Hain?

Is Qadar pyar say

Ay jaan-e-jahaan

Rakha hai

Dil ke rukhsar pay is waqt

Teri yaad nay haath

Yun Gumaa hota hai

Garchay hai abhi subh-e-firaak

Dhal gaya hijr ka din

Aa bhee gaee

Wasl kee raat….

Yeah, I’m totally in Ghazal mode these days.

They speak to me, these long dead scions of devotion. These poets of a generation that knew how to feel. That could comprehend the concept of a soul as something more than a romantics allegory for a weak constitution. They speak with an understanding that seems almost impossible to find in anyone living, they speak as if they know exactly what I need to hear to let myself grieve, and then, perhaps, find reprieve.

They speak in a language that transcends mortality. The boundaries of time and space and logic and convention are not only abandoned but destroyed when I’m in ghazal mode.

When I’m in ghazal mode, there is only space enough around for introspection, contemplation and a bottle of Cutty Sark. I crave no company, no interaction. The thought of another human being, a breathing, thinking, breeding mess of imperfect thoughts and insincere actions is repulsive to me. I want a cocoon, a womb in which to lie silent with the thoughts I never let come up to the surface otherwise because it makes very little sense to expose the honest truth to the turgid air of reality. .

Nayara Noor sings Faiz and it’s not just a song anymore. She’s not just a singer and he’s not just a poet. They morph into the sum total of all the angst compiled over a hundred billion years of being alive and being in love. And from that angst suddenly rises a cynical but not bitter understanding of the inherent desperation of the human spirit which makes us both the strongest and the weakest of all of God’s mistakes.

Her voice palpitates with the helplessness he must’ve felt and his words throb and breathe and weep and laugh like the living remnants of the dead feelings that did define a man, but not his destiny.

But what was his destiny is benediction for me. His life unfolded however it did for whatever reasons, but when my throat asks for an end to the self imposed prohibition, it’s time to turn the bass low, the lights out.

And reach into that one dark corner that is like the friend you visit only because of the guilt you feel for not visiting her more often.

The one who somehow ended up being with you through all your epiphanies, when you would have so wanted to have someone else. The one who doesn’t fit your romantic expectations of life but ended up there, like a hideous mole, to witness the moments that defined you. You avoid her because you’re afraid of what she knows of you better than you yourself want to. Because of all she did for you, despite that knowledge. You avoid her because she reminds you of who you will never stop being no matter how well you act out the repugnant persona that every body else likes so much. The one who still makes you nervous and self conscious when you accidentally run into her on your way home from work or when you go out with your other friends. The one who stands quietly in the corner looking you straight in the eyes with only pity and compassion in them as if you really aren’t perfect, you really aren’t.

You go to her because you know for a fact that she is the only one, the only one out of all the ones you’d like to have in place of her, who can tell you that it’s okay and make you believe it.

She will cradle your head in her lap, and stroke your hair softly, and keep her face out of your eye sight because she knows you liked the way she used to look when you hadn’t even seen her yet but don’t anymore since the truth has hardly ever been beautiful and you’ve hardly ever been an honest man. She will pat your ego on the back with justifications and excuses which you can use in the fake real world to keep your guards up high enough to not be stung by anyone. She will patch you up and pad you into the bubble wrap you need around your insecure, vulnerable core so you can pretend to be the kind of person you think you want to be.

She will bid you adieu with a smile on her face you won’t get to see because she’ll offer it to the back of your head because she knows you won’t turn around. Not just yet.

But one day, you will be back here, in this cold and silent inner sanctum of your soul where words aren’t words and the past isn’t dead and you are alive only because you have lived and nothing, not a damn thing is ever going to change that. Like a bat out of hell you will eventually return, you will come full circle and when you do you will find that some things never change, for better nor worse. Some memories, unlike good sense, never abandon you and when the time comes to own up to them, to recognize your weak, imperfect, inconsistent self; to acknowledge it, apologize for it, to gather up the courage, the confidence to live despite it, to put things in a perspective that allows for both what you wished for and what you got to exist in relative harmony, stuff like this…

Mujh say pehli see mohabbat meray mehboob na maang

Mainay samjha tha kay tu hai to darakhshaan hai hayat

Tera gham hai to gham-e-deher ka jhagra kiya hai

Teri soorat say hai alam mien baharon ko sabaat

Teri aankhoon kay siwa duniya mien rakha kiya hai

Tu jo mil jaye tow taqdeer nagoon ho jaye

Yun na tha, mainay fakat chahha that ha yun ho jaye

Unginat sadion kay tareek bahimaana talism

Resham-o-atlas-o-kamkhab mien bunwaye huay

Ja baja bikhrey huay koocha-o-bazaar mien jism

Khaak mien lithrey huay khoon mien nehlaye huay

Laut jatee hai udhar ko bhee nazar kiya kee jay

Ab bhee dilkash hai tera husn magar kiya kee jay

Aur bhee dukh hain zamanay mien mohhabbat kay siwa

Rahatain aur bhee hain wasl kee rahat kay siwa

Mujh say pehli see mohabbat meray mehboob na maang.

…Helps.

And I haven’t even begun to talk about Ghalib yet.

But that’s cuz off late I have become addicted to that damn YA ALI song. Its so damn catchy, and that last bit with the trance-like repetitive tune is a pleasure to drive by. Plus the lyrics too aren’t half as bad as most of the other retarded ‘chart toppers’ and I particularly mean Fanaa, I mean what the heck are they doing with that dumb dialogue that’s on every damn Channel? Aik tow its horribly lame, what she says, and the way she says it reminds me more of Dr. Aamir Liaquat in all his pretentious glory than of a blind hottie emoting endless love. Plus Kajol ain’t no hottie, never was, never will be. I hear the movie is just as bad as is suspect although Gangster was good. Won’t be surprised if it turns out to be a copy of some kick ass Hollywood flick. The chick they got in the leading role very nearly ruined the whole movie, she’s so bad as a performer. But the dude playing the title role does a damn good job. Plus, and it’s a huge plus, the BG video for the Ya Ali song is brilliant.

Anyway, this was so not supposed to be a movie review, but this is what happens when you smoke up after several days because of being out of town in a dump which I shall post about soon. But this Ghazal post was waiting since before I left and upon coming here to proof read it I realized I wasn’t really in ghazal mode anymore but in ‘Ya Ali’ mode. That song played while I drove through abandoned corn fields with a pale yellow moon bigger than the fist trying to grab it for company while driving insanely fast and singing unabashedly loud along to ‘tera he beemar hai’, over and over, passing only cursory glances at the dirt track spread out ahead, lit up to a small distance by the single working head light of my sarkari gaari, and the rest of the way by the very moon that I was trying to capture to bring back the darkness. But it was too big for my fist, too big for one man on a dirt track heading for a destination he didn’t really care about, in that one moment, he didn’t really care about the sleep awaiting him on a rented bed or the only meal of the day he’d finally have time to eat. In that moment, the moon and I were tethered to each other, traveling together to the end of the road or the end of the song, which ever came first because than I had to turn left and there’s room enough for only one lunatic for each side of the night.

No prizes for guessing where sanity gave way to lunacy in this post. I love my life. Its total MPD, maybe even a bit schizo, but dude, I love my fucking Life.