Zikr Us Parivash Ka...

Have hit the block after which this blog is punnily named. Nothing seems good enough to be written. Ideas die before they are born. The sanguine confidence (same thing?) which caused several good and bad posts to be posted, has disappeared down a side-street, bored with the inactivity, looking for excitement elsewhere. Memories, thoughts, desires and emotions clog the brain, all waiting in the queue, for days, hoping for expression. There is a dullness, similar to that which results from lack of physical excercise...

Anyway, here's a ghazal from Ghalib. Ghalib seems to have written a lot of these witty shers. Perhaps not to be sung out in a melancholy song but to be told at parties, like jokes.



Zikr us parivash ka, aur phir bayaan apna,
ban gaya raqib aakhir, tha jo raazdaan apna.


parivash: fairy like; raqib: rival; raazdaan: confidant
Praises of that nymph, and sung in my style,
He who was my confidant was swayed to become my rival.


Deh woh jis kadar zillat, ham hansi mein taalenge,
Baare aashnaa nikla, un ka paasbaan apna.


zillat: disgrace; baare: by chance, in the end; aashnaa: friend; paasbaan: guard
Let her heap insults on me, I'll laugh them off,
Her door-man is watching, but afterall he's my friend now.


Dard-e-dil likhun kab tak, jaaun un ko dikhla doon,
Ungliyaan figaar apni, khaama khunchukaan apna,


figaar: wounded, khunchukaan: dripping blood
How long shall I write of the anguish of my heart,
Why not instead I go and show her, my wounded fingers, my bloody pen.


Hum kahaan ke Daana the, kis hunar men yakta the,
be-sabab hua Ghalib, dushman aasmaan apna


Daana: wise man; yakta: expert; be-sabab: needlessly
You are no wise man, Ghalib, nor do you have any special talent,
Then why is it that the heavens, have so turned against you?