakening eyes, half-opened, seem to hold

  All the intoxicating power of wine.

  Mir un neem baaz aankhon mein

  saari masti sharaab ki si hai

  In that house where the moonlight of your radiance lies spread

  The moonlight seems as lustreless as does the spider’s web.

  jis ghar mein tere jalve se ho chaandni ka farsh

  vahaan chaadar e mahtaab hai makri ka sa jaala

  I never saw the stars so bright before: