This article is written by nahm, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog.This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws. This is the 200th post of nahm in this blog.
behti hui ye nadiyaa ghulte huey kinaare
koi to paar utre koi to paar guzre
I heard this recital by Meena Kumari for the first time ‘ Yoon teri rehguzar se deewana war guzre ‘ when Sudhir Sir’s post appeared in the blog, I was spell bound and could not stop hearing it for days on. The recital was so heart wrenching and full of sadness. I recorded the audio on my mobile and shared with all my friends.
There is this modern day ‘ miracle ‘(read nuisance), where people add you in groups whether you want to be part of that group or not is immaterial. Several of my office colleagues/friends and neighbours added me too to these various groups. If for half a day we fail to check the messages there, than there will be some 97, 108 messages by various people, some of whom are not even known directly.
However it may facilitate keeping in touch and getting the latest update, less than 20% of the chat messages are about what really matters to us. I soon lost patience and left all such groups. I am still using ‘ whatsup ‘ but sparingly with only close friends and family, individually. Maybe I am weak too in not deleting the app. After all if a news feels such necessity to reach me, it can find me on SMS / email / call :-) . Come on, how many ways do we human needs to stay connected with our near and dear ones ? Email is free too and no one will miss social networking if we are able to resist it for a few weeks. Being creature of habit we are an easy target. After all the civilization has survived two millenniums without them.
Just because chat is free here, it should not become the guiding force in the life. I have got a view that technological advancement is fine as long as or as much as we are able utilize it usefully, but the technology should not be allowed to use us humans. Social networking media and free chat apps are impacting the society adversely and specially the younger generation is getting addicted to them. I dont subscribe to such advancements which are degenerating the youth and future of society.
I digress, let me go back to the recitation of Meena Kumari. So, ‘yoon teri rehguzar se deewanwar guzre’ had caught my imagination , as nothing else had for a few years. I shared the audio with a friends on whatsapp too and quizzed them to recognize the voice. A couple of them were able to guess correctly due to their extended contacts and also with the help of Google search. What happened to the old ways of trying to recognize and guessing. No one has the patience(including me).
A few days later during the last week of August we i.e me, husband and son went to Kerela for a vacation planned well in advance. Disadvantage of advance planning was that our daughter could not go with us due to her college. We had a nice holiday for 10 days. There I met a group of elderly couples from Rajasthan, who were all from one family. Due to a flash bandh call we all found ourselves cooped up in the resort with nothing to do. We played some family games etc. and inevitably antakshri was discussed as a possibility. One lady from the group sang ‘ chhupa lo yoon dil mein pyaar mera’ from ‘ Mamta ‘. Since they knew old songs, I asked them to recognize the voice in the audio recording which was there in my mobile ‘yoon teri rehguzar se deewaanawar guzre ‘ . When I mentioned that it the poetess herself who is reciting, the lady guessed it to be Meena Kumari. They all were amazed and had never heard this. When told it was a non-film ghazal composed by Khaiyyam, one of them remembered another one by Meena Kumari – ‘ Chaand tanha hai aasmaan tanha ‘ . I was joyous and confirmed the words from him that it had the word ‘chand ‘ .
It was the easiest decision to have the ghazal in my ‘chaandni raaten’ series. But alas, it was not to be as the ghazal was already posted here more than a year ago. And I had somehow missed it. The desolation in this ghazal is beyond comprehension. What Meena Kumari must have felt the severity of lone existence at the lowest point in her life is fathomless. Sudhir Sir has done great at the interpretation in the post.
bujh gayee aas chhup gayaa taaraa
thartharaataa rahaa dhuaan tanhaa
Her recital of ‘yoon teri rehguzar se deewaanwar guzre’ is an expression of pain, more than the poetry itself. And the poetry in ‘chaand Tanha hai’ is the expression of utter desolation and losing hope and dreading the end.
For instance this final part of ‘chand tanha hai’ :
jalti bujhti si roshni ke parey
simtaa simtaa sa ek makaan tanhaa
raah dekha karega sadiyon tak
chhod jaayenge ye jahaan tanhaa
Not far from the twinkling lights of the film industry and her profession which left her hollow from the inside. The soulless body is in the ‘ makaan ‘ which is shriveled . Or in continuation , the soul having left the body, the grave is the makaan and it will go on shrinking and causing endless pain. This is the fear of grave, the suffering trapped in the grave. The body waits for the soul for centuries on end, where it is left alone in the grave, till the day of final judgment.
The recital of these two shair’s in continuation is the clue to the meaning being related.
In ‘ yoon teri rehguzar se ‘ , she refers to the flowing river and its ever dissolving edges or shoreline. The erosion is of emotions /affections.
behti hui ye nadiya, ghulte huye kinaare
koi to paar utre, koi to paar guzre
In ‘koi to paar utre koi to paar guzre ‘ she wishes someone had proved up to the mark or had matched her ideal, or even come close to her expectations, of being the ‘kinara’ of her life.
In yet another ghazal by her ‘ aaghaaz to hotaa hai anjaam nahin hota ‘ there is the last sha’ir :
din dooobe hain yaa doobi baaraat liye kishti
saahil pe magar koyi kohraam nahin hotaa
Days submerge or be it the
boat carrying celebrants
The shoreline is just calm
there is no disturbance
She expresses an affinity to the ‘sahil’ and ‘kinara’ and how it falls short of the expectations. In troubled times and even near the end, the embankment or shore which she wanted to reach is neither aggrieved nor bothered.
In this post I am presenting another ghazal from the same Album – I write I recite , which is collection of ghazals composed by Khaiyyam, written and recited by Meena Kumari. This is only the third out of nine ghazals ‘ Aabla paa koi iss dasht mein aaya hogaa ‘.
In the ghazal that is presented here, this is the deep meaningful sha’ir:
zarre zarre pe jade honge kunwaare sajde
ek ek but ko khudaa uss ne banaaya hogaa
This refers to the love, going on to ‘ ishq ‘ turning into obsession. The devotion which only God. the creator, nourisher and provider, deserves is given to mere mortals.
Here is the link to a Mini Biography on Meena Kumari, also Mahjabeen.
Just for recap, my 100th song post is here. I am presenting “aabla paa koi iss dasht mein aaya hogaa’ as the 200th post. Would have loved to give interpretation of complete ghazal, but I am still struggling with it. I know ‘Aabla paa’ is ‘blistered feet’ , but not able to interpret all the terms and what she means by them. ‘ Rista paani ‘ is tears and “Sunehri patthar ‘ could be ” all the success in the world ” which is still lifeless, hard and cold despite its golden tinge .
aabla paa koyi iss dasht mein aaya hogaa
warna aandhi mein diya kis ne jalaaya hogaa
Maybe she is referring to her parents who came to the film world from fractured pasts/injured souls. Referring to herself as the ‘ diya ‘ left behind by them to attain name and fame and create this meaningful/enlightening poetry. To weather the storms and survive.
Song-Aabla paa koyi iss dasht mein aaya hogaa(Meena Kumari NFS)(I write I recite)(1970) Singer-Meena Kumari, Lyrics-Meena Kumari, MD-Khaiyyam
Lyrics
Aabla paa koyi iss dasht mein aaya hogaa
aabla paa koyi iss dasht mein aaya hogaa
warna aandhi mein diya kis ne jalaaya hogaa
warna aandhi mein diya kis ne jalaaya hogaa
aabla paa
zarre zarre pe jade honge kunwaare sajde
zarre zarre pe jade honge kunwaare sajde
ek ek but ko khudaa uss ne banaaya hogaa
ek ek but ko khudaa uss ne banaaya hogaa
aabla paa
pyaas jalte huye kaanton ki bujhaayi hogi
pyaas jalte huye kaanton ki bujhaayi hogi
riste paani ko hatheli pe sajaaya hogaa
riste paani ko hatheli pe sajaaya hogaa
aabla paa
mil gyaa hogaa agar koyi sunehri patthhar
mil gyaa hogaa agar koyi sunehri patthhar
apnaa toota huaa dil yaad to aaya hogaa
apnaa toota huaa dil yaad to aaya hogaa
aabla paa koyi iss dasht mein aaya hogaa
warna aandhi mein diya kis ne jalaaya hogaa
warna aandhi mein diya kis ne jalaaya hogaa
aabla paa
