Ye Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye To Kya Hain?

I do not remember the first time I had heard or read the line ‘Ye Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye To Kya Hain’. But it was definitely two to three years ago. Because I surely remember the first time I had narrated it to others: in one of the mails written to the Gola group.

The very next memory I have of the Nazm – and not merely its first line – is when I used to go to Dewas everyday for the internal audit of Bank Note Press. I had written this remarkable Nazm on a pink coloured piece of paper and whenever I had some free time (I had a lot of it since it was a sarkari office and we were no super-efficient private employees ourselves) I took out that pink slip from my pocket and tried to learn it by heart. I even narrated it to one of my friends there and she said: “Yes, that’s an awesome piece of poetry, and, honestly, I love it all the more because of the way you’re narrating it – like a shaayar.”

Before I could blush my cheeks pink, she added, “But why do you do it in the first place? I mean, what’s the use of reading or learning poetry? You definitely don’t have better things to do, do you?” She wondered over the thought for the moment and forgot about it. I fail to find an answer to it even today.

The third memory is not of yore. One of my friends, NS, put up this GTalk status message: ‘Ye Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye To Kya Hain – Duniya, Gulaal’. The word ‘Gulaal’ surprised me [1]. I immediately corrected her and informed her regarding the original source. I thought everybody ought to have known about this before the Gulaal’s song (which is quite silly of me to think really). However, the fact that she did not know the original inspiration behind this line surprised me even more, for she is an avid reader of Urdu Poetry herself.

Anyway, for as long as I can remember, this memorable, priceless misra (sentence) belongs to Sahir Ludhianvi. It was this misra that had moved and depressed me very early in my life; that had taught me how one can end up with the complete renouncement and rejection of ‘The World’ despite having it clinched in one’s hands; that made me evaluate the world in terms of its worthlessness and recognize the meaninglessness of one's achievements, however many they may be. It is this misra that taught me how to throw away things in life.

Here is the original Nazm [2] written by Sahir Ludhianvi, which was subsequently used by Guru Dutt as a song for the movie Pyaasa.

You know, narrators like me would come and go, and readers like you would come and go too – kal aur aaenge naghmo ki khilti kaliyaa chun’ne wale; mujhse behtar kehne waale, tumse behtar sunne wale – but, inshahAllah, this Nazm shall live forever. :-)

Ye Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye To Kya Hain?

Ye mehlo, ye takhto, ye taajo ki duniya,
Ye insaa ke dushman samaajo ki duniya,
Ye daulat ke bhookhe riwaajo ki duniya,
Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hain?

Har ek jism ghayal, har ek rooh pyaasi,
Nigaaho mein uljhan, dilo mein udaasi,
Ye duniya hai ya aalam-e-badhawasi,
Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hain?

Yahaan ek khilauna hai insaa ki hasti,
Ye basti hai murdaa-parasto ki basti,
Yahaa to jeevan se hai maut sasti,
Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hain?

Jawaani bhatakti hai badkaar ban kar,
Jawaa jism sajte hein baazaar ban kar,
Yahaa pyaar hota hai vyapaar ban kar,
Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hain?

Ye duniya jahaan aadmi kuch nahi hai,
Wafa kuch nahi, dosti kuch nahi hai,
Yahaan pyaar ki qadr hi kuch nahi hai,
Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hain?

Jala do ise, phoonk daalo ye duniya,
Mere saamne se hata lo ye duniya,
Tumhaari hai tum hi sambhaalo ye duniya,
Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hain?


Meanings -
Aalam-e-badhawasi: world of bewilderment
Murdaa-parast: worshipper of dead
Badkaar: of bad character; sinful


[1] One ought to listen to Gulaal’s ‘Ye Duniya’ too. Piyush Mishra’s voice and composition is A-grade and the lyrics are hard-hitting and remarkably profound. I’d call it a great, complementing, contemporary version of the same Nazm imprinted with Piyush Mishra’s signature all over it. A highly recommended listen.
[2] I'm sorry I couldn't tranliterate it in Devanagari. Just that the whole poem again in English would've made the post miserably long.

Shredded Stories

About a couple of month ago, I had written a short story in Urdu. I was merely trying to test myself if I could write a (any) story. Surprisingly, I could – after all, writing stories doesn’t take much besides pen and paper and thoughts and ideas, does it?

Since it was officially the first time I was writing a “story” I decided to write it in one of the new copies that I had in my cupboard. I began from the last page – and at 2:50 in the morning.

By the time I finished it, it wasn’t as short (and as badly written) a story as I had expected it to be: I had written some 8 pages – 4 pages with scribbling on both sides in very small handwriting – and I knew I hadn’t even written half of it. It was almost 5 in the morning and it was time for me to try to sleep.

Now the next day I just didn’t have the right feel to continue with the story. So I kept the copy back inside the cupboard. After a week, when I was going to Bhopal for the XAT test, I wanted to take the register with me: for some reason, I felt that I’d complete the story the night before XAT when I’d be all by myself in a cheap hotel in Bhopal.

Somehow, it wasn’t meant to be. When I was leaving for Bhopal from my shop, at the very last moment, my father arranged for me a place to stay at the home of one of his business friends. Since I felt that now I would no more be all by myself all night and, hence, it would not be possible for me to continue writing the story, I kept the copy at my shop. I wrapped it up tightly in a poly bag so that my Kaka won’t read it (my Dad wouldn’t have ever cared to read it, I knew).

After a couple of days, when I came back from Bhopal, the copy kinda slipped out of my mind. And after a week, I brought it home.

I got the shock of my life when I opened the copy: the last four pages were torn.

I got mad – furiously mad (or madly furious, whatever sounds more furious and more mad together) – and shouted like a crazy lunatic at my Kaka. He laughed. He said he simply forgot that it was mine. He thought it was some customer’s copy and since it’d been lying there for so long, he tore away the few used up pages and thought of using it himself.

I cannot be sure if he was telling me the truth, for he might’ve read the badly scribbled story and then tore it away. As I said earlier, it was a story written in Urdu, and, to add more detail, I was attempting to write it in a very Manto-ish style. The plot was Manto-ish, the characters were Manto-ish, and the writing was Manto-ish; only it did not belong to the Partition era. For those who do not know what I mean by "Manto-ish", let me put it down very simply: it was a pretty vulgar, profane story and so was its language and execution. However, it was just the first, rough draft and I would’ve toned it down to desired levels of decency (only in its language though) in the subsequent readings, but…it was just gone now.

I cried furiously after that happened – I did not know what else to do. For the next two days I was just mad and angry at everything – with not a single soul in the world with whom I could confide my agony and helplessness. I had to "let it go", you see.

And then this happened a week ago: My Kaka formatted the C drive of the laptop for installing Vista. He did it without even asking me once if I had something that I would’ve wanted to save from the formatting bit. I had this ‘Writings’ folder in the My Documents folder of C drive, having more than 50 word files and some 20 text files. It had poetry, fiction, journals, ideas, random thoughts, and a few humourous write-ups – stuff I usually waste my time writing. Some of them were for the blog and some of them were not for the blog.

I lost all of that. I’d written so many things in there. It’s all gone. I have recovered a few files now (5% of what I lost, no more!) through some file recovery software but they’re just the stupid bits that make no difference. And then my Kaka’s formatted the drive some 2-3 times since the last week, switching between Vista and XP due to some or the other problem. I do not know what to do. I don’t even have the spirit to try to recover any of it.

It is such a heartbreaking feeling. 

Nazm: Maine Khwaabo Mein...

I can read Gulzar's Nazms or Wasim Barelvi's Ghazals a thousand times – in the brightest of sunshine and in the darkest of nights – and yet discover some new metaphor, some new meaning every time. What happens with my own poetry is that I scribble it down a couple of hours before dawn, try to edit it in the morning, fail to make it look good (and sometimes not try to edit at all and fail to make it look good anyway), and by the time I have to type it down for the web page, I start abhorring it. :-/ Somehow, in some or the other way, something is always ... not as good as I want it.

Khair, however callow and mediocre, here it is.


नज़्म: मैंने ख्वाबों में ...


मैंने ख़्वाबों में कई बार तुम्हे देखा हैं।

तुम्हारे बाल ज़रा भूरे और लंबे हैं,
तुम्हारे कपड़े ज़रीदार और महँगे हैं,
तुन्हारे हाथ मेहेंदी से अब भी रँगे हैं,

पहन रखा हैं तुमने सोना बहुत हाथों में,
दो नगीने चमक रहे तुम्हारे कानो में,
हँसी भी रुक नही रही तुम्हारी बातों में,

किसी लकीर से मायूस नही हो अब तुम,
किसी सुकून से महरूम नही हो अब तुम,
किसी मुफलीस की महबूब नही हो अब तुम।

मैंने ख़्वाबों में कई बार तुम्हे देखा हैं,
अब ना आया करो तुम इन ग़रीब-खानों में।

मायने -
लकीर: मुक़द्दर की रेखाए
महरूम: वंचित
मुफलीस: ग़रीब
ग़रीब-खाना: ग़रीब का घर



Nazm: Maine Khwaabo Mein ...


Maine khwaabon mein kayi baar tumhe dekha hain.

Tumhare baal zara bhoore aur lambe hain,
Tumhare kapde zaree-daar aur mahange hain,
Tunhare haath mehendi se ab bhi range hain,

Pehen rakha hain tumne sona bahut haathon mein,
Do nageene chamak rahe tumhare kaano mein,
Hasi bhi ruk nahi rahi tumhari baaton mein,

Kisi lakeer se maayoos nahi ho ab tum,
Kisi sukoon se mahroom nahi ho ab tum,
Kisi muflees ki mehboob nahi ho ab tum.

Maine khwaabon mein kayi baar tumhe dekha hain,
Ab na aaya karo tum in ghareeb-khaano me.


Meanings -
Lakeer: Lines of fate
Mahroom: Devoid of
Muflees: Poor
Ghareeb-khaana: House of Poor