Now, I get it.

Kahoon kiss say mien keh kiya hai,

Shab-e-gham buree bala hai.

Mujhay kiya bura tha marna,

Agar aik baar hota.


All that i've learnt from love, all that i've earned and lost.
All that i've stolen from, and all that i've surrendered to the fantasy that makes life worth living.
The relelntless rapture of finding love, the corrosive desolation of losing it.
The futility of having had it, the helpless surrender of not having it anymore.
All the lessons learnt and abandoned.
All that and more.
Encompassed in four lines of unequalled poetic expression. My present and past contained in something someone else once said.
Mirza Asad-ullah Khan Ghalib, solace for defeated passion.
I

Comments

Xeb said…
Ghalib! :)
`sigh`
That man was a genius!! :D
Ozair said…
yaar...!! wah wah!! honestly the urdu bit was a bit "sooowsh" over my head!! but man i dug the english translation... if that was the translation... and if it wasnt (excuse my ignorance) these are some of the most beautiful words iv read... :)
Ozair said…
bus now its my mission to learn mirza ghalib !! :)
BaptizedLucifer said…
people do get over u you know? one never forgets but with time it no longer occupies our mind. Like it did when it was there. Like it did when it was over. It becomes just another distant memory. If we try...
no no! that's not the translation..
i'm sure no one will read this but i feel compelled to explain...
roughly..it means

who should i explain to what it is

the aftermath of love lost

i have no problems with the pain of death

if only i didn't have to experience it so many times

Ghalib went through a lot of very hard times...that's what he means by the last line...repeated losses

it's a fact Ghalib has no parallel...

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