Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Ab Ke Hum Bichde-- Ahmed Faraz


I am listening to ab ke hum bichde sung by Mehdi Hassan..In the live performance, he says " this raaga is made with a komal daivat in bhopaali .. isee daivat mein saare bichardne ka dukh saamne aajaata hai"...

The ghazal mourns for a past that is gone.. of a past that wrenches the poets heart..It picks on the deepest wound.... until it becomes raw... slowly .. a bright red spot of blood appears..and widens...... and then flows down with your most merciless tears, of regret. of a madness that once filled every thing in and around you.. .an aching known only to who have loved ...truly with their mind... with their heart... their existance.... and then lost it..

Ahmed Faraaz, the poet.. he knows how to pluck the right strings to trigger a silent sigh.. that grows in to a thunderstorm of pent up sorrow..

Now that we are apart... perhaps we will meet in our dreams ...some time....
like finding a dried flower in an old book....

Search for the pearls of trust in broken hearts..Perhaps you will find the treasure in those ruins... The more devastated I feel about my loss, closer i am to how i felt when i was in true love...Perhaps I can find the treasures of my lost faith in love in the ruins of my broken heart...

Now that you are gone.... when i feel low...devastated with even mundane disappointments ... the most i miss is how i felt in the times bygone.. I drown to new bottoms... and a piercing ache.. a dismay that has no remeday at all..... settles on my mood.. there is a strange kind of satisfied feeling in drowing in the sorrow.... of you... of me... put together with everything that could have gone well....Perhaps you should mix the pain of the world with the pain of love... After all, when one wine mixes with another, you can atleast lose yourself in the heights of intoxication..

You are not God.. neither was my love divine.. when we are both human... why did we meet each other so many pretences... "donon insaan hai tou kyon itney hijaabon mein miley?"..... i cant find any way of restating what the poet is saying here.. He knows exactly what I would feel like.. I feel that poets like Faraz are the best friends to share your sorrows with.. they take your most tearing pain .. and turn it in to something so beautiful....

I loved the idea of loving you.... you loved for what you thought I was... I hid my self behind so many masks... Neither of us could confront the truth of what we were... why did it have to be like that? when we are only human.. why do we chase the image of divine love.. never seeing one another for what we are..

Now, I am no longer what i was before... you are not what you were .... the times we had together ..are gone ...long ago..it all seems so surreal.... nothing seems real.. not you .. not me.. not our union.....the we way we met in life .. seems like
a union of two shadows in the mirage of wishes....

I am unable to get out of that mirage.. I am lost in the ruins of my lost love...All that is left ... tears... and a lingering wish of seeing you... in my dreams.... in future .. some time.. some day.... some place....... I hope.... to find that dried flower in my book...

13 Comments:

At 5:57 PM , Blogger rumour said...

interesting.....

 
At 3:01 PM , Blogger Pooja Subramanya said...

Oh my god! Thats depressing, I hope it was just the song and not really your life!

 
At 9:15 PM , Blogger nphard said...

It was the song.. I wonder if I relate to it so well.. because my life is similar.

 
At 12:15 PM , Blogger അഫ്ഗാര്‍ (afgaar) said...

the best interpretation of the ghazal i have read so far....g8!

 
At 2:14 PM , Blogger nphard said...

Thank you :-)

 
At 11:59 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

Ahmed Faraz is great. I generally like your translation, but, not the part for 'Ghame duniya bhi....' I would suggest it means
'Worldly woes need to be mixed with the woes of separation (from you)'for Woes are like liquior when two different liquiors mix it just raises the level of intoxication for one to bear the pain of both.'

Otherwise spectacular

 
At 9:17 PM , Blogger nphard said...

Thanks for the comment Hemant, I like your interpretation better.I had a similar view of it.. but I could not get cocktails to sound anywhere near as poetic as he wrote it!

 
At 4:48 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

A commentary right from the heart..I liked if so much I read it to my wife.....-Faisal

 
At 8:39 PM , Blogger nphard said...

Thank you very much :) Anything I could ever say would not do any justification to the beauty of the ghazal

 
At 6:44 AM , Blogger Unknown said...

Man,that is really a very good job,if this gazal qud had been an english poetry,nota word wud had to b changed..too good-Rohan.H.Jaisi

 
At 12:14 AM , Blogger nphard said...

Thank you Rohan! Thank you for your generous words :-)

 
At 8:17 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

This raga is not bhoopaali but rather boop-kaali.

See the video of mohammed wakeel of the same song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52tUWl7PcH0

 
At 8:37 AM , Blogger nphard said...

Mehdi Hassan did not say the raaga is Bhopali. He said when you take the scale of Bhopali, and replace the daivat with komal daivat, you get this raaga, which makes the raaga melancholic. I guess the wording may have confused you!

 

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