Author: Sunbyanyname

I have done a long stint in the Indian Navy that lasted for nearly thirty seven years; I rose as far as my somewhat rebellious and irreverent nature allowed me to. On retirement, in Feb 2010, the first thing that occurred to me, and those around me, was that I Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (you will find an article with this title in this blog) and hadn't lost all my noodles and hence thought of a blog titled 'This 'n That'. I later realised that every third blog is called 'This 'n That' and changed the name to 'Sunbyanyname'. I detest treading the beaten track. This blog offers me to air 'another way' of looking at things. The idea is not just to entertain but also to bring about a change. Should you feel differently, you are free to leave your comments. You can leave comments even when you agree and want to share your own experience about the topic of the blog post. Impudent or otherwise, I have never been insousciant and I am always concerned about the betterment of community, nation and the world. I hope the visitors of this blog would be able to discern it.

A HUNDRED GHAZALS IN HINDI MOVIES – PART III

As I brought out in the introduction of ‘A Hundred Ghazals In Hindi Movies – Part I’, and ‘A Hundred Ghazals In Hindi Movies – Part II’, the ghazal is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in ancient Arabic poem in Arabia long before the birth of Islam. The term Ghazal is of North African and Middle Eastern origin. Its root term in Arabic is “gh-zl” and is derived from the Arabian panegyric qasida.

The ghazal spread into South Asia in the 12th century due to the influence of Sufi mystics and the courts of the new Islamic Sultanate. Although the ghazal is most prominently a form of Dari poetry and Urdu poetry, today it is found in the poetry of many languages of the Indian sub-continent.

I gave you 18 Ghazals in Part I starting with Shakeel Badayuni‘s Na milata gham to barbaadi ke afsaane kahan jaate, to Rajinder Krishan‘s Jahan Ara ghazal sung by Talat Mahmood: Phir wohi shaam wohi gham wohi tanhaayi hai. In between I packed ghazals by Kaifi Azmi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Muztar Khairabadi, Hasrat Mohani, Hasrat Jaipuri, Jaan Nisar Akhtar, Majrooh Sultanpuri, and Farooq Qaiser.

I followed it up with another 18 Ghazals in Part II starting with Mohammad Rafi singing Sahir Ludhianvi‘s ghazal Tum ek baar mohabbat ka imtehaan to do for the 1960 movie Babur, to Lata Mangeshkar singing Jaan Nisar Akhtar‘s Aap youn faaslon se guzarte rahe for the 1977 movie Shankar Hussain. In between I gave you ghazals sung by Mubarak Begum, and ghazals of Mirza Ghalib, Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Rajinder Krishan, Gulzar, Bashar Nawaz and Mir Taqi Mir.

Lets resume our journey into the fascinating world of Ghazals.

Ghazal #37

Talat Mehmood

He was born on 24th Feb 1924 in Lucknow. He died on 9th May 1998 in Mumbai. He left behind a legacy of a unique style of playback singing and ghazal singing. Indeed, he was known as the Ghazal King in Hindi films.

I have already given you his ghazals for the movie Jehan Ara and Dekh Kabira Roya.

His finest ghazal ever was for the 1953 movie Footpath. This is a Sardar Jafri ghazal modified for the film by Majrooh Sultanpuri. It has Khaiyyam‘s gentle music. It is as popular today as it was 62 years ago.

Please enjoy: Shaam-e-gham ki kasam, aaj gamgeen hain ham,
Aa bhi jaa, aa bhi jaa, aaj mere sanam….

shaam-e-Gam kii qasam aaj Gamagii.n hai.n ham
aa bhii jaa aa bhii jaa aaj mere sanam
shaam-e-Gam kii qasam
dil pareshaan hai.n raat viiraan hai.n
dekh jaa kis tarah aaj tanahaa hai.n ham
shaam-e-Gam kii qasam

chain kaisaa jo pahaluu me.n tuu hii nahii.n
maar Daale na dard-e-judaaI kahii.n
rut ha.nsii.n hai.n to kyaa chaa.Ndanii hai to kyaa
chaa.Ndanii zulm hai aur judaaI sitam
shaam-e-Gam kii qasam

ab to aajaa ke ab raat bhii so gaI
zindagii Gam ke seharaav me.n kho gaI (2)
Dhuu.NDhatii hai.n nazar tuu kahaa.N hai.n magar
dekhate dekhate aayaa aa.Nkho.n me.n Gam
shaam-e-Gam kii qasam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qT1uuxzvGA

Ghazal #38

Talat Mehmood

This is a favourite of mine picturised on V Shantaram and his two wives Jayshree and Sandhya. It is the best of the ghazals of Noor Lucknowi and it has C Ramchandra‘s music. The name of this 1952 movie is Parchhain. Parchhain is cited as one of the films produced by Shantaram that was of “exceptional merit”. The story revolves around a man who is accidentally blinded by a woman whom he falls in love with, only to lose her when he regains his sight.

Please enjoy: Mohabbat hi naa jo samajhe who zaalim pyaar kyaa jaane….

muhabbat hii na jo samajhe, vo zaalim pyaar kyaa jaane
nikalatii dil ke taaro.n se, jo hai jha.nkaar kyaa jaane
muhabbat hii na jo samajhe …

use to qatl karanaa aur ta.Dapaanaa hii aataa hai
galaa kisakaa kaTaa kyuu.Nkar kaTaa talavaar kyaa jaane – 2
muhabbat hii na jo samajhe …

davaa se faayadaa hogaa ki hogaa zahar-e-qaatil se
% zahar-e-qaatil = killer’s poison
maz.r kii kyaa davaa hai ye koii biimaar kyaa jaane
muhabbat hii na jo samajhe …

karo fariyaad sar Takaraa_o apanii jaan de Daalo – 2
ta.Dapate dil kii haalat husn kii diivaar kyaa jaane – 2
muhabbat hii na jo samajhe …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_gGECgVTUM

Ghazal #39

Talat Mehmood

What did we like about the Jehan Ara ghazal that I had given you earlier? Well, other than Talat Mehmood‘s singing, it had Madan Mohan‘s music.

This combination motivates me to give you another. This too has Rajinder Krishan‘s lyrics. Of course, you know the general story of the 1964 movie Jahan Ara starring Bharat Bhushan as Mirza Yusuf Changezi and Mala Sinha as Jahan Ara the daughter of Shah Jehan from Mumtaz. Mumtaz, whilst dying takes a promise from Jahan Ara that she, Jahan Ara, would look after Shah Jahan in Mumtaz’s absence and she was forced to sacrifice her love for Mirza. He, however, believed that one day she would return to him. And that’s how this ghazal came about in the form of an epistle from him to her in her isolation.

Please enjoy: Main teri nazar ka saroor hoon,
Tujhe yaad ho ki naa yaad ho….

mai.n terI nazar kA suruur huu.N
tujhe yaad ho ke nA yaad ho
tere paas rahake bhI dUr huu.N
tujhe yaad ho ke nA yaad ho
mai.n terI nazar kA suruur huu.N

(mujhe aa.Nkh se to giraa diyaa
kaho dil se bhI kyA bhulaa diyaa ) – 2
terI aashiqii kA Guruur huu.N
tujhe yaad ho ke nA yaad ho
mai.n terI nazar kA …

(terI zulf hai mere haath me.n
ke tU aaj bhI mere saath hai ) – 2
tere dil me.n bhI mai.n zaruur huu.N
tujhe yaad ho ke nA yaad ho
mai.n terI nazar kA …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPZv_2uHMdE

Ghazal #40

Talat Mehmood

Talking about Rajinder Krishan brings me straight to the 1961 movie Chhaya starring Sunil Dutt and Asha Parekh. This ghazal has Salil da‘s music. It is, of course, one of the best ghazals of Talat Mehmood.

Please enjoy: Aansu samajh ke kyon mujhe aankh se tune giraa diya….

aa.Nsuu samajh ke kyo.n mujhe aa.Nkh se tuune giraa diyaa
motii kisii ke pyaar kaa miTTii me.n kyo.n milaa diyaa
aa.Nsuu samajh ke kyo.n mujhe

naGmaa huu.N kab magar mujhe apane pe koii naaz thaa -2
gaayaa gayaa huu.N jis pe mai.n TuuTaa huaa vo saaz thaa
jis ne sunaa vo ha.Ns diyaa, ha.Ns ke mujhe rulaa diyaa
aa.Nsuu samajh ke kyo.N mujhe …

jo naa chaman me.n khil sakaa mai.n vo gariib phuul huu.N
jo kuchh bhii huu.N bahaar kii chhoTii sii ek bhuul huu.N
jis ne khilaa ke khud mujhe, khud hii mujhe bhulaa diyaa
aa.Nsuu samajh ke kyo.n mujhe

merii Kataa muaaf mai.n bhuule se aa gayaa yahaa.N
varanaa mujhe bhii hai khabar meraa nahii.n hai ye jahaa.N
Duub chalaa thaa nii.nd me.n achchhaa kiyaa jagaa diyaa
aa.Nsuu samajh ke kyo.n mujhe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZiooSLGPLE

Ghazal #41

Mohammad Rafi and Mahendra Kapoor

I am sorry but every now and then I have a deep-rooted desire to get back to my favourite poet and lyricist Shakeel Badayuni. This ghazal has been sung by Mohammad Rafi and Mahendra Kapoor together. It is from the 1968 movie Aadmi starring Dilip Kumar, Waheeda Rehman and Manoj Kumar.

Predictably, it has Naushad‘s music.

Please enjoy: Kaisi haseen aaj baharon ki raat hai…

ra: kaisii hasiin aaj bahaaro.n kii raat hai
ek chaa.Nd aasamaa.n pe hai ek mere saath hai

ma : dene vale tuu ne to koii kamii na kii
ab kis ko kyaa milaa ye muqaddar kii baat hai

ra : chhaaya hai husn-o-ishq pe ek ra.ng-e-beKudii
aate hai.n zi.ndagii me.n ye aalam kabhii kabhii
har Gham bhuul jaao khuushii kii baaraat hai
ek chaa.Nd aasamaa.n pe hai ek mere saath hai

ma : aaii hai vo bahaar ki naGame ubal pa.De
aisii khuushii hai ki aa.Nsuu nikal pa.De
ho.nTho.n pe hai.n duaae.n magar dil pe haath hai
ab kis ko kyaa milaa ye muqaddar kii baat hai

ra : mastii simaT ke pyaar ke gulashan me.n aa gaii
ma : merii khuushii bhii aap ke daaman me.n aa gaii
bha.Nvaraa kalii se duur nahii.n saath saath hai

Ghazal #42

Hasan Kamaal

He was born on 1st January 1943 in Lucknow. I have already given you two of his ghazals: one for the movie Nikaah sung by and picturised on Salma Agha: Dil ke armaan aansuyon mein beh gaye and the other for the movie Aitbaar sung by Bhupinder and Asha Bhosle and picturised on Suresh Oberoi and Dimple Kapadia: Kisi nazar ko tera intezzaar aaj bhi hai.

Here is a ghazal of his for the 1985 movie Tawaif sung by Mahendra Kapoor with Ravi‘s music.It is picturised on Rishi Kapoor.

Please enjoy: Tere pyaar ki tamanna gham-e-zindagi ke saaye….

tere pyaar kii tamannaa Gam-e-zi.ndagii ke saaye
ba.Dii tez aa.Ndhiyaa.N hai.n ye chiraaG bujh na jaaye

na fizaa.N hai apane bas me.n na nazar me.n hai kinaaraa
kahii.n mere dil kii kashtii na bha.Nvar me.n Duub jaaye

koii hal tuu hii bataa de mere dil kii kashamakash kaa
tujhe bhuulanaa bhii chaahuu.N terii yaad hii sataaye

hai ajiib dastaa.N kuchh ye hamaarii dastaa.N bhii
kabhii tum samajh na paaye kabhii ham sunaa na paaye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Ji_j4vW50

Ghazal #43

Majrooh Sultanpuri

He was born on 1st of Oct 1919 at Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Before his death on 24th May 2000 in Mumbai, he packed in more than five decades of being a lyricist in Hindi movies.

He was a leading light of Progressive Writers Movement. However, his contemporaries felt that he deviated from Urdu shayari and ghazals into popular songs.

Majrooh Sultanpuri (Pic courtesy: www.hindustantimes.com)

Nevertheless, he still ended up writing some beautiful ghazals. One of them was the best of Talat Mehmood and I have already given you that: Shaam-e-gham ki kasam, aaj ghamgeen hain ham…

His most famous ghazal in Hindi movies, however, has been sung by Lata Mangeshkar and has been picturised on Suchitra Sen for the 1966 movie Mamta. Music was composed by Roshan.

Please enjoy: Rehate the kabhi jinake dil mein ham jaan se bhi pyaaron ki tarah…

rahate the kabhii jinake dil me.n
ham jaan se bhii pyaaro.n kii tarah
baiThe hai.n unhii ke kuuche me.n
ham aaj gunahagaaro.n kii tarah – 2

daavaa thaa jinhe.n hamadardii kaa
khud aake na puuchhaa haal kabhii – 2
mahafil me.n bulaayaa hai ham pe – 2
ha.Nsane ko sitamagaaro.n kii tarah – 2
rahate the…

baraso.n se sulagate tan man par
ashko.n ke to chhii.nTe de naa sake – 2
tapate hue dil ke zakhmo.n par – 2
barase bhii to a.ngaaro.n kii tarah – 2
rahate the…

sau rup dhare jiine ke liye
baiThe hai.n hazaaro.n zahar piye – 2
Thokar naa lagaanaa ham khud hai.n – 2
giratii huii diivaaro.n kii tarah – 2
rahate the…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szPnGL5y-gY

Ghazal #44

Majrooh Sultanpuri

His part of the world produced some great Urdu poets and it was felt that he sacrificed serious Urdu poetry in favour of populism.

Yet, he penned some really good ghazals. One of these was a reworded copy of famous Mir Taqi Mir‘s ghazal Patta patta boota boota haal hamaara jaane hai.

He did it for the 1972 movie Ek Nazar starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bahaduri. It was sung by Mohammad Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar on the music of Laxmikant Pyarelal.

Please enjoy: Patta patta boota boota haal hamaara jaane hai…..

pattaa pattaa buuTaa buuTaa
haal hamaaraa jaane hai, pattaa pattaa…
jaane na jaane gul hii na jaane
baag to saaraa jaane hai, pattaa pattaa…

koii kisii ko chaahe, to kyuu.n gunaah samajhate hai.n log
koii kisii kii khaatir, tarase agar to ha.Nsate hai.n log
begaanaa aalam hai saaraa, yahaa.N to koii hamaaraa
dard nahii.n pahachaane hai, pattaa pattaa…

chaahat ke gul khile.nge, chalatii rahe hazaar aa.Ndhiyaa.N
ham to kisii chaman me.n, baa.Ndhe.nge pyaar kaa aashiyaa.N
ye duniyaa bijalii giraae, ye duniyaa kaa.NTe bichhaae
ishq magar kab maane hai, pattaa pattaa…

dikhalaae.nge jahaa.N ko, kuchh din jo zindagaanii hai aur
kaise na ham mile.nge, hamane bhii dil me.n Thaanii hai aur
abhii matavaale dilo.n kii, muhabbat vaale dilo.n kii
baat koii kyaa jaane hai, pattaa pattaa…

Ghazal #45

Majrooh Sultanpuri

Some of his finest songs were penned for the 1970 Rajinder Singh Puri movie Dastak starring Sanjeev Kumar and Rahana Sultan.

All these had Madan Mohan‘s music.

Please enjoy Lata Mangeshkar singing:
Ham hain mataa-e-kuchaa-o-bazaar ki tarah..

ham hai.n mataa-e-kuuchaa-o-baazaar kii tarah
uThatii hai har nigaah khariidaar kii tarah

vo to kahii.n hai.n aur magar dil ke aas paas
magar dil ke aas paas
phiratii hai koii shah nigaah-e-yaar kii tarah
ham hai.n …

majaruuh likh rahe hai.n vo ahal-e-vafaa kaa naam
ahal-e-vafaa kaa naam
ham bhii kha.De hue hai.n gunahagaar kii tarah
ham hai.n …

Some more ashar from the ghazal that are not used in the film version

is kuu-e-tishnagii me.n bahut hai ke ek jaam
haath aa gayaa hai daulat-e-bedaar kii tarah

siidhii hai raah-e-shauq par yuu.N hii kabhii kabhii
Kam ho ga_ii hai gesuu-e-diladaar kii tarah

ab jaa ke kuchh khulaa hunar-e-naakhuun-e-junuun
zaKm-e-jigar hue lab-o-ruKsaar kii tarah

Ghazal #46

Happy Birthday Shashi Kapoor
(On my Facebook Page Lyrical when this was put up)

He was born on this day, 18th March, in the year 1935. The Kapoor family under the patriarch Prithviraj Kapoor: Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor gave us some of the most intense and natural acting in the Hindi movies and continue to do so in the third generation of Ranbir Kapoor (grandson of Raj Kapoor from Rishi Kapoor); Karishma and Kareena (granddaughters of Raj Kapoor from Randhir Kapoor); Kunal, Karan and Sanjana Kapoor (children of Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal).

Each one had/has a unique style of acting. Shashi, for example, emerged as the chocolate boy of Hindi film industry.

It is difficult to imagine him singing ghazals. However, I have already given you a few days earlier his most famous ghazal for the movie Kanyadaan wherein he played the role of a poet. The ghazal was: Meri zindagi mein aate to kuchh aur baat hoti. He just stands and sings in a black achkan and looks cute.

Here is another one of his ghazals for the 1961 movie Dharamputra wherein he acted opposite Indrani Mukherjee. The ghazal writer was Sahir Ludhianvi and the music by N Dutta. The singer is Mahendra Kapoor.

Mohammad Rafi, Talat Mehmood, Indrani Mukherjee, Sahir Ludhianvi and N Dutta (picture courtesy: Bollywoodirect)

Please enjoy: Bhool sakta hai bhala kaun tumhaari aankhen….

bhuul sakataa hai bhalaa kaun ye pyaarii aa.Nkhe.n
ra.ng me.n Duubii huii nii.nd se bhaarii aa.Nkhe.n
bhuul sakataa hai bhalaa kaun …

merii har sos ne har soch ne chaahaa hai tumhe.n
jab se dekhaa hai tumhe.n tab se saraahaa hai tumhe.n
bas ga_ii hai.n merii aa.Nkho.n me.n tumhaarii aa.Nkhe.n
ra.ng me.n Duubii huii nii.nd se bhaarii aa.Nkhe.n
bhuul sakataa hai bhalaa kaun …

tum jo nazaro.n ko uThaao to sitaare jhuk jaaye.n
tum jo palko.n ko jhukaao to zamaane ruk jaaye.n
kyuu.N na ban jaaye.n in aa.Nkhon kii pujaarii aa.Nkhen
ra.ng me.n Duubii huii nii.nd se bhaarii aa.Nkhe.n
bhuul sakataa hai bhalaa kaun …

jaagatii raato.n ko sapano.n kaa khazaanaa mil jaaye
tum jo mil jaao to jiine ka bahaanaa mil jaaye
apanii qismat pe kare naaz hamaarii aa.Nkhen
bhuul sakataa hai bhalaa kaun ye pyaarii aa.Nkhe.n
ra.ng me.n Duubii huii nii.nd se bhaarii aa.Nkhe.n
bhuul sakataa hai bhalaa kaun …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDE2vaArWsY

Ghazal #47

Happy Birthday Shashi Kapoor

Now that through two of his ghazals (both in which he acted as a poet: In Kanyadaan and Dharamputra) I have proved to you that even the chocolate boy of Hindi movies Shashi Kapoor could also act on ghazals, it won’t come as a surprise to you when I give you one of his ghazals that was most popular during our days.

It is from the 1970 movie My Love in which he acted opposite Sharmila Tagore. The ghazal was written by Anand Bakshi and it has Daan Singh’s music. It is one of the best ghazals sung by Mukesh.

Anand Bakshi (Pic courtesy: ibnlive.com)

Please enjoy: Zikr hota hai jab qayamat ka tere jalvon ki baat hoti hai….

zikr hotaa hai jab qayaamat kaa tere jalavo.n kii baat hotii hai
tuu jo chaahe to din nikalataa hai tuu jo chaahe to raat hotii hai
zikr hotaa hai jab …

tujhako dekhaa hai merii nazaro.n ne terii taariif ho magar kaise
ke bane ye nazar zubaa.N kaise ke bane ye zubaa.N nazar kaise
naa zubaa.N ko dikhaa_ii detaa hai naa niGaaho.n se baat hotii hai
zikr hotaa hai jab …

tuu chalii aa_e muskuraatii hu_ii to bikhar jaa_e.n har taraf kaliyaa.N
tuu chalii jaa_e uTh ke pahaluu se to uja.D jaa_e.n phuulo.n kii galiyaa.N
jis taraf hotii hai nazar terii us taraf qaayanaat hotii hai
zikr hotaa hai jab …

tuu niGaaho.n se naa pilaa_e to ashq bhii piine vaale piite hai.n
vaise jiine ko to tere bin bhii is zamaane me.n log jiite hai.n
zindagii to usii ko kahate hai.n jo guzar tere saath hotii hai
zikr hotaa hai jab …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OsS35MlDx4

Ghazal #48

My Dad’s Favourite Ghazal

How well songs and ghazals connect generations! How many times I listened to my father sing the Talat Mehmood version of this ghazal from the 1957 movie Ek Saal starring Ashok Kumar and Madhubala?

These are (both Lata and Talat Mehmood versions) are the strongest lyrics written by Prem Dhawan. Ravi composed the music.

I am giving you both the versions.

Please enjoy: Sab kuchh luta ke hosh mein aaye to kyaa kiya?

‪#‎Lata‬ version

na puuchho pyaar kii hamane vo haqiiqat dekhii
vafaa ke naam pe bikatii hu_ii ulfat dekhii
kisii ne luuT liyaa aur hame.n Kabar na hu_ii
khulii jo aa.Nkh to barbaad muhabbat dekhii

sab kuchh luTaa ke hosh me.n aa_e to kyaa kiyaa
din me.n agar charaaG jalaa_e to kyaa kiyaa

(mai.n vo kalii huu.N jo na bahaaro.n me.n khil sakii) -2
vo dil huu.N jisako pyaar kii ma.nzil na mil sakii
ma.nzil na mil sakii
patthar pe hamane phuul cha.Dhaa_e to kyaa kiyaa

(jo mil na sakaa pyaar Gam kii shaam to mile)-2
ik bevafaa se pyaar kaa a.njaam to mile
(ai maut jald aa) -2 zaraa aaraam to mile
do din Kushii ke dekh na paa_e to kyaa kiyaa

# Talat version

karate rahe Kizaa.N se ham saudaa bahaar kaa
badalaa diyaa to kyaa ye diyaa unake pyaar kaa

sab kuchh luTaa ke hosh me.n aaye to kyaa kiyaa? -2
din me.n agar charaaG jalaaye to kyaa kiyaa?
sab kuchh luTaa ke hosh me.n aaye to kyaa kiyaa? -2

ham badanasiib pyaar kii rusavaa_ii ban gaye -2
Kud hii lagaa ke aag tamaashaa_ii ban gaye,
tamaashaa_ii ban gaye
daaman se ab ye shole bujhaaye to kyaa kiyaa?
din me.n agar charaaG jalaaye to kyaa kiyaa?
sab kuchh luTaa ke hosh me.n aaye to kyaa kiyaa? -2

le-le ke haar phuulo.n ke aa_ii to thii bahaar -2
nazare.n uThaake hamane hii dekhaa na ek baar
dekhaa na ek baar
aa.Nkho.n se ab ye parade haTaaye to kyaa kiyaa?
din me.n agar charaaG jalaaye to kyaa kiyaa?
sab kuchh luTaa ke hosh me.n aaye to kyaa kiyaa? -2

Ghazal #49

Roshan

Talking about Madhubala, I just can’t get this ghazal out of my system. It haunts me! Sahir has penned it so well that I am often dumb-stuck listening to it. It is from the 1966 movie Barsaat Ki Raat starring her opposite Bharat Bhushan.

Music has been composed by Roshan who really knew how to compose ghazals. No one could have sung it better than Mohammad Rafi.

Please enjoy: Mayuus to hoon wade se tere, kuchh aas nahin kuchh aas bhi hai….

maayuus to huu.N vaade se tere
kuchh aas nahii.n kuchh aas bhii hai
mai.n apane Kyaalo.n ke sadake
tuu paas nahii.n aur paas bhii hai
maayuus to huu.N …

hamane to Kushii maa.Ngii thii magar
jo tuune diyaa achchhaa hii diyaa
jis Gam kaa ta_aalluuq ho tujhase
vo raas nahii.n aur raas bhii hai
mai.n apane Kyaalo.n ke …

palako.n se larajate ashqo.n se
tasviir jhalakatii hai terii -2
diidaar kii pyaasii aa.Nkho.n ko
ab pyaas nahii.n aur pyaas bhii hai
mai.n apane Kyaalo.n ke …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdqPhqhFATs

Ghazal #50

Roshan

In my quest to give you hundred best ghazals in Hindi movies, I have reached the halfway mark.

Lets continue with Roshan. Roshanlal Nagrath was born on 14th July 1917 and has left behind him his sons Rakesh and Rajesh Roshan and grandson Hrithik Roshan to serve the Hindi film industry. He was from Gujranwala in Punjab (now in Pakistan). He moved to Bombay in 1948 and for the next 19 years, until his death on 16th Nov 1967, he created some of the finest music in Hindi films, especially ghazals.

Barsaat Ki Raat itself had three of his gahzals: Mayuus to hoon wade se tere, Zindagi bhar nahin bhoolegi, and Maine shayad tumhen pehle bhi kahin dekha hai.

Another of his ghazal films was Bahu Begum with Hum intezzaar karenge tera qayamat taq (I have already given you that), Log kehate hain tumase kinaara kar lein and this one that I am giving you now.

Picturised on Meena Kumari, it brings the flavour of old time ghazals to you so well. It has been sung by Lata Mangeshkar.

Please enjoy: Duniya kare sawaal to ham kyaa jawaab dein….

duniyaa kare savaal to ham kyaa javaab de.n
tumako na ho Kayaal to ham kyaa javaab de.n
duniyaa kare savaal …

puuchhe koii ki dil ko kahaa.N chho.D aaye hai.n
kis kis se apanaa rishtaa-e-jaa.N to.D aaye hai.n
mushakil ho arz-e-haal to ham kyaa javaab de.n
tumako na ho Kayaal to …

puuchhe koii ki dard-e-vafaa kaun de gayaa
raato.n ko jaagane kii sazaa kaun de gayaa
kahane se ho malaal to ham kyaa javaab de.n
tumako na ho Kayaal to …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHqdKJMoEoE

Ghazal #50

Roshan

Please note that for a long time, keeping total control on my own emotions, I haven’t given you a Shakeel Badayuni ghazal! Some control this!

Anyway, Roshan worked with Shakeel Badayuni in two movies: 1967 movie Noorjehan starring Pradeep Kumar and Meena Kumari and 1965 movie Bedaag starring Manoj Kumar and Nanda.

The happier one of these is the Noorjehan one. It has been sung as a duet between Mohammad Rafi and Asha Bhosle.

Please enjoy: Aap jab se kareeb aaye hain,
Pyaar ke rang dil pe chhaye hain….

ra : aap jab se qariib aa_e hai.n
pyaar ke ra.ng dil pe chhaa_e hai.n

jalavaa-e-yaar hai nigaaho.n me.n
phuul bikhare hu_e hai.n raaho.n me.n
duur tak zindagii ke saa_e hai.n
aap jab se qariib …

aa : dil ne halkii sii choT khaa_ii hai
zindagii ab samajh me.n aa_ii hai
ham khud apane nahii.n paraa_e hai.n
aap jab se qariib …

ra : aapase apane dil ko haar ke ham
is qadar Kush hai.n aap hii kii qasam
jaise duniyaa ko jiit laa_e hai.n
aap jab se qariib …

aa : khair ho ishq ke fasaane kii
lag na jaa_e nazar zamaane kii
had se aage qadam ba.Dhaa_e hai.n
aap jab se qariib …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3yjjserZMU

Ghazal #52

Roshan

I have given you several of Roshan’s ghazals tonight and earlier too. I end with what I regard as his best.

Once again, he bonded well with Sahir Lushianvi (like Shakeel did with Naushad and Ravi) and some of his finest ghazals have been penned by Sahir.

This is from the 1963 movie Taj Mahal starring Pradeep Kumar as Shahjehan and Beena Roy as Mumtaz.

Please enjoy: Jurm-e-ulfat pe hamen log saza dete hain,
Kaise nadaan hain sholon ko hawa dete hain…

jurm-e-ulfat pe hame.n log sazaa dete hai.n – 2
kaise naadaan hai.n, sholo.n ko havaa dete hai.n
kaise naadaan hai.n

hamase dIvaane kahii.n tar ke vafaa karate hai.n – 2
jaan jaaye ki rahe baat nibhaa dete hai.n
jaan jaaye…

aap daulat ke taraazuu mai.n dilo.n ko taule.n – 2
ham mohabbat se mohabbat kA silaa dete hai.n
ham mohabbat se…

taKt kyA chiiz hai aur laal-o-javaahar kyA hai – 2
ishq vAle to khudaa_ii bhI luTa dete hai.n
ishq vaale …

hamane dil de bhI diyaa ehad-e-vafaa le bhI liyaa – 2
aap ab shokh se dede.n jo sazaa dete hai.n
jurm-e-ulfat pe hame.n log sazaa dete hai.n

That brings us to the end of Part III of A Hundred Ghazals in Hindi Movies. We have had a total of 52 ghazals so far.

Please let me know in the comments below if some ghazal of yours should appear in the Top 100. I shall try to accommodate. Only, please remember two things: One, there are still three more parts to go of roughly 16 ghazals per part. And, secondly, these are not the best ghazals in all fora; these are only considered the best that appeared in Hindi movies.

SUFFIX ‘EX’ IS FOR EXERCISES IN THE NAVY – PART I (AMPHEX ON NANCOWRY), EPISODE II

The story so far:

In Part I, Episode I of this post I described to you that I was made the Naval Liaison Officer (NLO) of Merchant Vessel Nancowry which was part of the Amphibious Task Force (ATF) given the task of taking the army personnel and wherewithal for an Amphibious Assault on Carnicobar from the port of Vizag in Andhra Pradesh. My team had tough time during the midnight embarakation of army personnel.

Read on:

Nancowry was hardly the luxury liner that one reads about or sees in the movies. It had countless portholes. It was tough time for my team and I to instill discipline in hundreds of jawans to keep them closed so that no light would show outside. It appeared to me that CATF (Commander Amphibious Task Force) staff and AFC (Amphibious Force Commander) staff had nothing else to do in the night but to keep making urgent signals to Nancowry to darken ship immediately. And no sooner that my staff would succeed in closing one particular porthole pointed out by AFC that another would open. By the morning, in this Porthole Test Match, the Army had won 127 – 82 to the Navy represented by my staff of just five. We didn’t even know which porthole had light showing through it until we would get a nasty signal. Significantly, in my report post the Amphex, I did mention that in the next Amphex the Navy need to get vessels without any portholes. Saawan me andhe ko hara hi hara dikhaayi deta hai(the one who becomes blind in monsoons sees only greenery). Likewise, I associate Amphex with portholes.

My team and I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep each in the wee hours of morning.

If we had this complaint against the Army about the portholes discipline or lack of it, their list of complaints ran into hundreds of pages. If portholes were to be kept closed then messes were stuffy, was one of them. The others ranged from cooking standards, shortage of water and not having to do anything worthwhile at sea.

I had another three days and nights to go before we would reach Carnicobar, our place of amphibious assault. And I reckoned that I had to think fast so that the rest of the time on board won’t be as miserable as the first night.

But, who should I turn to for advice? Captain Kabina, the master of the MV Nancowry was a former Commander of the Indian Navy and that too from my branch: Communication. However, till as long as his ship was chartered to the Indian Navy, for operational purposes, he was to be under my orders as per the Navy Act. Hence, turning to him for advice in an operational matter was ruled out.

The only other person to turn to was Commodore Mukherjee, the AFC. I raised him on the walkie-talkie. One of the difficulties of naval communications is that with the signalese perfected over a period of time, one is never able to convey one’s emotions properly, even if one is on walkie – talkie. It is not like a wife telling a husband, “Sunate ho jee, Bunty ne phir aaj apani nicker phaad di; main to tang aa gayi hoon usake kapade seete seete. Mera sir phata jaa raha hai. (Are you listening? Bunty has again torn his shorts; I am tired of mending his clothes. I have a splitting headache”. Naval communications, on the other hand, go something like this:

One Alpha, this is Charlie Six: Over
This is One Alpha Over, what is the trouble? Over.
(You want to tell him that the trouble is not over but only just begun; but you control your emotions, the unnecessary part of naval communications)
This is Charlie Six: Sir, how to keep the pongoes (naval slang for army personnel) busy? Over.
Charlie Six, this is One Alpha: Find a way. I repeat: find a way. Over and out.

Some of the departmental sailor chiefs who have approached their departmental officers for specific instructions to sort out vague problems have often returned with the age-old order, “Carry on, Chief Saab”. I was stunned that the AFC had subjected me to similar treatment. Urdu poets of yore had wonderful couplets for this situation; one juicy one being:

“Unase mil kar badhi aur dil ki khalish,
Guftugoo bhi hui khaamoshi ki tarah”
(A tryst with her increased the anxiety of my heart,
Discussion took place like total silence)

The inventor of a location or position called Square One must have been happy to see me occupying the position after my guftugoo with the AFC. But, the fact is that one cannot spend one’s life in Square One; one has to move on. I thought and thought and thought and came up with options I had. And finally it hit me like a bolt from the blue. I issued out orders regarding the routine of the day from Hands Call to Pipe Down with Morning and Evening PT (Physical Training) thrown in, in good measure.

It was nice to see hundreds of jawans, NCOs and JCOs and officers lining up the upper decks twice a day and sweating it out to the whistle of our PTI. In an earlier article, I had written how a good haircut is seen to solve most naval problem (Please read ‘Cut, Cut, Cut…..’). Now, a few good rounds of PT at sea solved the following problems:

1. Coming on the upper decks helped jawans to fill up air in their lungs and hence portholes could be kept closed at night.
2. The strenuous (at sea it is strenuous to do these things since one has to do so countering the rolling and pitching of the ship) exercises built up appetites and they attacked their food without complaining (hungry souls hardly complain about quality of cooking).
3. They had something to keep themselves busy at sea. Their officers added their own drills and orders to keep them busy.

Decades after the success of my idea, PM Shri Narendra Modi tried to silence OROP unrest by making the jawans perform Yoga. He failed.

In the night, my walkie-talkie crackled again:

Charlie Six this is One Alpha: Over.
One Alpha this is Charlie Six: It is over Sir.
This is One Alpha: Good boy. Roger out.

Next day on the Bridge I wanted to ask senior communicator Captain Kabina how was it that whilst stressful emotions were scarcely conveyed over naval communication nets, feelings of elation were instantly communicated?

MY EXPERIENCES WITH THE ARMY – PART I

I underwent the Higher Command Course with the Army from Jul 1996 to May 1997 (HC 25, that is) in the College of Combat (presently called the Army War College) at Mhow, near Indore in Madhya Pradesh. In our course, there were 37 officers from the Army, six from the IAF and two from the Navy. My first humorous article that appeared in Aug 1996 issue of Combat News is reproduced below.

Just before coming for the HC-25, friends gathered around me, with drinks in their hands, re-enacting ‘The Last Supper’. Naturally, the conversation veered around to the Army and their ‘peculiar habits’. It was unknown territory. “Basically, they are nice people,” said one in the manner of a visitor consoling a cancer patient, “And you have nothing to worry”. A civilian friend wanted me to confirm (“just to settle a bet”) if the Army men did everything with their boots on.

After having spent the first month here, I am able to report back that I have met some of the nicest people, who are as normal and professional (if not more) as we pretend to be. The main thing different or peculiar, I found, is the Army’s penchant to use abbreviations and acronyms – a sort of ‘bikini speech’ clothed in minimum words and that too shortened. It is rumoured that our SI (South Indian) Army friends cannot enjoy their food unless they have RSVP, ie, Rasam Sapadam, Varellum, Papadam; and those from P, H and D prefer PPK, ie, Papad, Pickle and Kuchamber.

Human mind has marvelous adaptability. Very soon I got used to living in KLP rather than in an officers’ mess, the former being in more of a mess than the latter. Nowadays, when someone speaks of the ‘conc area’, I am not reminded of the pogroms and when I see ‘junc’ written on a map, I do not associate it with a scrapyard.

Sometimes, of course, various explanations come to my mind as to why the bikini speech. The English language and literati owe a lot to the nautical terms and phrases which are in common usage now. Bikini Speech may be Army’s way of Indianising the English language. After all, how many of the English and the Chinese will be able to identify with the English and Chinese foods that we serve in our messes? On the other hand, the Army man may actually be in a hurry (note how they have changed even short words like night and enemy into shorter ni and en), expecting a ‘short and swift battle’ as the cliche goes. But then an incoming Exocet missile would give only 45 to 60 seconds reaction time before it hits a ship and still we have the time to say ‘Aye-aye Sir’ or acknowledge (not ack) a report by saying “Very Good”.

It may be to inculcate brevity? But this could not be the case. The Army orders are really very long and exhaustive. In Staff College, for example, when we were dumbfounded by nine pages of ‘Parking Instrs’, full of abbreviated words, we asked an Army officer to decipher. He quickly went through the edict and summed up, “Parking anywhere in the College, by student officers, is forbidden”.

Are we selectively brief exhorting our juniors to employ the bikini speech so that we will not have to read lots of junc – sorry – junk? A little FFT (Food For Thought). Whatever be the explanation, the sys appears to work in the Army. So press on Army. Maybe you can prove the makers of MR Coffee wrong and real pleasure may actually be in an ‘instant’. (This was a take on the MR Coffee ad that became quite controversial since it hit instant coffee so suggestively. I am reproducing the ad of those days starring Malaika Arora and Arbaz Khan):

P.S. By publishing this item in the Combat News the Army has proved that they are very nice people indeed but that henceforth, I should avoid conc areas in dark alleys, when they have their boots on (which is all the times).

SUFFIX ‘EX’ IS FOR EXERCISES IN THE NAVY – PART I (AMPHEX ON NANCOWRY), EPISODE I

In the Navy, names of all exercises are suffixed with the letters EX. Hence, we have TACEX as Tactical Exercise, SPRINGEX as a Theatre Level Exercise during Spring Time, REACTIONEX as an Exercise at sea to assess the reactions of the ship’s company, and so on.

The suffix EX also gives rise to a new and entirely naval vocabulary. So, if you come across an officer in the wardroom in totally disengaged state, and you happen to ask him what is he doing, he is likely to reply with a single coded word: COOLEX; which is roughly the equivalent of the modern teenager telling you that he is chilling.

Navy guys never rue the loss of girl-friends or beloveds (you never come across guys who have chucked themselves under trains or buses because their flames have gone to light up someone else’s life). Hence, other than to signify exercises, the suffix EX doesn’t have another significance for them. The suffix EX also lends some dignity to what they are engaged in. For example, BALLEX sounds frightfully more important than merely admitting that one is having a ball. Many decades back, Wills (Cigarettes) were the sponsors of the Navy Ball in Bombay. Their posters put up all over Bombay – at traffic circles, railway stations, Marine Drive, on the BEST buses, et al – read: THE NAVY IS HAVING A BALL. The navy big-wigs were not amused. Wills didn’t exactly have a ball (of a time) taking down the offending posters.

Many decades back the only use that the Army could think of the Navy was to land troops, tanks and vehicles for them at remote places. Hence, Amphibious Operations assumed tremendous significance. That was precisely the time when one of the most important roles of the Eastern Naval Command at Vizag was to exercise Amphibious Operations. Thus, the concept of AMPHEX (Amphibious Exercise) came into being.

I was involved in a number of Amphexes. My first major involvement was when I was merely a Lieutenant Commander and sent to Vizag on temporary duty. I was happily engaging myself in such activities as young officers often engage in – from rum to rummy, that is, and an activity known in the Navy by its acronym only: FRCS (Other than telling you that CS is Country-Side, I won’t tell you more: my lips are sealed).

One fine day, my ex CO of Agrani, who was appointed as CO Circars (the depot establishment in Vizag) was nominated to become the Amphibious Forces Commander and lead an amphibious force from Vizag to the Anadaman and Nicobar islands. Four passenger liners from the trade were chartered by the Navy to carry troops across to A&N for an amphibious assault. Senior Commanders were appointed as Naval Liaison Officers on three of the ships. However, for a ship called MV Nancowry (the name taken from one of the islands in A&N), I, a junior Lieutenant Commander, was appointed as the NLO. This was because my ex CO had tremendous faith in my abilities; a little more than I had.

I had a Lieutenant, a Sub-Lieutenant and a handful of sailors with me in my team to prepare the ship for over 500 army personnel, their weapons, vehicles and equipment, install naval communications, and control all the operations at sea. We had sleepless nights preparing all the plans and orders. The ship was available for less than 48 hours to familiarise ourselves and make her ready for the embarkation. We prepared detailed orders, for example, for accommodation and messing, ration-embarkation, communications and operations at sea.

With this, it was to be expected that things would go on smoothly. Like most war plans they didn’t even last the first shot.

The embarkation started at night so as to afford a measure of secrecy. My team had even marked the routes for various personnel so as to enable them to reach their messes. However, for the first one hour, no embarkation whatsoever took place. I was getting most jittery because at midnight I was supposed to make a report to Cmde Mukherjee, the AFC, that the embarkation was completed. And here, in the first one hour no embarkation had taken place. The Lieutenant in my team informed me that the army personnel had declined to embark since we had omitted to make provision for the Mandir (Temple). “How serious?” I asked him, barely able to control my anxiety. “Very serious” he replied on the walkie-talkie.

The Commodore wanted to know the progress from me since we were supposed to sail late at night. I told him that gods were being appeased. Taking it as one of my usual remarks (since he had been my CO earlier), he responded with “Very Good”. Some of you may not be familiar with this response but it is a standard response by the senior officer in the navy to acknowledge the report by a junior (I have seen/heard junior officer reporting to the senior excitedly that a certain compartment was on fire and the senior calmly acknowledging it with “Very Good” as if he couldn’t have asked for anything better).

My team and I re-worked everything and the icon of the goddess was installed in a compartment to be occupied by three army pujaris, complete with dhotis, white topis and tilaks. Coconuts were broken, agarbattis lit, pooja was performed, prasad distributed and then only the embarkation started.

We sailed at wee hours of the morning escorted by several naval ships under CATF (Commander Amphibious Task Force). These had started sailing in the evening; the minesweepers having sailed much earlier. One ship was reported to have been torpedoed by a lurking enemy submarine. Luckily, thanks to our having appeased the goddess, we escaped.

Many years later, I underwent Higher Command Course with the Army and realised the importance of Mandir, Masjid, Gurudwara to the jawans wherever they are even at the heights of Leh and Siachin. One lives and learns.

This post is just an introductory post to the series of posts on Amphex and other EXercises. Please await the sequels.

FEAR IS THE KEY

I am fond of giving this example in my talks of a frog having fallen into a pit. A rabbit came there and cajoled the frog to come out of the pit by making all out efforts to do so. The frog just sat there at the bottom of the pit helplessly and resignedly. The rabbit motivated him with frequent shouts of “jump”, “yes you can”, “you can’t spend the rest of your life there” and “think of how nice you would feel when you are out of the pit”. But, the frog made no effort to jump and get out since it had already decided that it couldn’t.

Finally, the rabbit asked the frog what help he required to get out. The frog said that perhaps if the rabbit would fetch a ladder, he would climb up the ladder and come out. The rabbit, good Samaritan that he was, went to fetch the ladder and after a few hours managed to get there with his friends carrying the ladder. They noticed that the frog was happily sitting outside the pit. On inquiry the frog replied, “I thought that I could never come out of the pit by jumping. But, after you went to get the ladder, a snake came into the pit and I had no choice but to jump out”.

Fear is the key. It is that all important motivational factor that leaves you with no choice.

I have a senior, a most respected senior, in security industry who feels that deterrence based on fear of being caught and punished is the basic tenet around which security needs to be built. If people get the message that when they do something wrong (petty theft to huge frauds), they would be caught and punished, “97 percent won’t”. The reverse is also true, in that, 97 percent would probably fall into the temptation of doing something wrong if they felt that there were near 100 percent chances of getting away with it.

We used to have a school-time joke of kids attending a Christmas party. Many eatables were laid out on the tables. One of the kids noticed a sign near the cake plate: Take only one slice, God is watching. He went, next, to the chocolate plate and told his friends: “Take as many as you want; God is watching the cake”.

Of course, as societies evolve, respect for law becomes ingrained even when big brother is not watching. In my former service, Indian Navy, when Captain K Pestonji returned from his deputation to West Germany, he told about motorists waiting at the red lights in the middle of the night even when there was no one to see and theirs were the only cars. Similarly, during the 2004 Tsunami, in Japan, a case was reported of a motorist waiting at the red traffic light even when Tsunami was approaching from behind. An Indian, on the other hand would – nine times out of ten – jump the red lights if he knew there wasn’t a cop or a camera guarding those lights.

Two years back, a friend and I visited Vienna, a city ranked amongst the first ten in the world for tourism. Knowing what to expect there, I told my friend that in a day’s time, he should count the number of cops on the roads. By the end of the day, he was not able to spot a single one. And yet, all traffic and people moved with discipline. But, it takes centuries before one can get to that level of self-regulation. I remember having seen pictures of 1971 New York Power Outage and how people, who were not thieves till that time, helped themselves to all kinds of goodies from the malls since all the cameras were switched off due to the outage.

Whenever we talk about Indians rigorously following all traffic rules in Singapore but blithely ignoring them in India, it comes out that the penalties are universally applied in Singapore and cannot be circumvented by paying the cops chai-paani money. In Indian Chalta-Hai manner, the lack of deterrence promotes taking short-cuts and then that becomes the new law.

And it is not that we don’t have it in our culture or religion to use fear as the key. In Hindu religion, the fear of Death and the Punishment that we would get in Hell for our misdeeds often kept us from doing wrong. Indeed, this is the basic tenet, which keeps us on the right and the correct path. Two years back, I had visited this temple in Gujarat and one of the priests was advising a middle-aged man and his wife on the schemes available for charity in the temple. He said that the basic scheme was for Rupees 1100 but added for effect that the scheme worked only for those who hadn’t done any wrong deed. For those who sometimes indulged in wrong, benefit would be gained by donating Rupees 2100. The man was about to take out the sum and offer when the priest added that he should add Rupees 1100 for the welfare and long life of each child. And then, he came up with the clincher: Rupees 5100 would even look after his soul after death. By the time we left the wife was cajoling the man to dish out Rupees 5100 to ensure safety of children and his soul. The priest would have known that fear is, indeed, the key.

Some of the most well circulated posts on Whatsapp are the ones that tell you that good luck would come your way in case you forwarded it to twenty. However, you would rot in the fires of the hell in case you omitted forwarding. And then these give examples of people and what happened to them when inadvertently they didn’t forward the message to twenty. Of course, you don’t believe in this gibberish. But, you reason it out that there is no harm in passing it to your friends. Fear is the key.

Despite our religious practices and what is contained in our scriptures, we Indians are idealistic enough to believe that people and nations would behave nicely with us if we continue to give them homilies about peaceful co-existence and other such virtues. We are fond of giving the example of Porus, the King of Pauravas who fought Alexander the Great in the Battle of the Hydaspes (Jhelum) in 326 BC and was defeated. Having been captured alive, Alexander asked Porus as to how should Alexander treat him (Porus). Porus seemed to have replied, “As one king treats another”. It is said that Alexander was so impressed by his adversary that not only he reinstated him as a satrap of his own kingdom but also granted him dominion over lands to the north extending until the Hyphasis (Beas).

This idealistic and largely non-realistic philosophy – somewhat similar to telling a lion to convert to vegetarianism because of its mutual benefits – has been practised by us as a Grand Strategy. For decades we are trying to convert our neighbour Pakistan to vegetarianism by such promises as good relations, most favoured nation, and peaceful co-existence. And Pakistan terror groups, very routinely, get away with terror killings of our countrymen. We threaten them with – hold your breath – discontinuation of talks. Fear and deterrence are conspicuous by their total absence. Indeed, the only fear that the cross-border terrorists think of is that since killing Indians in terror attacks is such a cake-walk, they (the terrorists) may not get the 72 virgins (houri) in paradise that they would have got if there was some degree of difficulty involved in such jehadi act.

Of course you cannot fight Terror with Terror as was tried out, quite unsuccessfully in Punjab; Gulzar’s 1996 movie Maachis portrayed the ill effects of state-terrorism let loose on innocent people converting them to terrorism. But, fighting Terrorism with Deterrence brought out by Fear of Consequences is another thing altogether.

Fear can be the key if it is supported by Love and not Terror. You cannot, for example, make loyal personnel in a company, by always confronting them with the fear of losing their jobs; some of the companies, for example, revel in their hire-and-fire policies. The employees, of course, pay back such companies in kind. And suddenly, you find, that they are not afraid to lose their jobs but you are afraid to lose them.

Fear is, of course, the key and is a pragmatic security philosophy. However, in the end, I leave you with two thoughts that shall be covered in the follow-up article:

In some regions of Maharashtra, farmers commit suicide unable to pay back crop loans due to failure of monsoons and other factors. What fear of consequences would work against such people; more so, if they were to be wrongly motivated to perform wrong and even terror acts?
What exactly is the difference between Fear and Terror? At what stage the distinction between Deterrence and Terror would appear to blur.

Let me hear your views in the comments below.

On the lighter side, here is an imaginary (I hope) conversation, on the phone, between a kidnapper and a man whose wife has been kidnapped.

Kidnapper (nastily): We have your wife. We shall not set her free if you don’t give us Five Lakh Rupees.

Man (Matter of fact): And I shall kill you if you set her free!

There is, as you can see, a quick transfer of Fear.

HINDI SONGS DEPICTING IDEALS IN PREAMBLE TO CONSTITUTION OF INDIA

HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY 2016

What exactly does the republic day signify? It is the day when the Indian constitution came into effect on 26 Jan 1950. The opinion expressed by an American Constitutional authority, Granville Austin, was significant. He said that the Indian constitution was “perhaps the greatest political venture since that originated in Philadelphia in 1787.” He described it as a “social document”. We should never forget that the Constitution, as envisaged by a committee under Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, was to foster a social revolution.

A few years after the declaration of the Indian republic, Sir Anthony Eden, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom said, ‘Of all the experiments in government, which have been attempted since the beginning of time, I believe that the Indian venture into parliamentary government is the most exciting. A vast subcontinent is attempting to apply to its tens and thousands of millions a system of free democracy. It is a brave thing to try to do so. The Indian venture is not a pale imitation of our practice at home, but a magnified and multiplied reproduction on a scale we have never dreamt of. If it succeeds, its influence on Asia is incalculable for good. Whatever the outcome we must honour those who attempt it”.
Republic Day is, thus, an affirmation of common aspirations, hopes, strengths, responsibilities, and will of our people.

Our aspirations in brief are given in the Preamble of the Constitution. We seek for all our citizens: Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. I have created a cover picture for all my groups with these aspirations.

SONG #1
Insaaf ki dagar pe bachcho dikhaayo chal ke

One song that depicted all these ideals was penned by my favourite poet and lyricist: Shakeel Badayuni for the 1961 movie Ganga Jamuna starring Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala. Here in this song, Abhi Bhattacharya as a village school teacher is addressing the young ignited minds and moulding them to be the future leaders of the country.

This song was composed by Naushad Ali and so as to increase my joy and pride manifold, it was also sung by my favourite singer Hemant Kumar.

Please enjoy a song that tells us what we sought as a Republic in our leaders: Insaaf ki dagar pe bachcho dikhayo chal ke, ye desh hai tumhaara, neta tumhin ho kal ke….

insaaf kii Dagar pe, bachcho.n dikhaao chal ke
ye desh hai tumhaaraa, netaa tumhii.n ho kal ke

duniyaa ke ra.nj sahanaa aur kuchh na mu.Nh se kahanaa
sachchaaiyo.n ke bal pe aage ko ba.Dhate rahanaa
rakh doge ek din tum sa.nsaar ko badal ke
insaaf kii …

apane ho.n yaa paraae sabake liye ho nyaay
dekho kadam tumhaaraa haragiz na Dagamagaae
raste ba.De kaThin hai.n chalanaa sambhal-sambhal ke
insaaf kii …

insaaniyat ke sar par izzat kaa taaj rakhanaa
tan man bhii bhe.nT dekar bhaarat kii laaj rakhanaa
jiivan nayaa milegaa a.ntim chitaa me.n jal ke,
insaaf kii …

SONG #2 (JUSTICE)
Insaaf ka mandir hai ye bhagwan ka ghar hai

We are covering our aspirations as given in the Preamble of the Constitution. We seek for all our citizens: Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

Our first song depicted all these aspirations: Insaaf Ki Dagar Pe bachcho dikhayo chal ke.

Now, we take a song each for each one of our four aspirations for our people and the first one is: Justice or Insaaf.

Most Indians, after having tried their hand at getting Justice or Insaaf through the Indian system, pray to God to give them divine justice!

Here is a song from the 1954 movie Amar starring Dilip Kumar and Madhubala. They go for Insaaf to a temple. Shakeel Badayuni penned the lyrics, Naushad Ali composed it in our most popular Raag: Bharavi and Mohammad Rafi sang it.

Naushad Ali, Mohammad Rafi and Shakeel Badayuni

This means that five Muslims got together to make one Hindi bhajan; that was the beauty of our culture!

Please enjoy in Raag Bhairavi: Insaaf ka mandir hai yeh bhagwan ka ghar hai….

Part 1

#‪#‎during‬ casting##
ra: insaaf kaa mandir hai ye bhagavaan kaa ghar hai -2
ko: insaaf kaa mandir hai ye bhagavaan kaa ghar hai
ra: kahanaa hai jo kah de tujhe kis baat kaa Dar hai

hai khoT tere man me.n jo bhagavaan se hai duur -2
hai.n paa.Nv tere
#‪#‎casting‬ ends here##

Part 2

#‪#‎Dilip‬ and Madhubaalaa go to temple##
ra: insaaf kaa mandir hai ye bhagavaan kaa ghar hai
kahanaa hai jo kah de tujhe kis baat kaa Dar hai

hai khoT tere man me.n jo bhagavaan se hai duur -2
hai.n paa.Nv tere
hai.n paa.Nv tere phir bhii tuu aane se hai majabuur
aane se hai majabuur
himmat hai to aa jaa ye bhalaa_ii kii Dagar hai
insaaf kaa mandir hai ye bhagavaan kaa ghar hai

dukh de ke jo dukhiyo.n se na insaaf karegaa
bhagavaan bhii usako na kabhii maaf karegaa
ye soch le -2
ye soch le har baat kii daataa ko Kabar hai
daataa ko Kabar hai
himmat hai to aa jaa ye bhalaa_ii kii Dagar hai
ko: insaaf kaa mandir hai ye bhagavaan kaa ghar hai

Part 3:

#‪#‎at‬ the end##
ra: maayuus na ho haar ke taqadiir kii baazii
pyaaraa hai vo Gam jisame.n ho bhagavaan bhii raazii
dukh dard mile
dukh dard mile jisame.n wohii pyaar amar he
wohii pyaar amar he
ye soch le har baat kii daataa ko Kabar hai
ko: insaaf kaa mandir hai ye bhagavaan kaa ghar hai -2

SONG #3 (LIBERTY)
Apani azaadi ko ham hargiz mita sakate najhin

We are taking up songs depicting our aspirations as given in the Preamble of the Constitution. We seek for all our citizens: Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. I have created a cover picture for all my groups with these aspirations.

One song that depicted all these aspirations was given by me last night: Insaaf Ki Dagar Pe bachcho dikhayo chal ke. And then we took up a song depicting Justice or Insaaf: Insaaf ka mandir hai yeh bhagwan ka ghar hai.

Now, we take a song on Liberty.

Many people, I suspect, think of the words Liberty and Freedom as meaning the same thing. In speeches and written pieces they are used pretty much as synonyms. Indeed, many people don’t even find a difference between Independence Day and Republic Day!

Freedom is a state of being capable of making decisions without external control.

Liberty, on the other hand, is freedom which has been granted to a people by an external control.

What a useful learning for us Indians that unlike what we feel, our Constitution does not give us unfettered freedom but Liberty, which is Freedom with certain controls.

Once again, Shakeel Badayuni is the one who told us about the true value of our Freedom (Azadi) that led to our aspiration of Liberty.

At this stage, it is nice to reflect on the fact that first three out of five songs that I shall be putting up to remind us of Republic Day have been penned by Shakeel Badayuni with music by Naushad. This too has been sung by Mohammad Rafi for Dilip Kumar and it is from the 1964 movie Leader.

Poster of the 1964 movie Leader starring Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala

Please enjoy: Apani aazaadi ko ham hargiz mita sakate nahin….

apanii aazaadii ko ham haragiz miTaa sakate nahii.n
sar kaTaa sakate hai.n lekin sar jhukaa sakate nahii.n

hamane sadiyo.n me.n ye aazaadii kii nemat paaii hai
saika.Do.n qurabaaniyaa.N dekar ye daulat paaii hai
muskaraakar khaaii hai.n siino.n pe apane goliyaa.N
kitane viiraano.n se guzare hai.n to jannat paaii hai
Kaak me.n ham apanii izzat ko milaa sakate nahii.n

kyaa chalegii zulm kii ahale vafaa ke saamane
jaa nahii.n sakataa koii sholaa havaa ke saamane
laakh fauje.n le ke aaii aman kaa dushman koii
ruk nahii.n sakataa hamaarii ekataa ke saamane
ham vo patthar hai.n jise dushman hilaa sakate nahii.n

vaqt kii aazaadii ke ham saath chalate jaae.nge
har qadam par zi.ndagii kaa ruK badalate jaae.nge
gar vatan me.n bhii milegaa koI gaddaar-e-vatan
apanii taaqat se ham usakaa sar kuchalate jaae.nge
ek dhokhaa khaa chuke hai.n aur khaa sakate nahii.n

SONG #4 (EQUALITY)
Bane ho ek khaak se to door kyaa kareeb kyaa
Lahu ka rang ek hai ameer kyaa gareeb kyaa?

Republic Day is an affirmation of common aspirations, hopes, strengths, responsibilities, and will of our people.

Our aspirations in brief are given in the Preamble of the Constitution. We seek for all our citizens: Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. I have created a cover picture for all my groups with these aspirations.

Many people feel that there is no difference between Independence Day and Republic Day. I am bringing out these differences through songs.

Since the beginning of this post we took up three songs: One, Insaaf ki dagar se bachcho dikhaayo chal ke, telling us about all our ideals as republic; Insaaf ka mandir hai yeh bhagwan ka ghar hai reminding us of Justice (Insaaf) and Apani azaadi ko hum hargiz mita sakate nahin to tell us the value of Liberty given to us by our constitution.

Let us take up the fourth song about Equality now.

This one has been penned by Majrooh Sultanpuri in the 1962 movie Aarti with Meena Kumari in the title role.

It has Roshan‘s music and Lata Mangeshkar sang it.

aarti

Here is the Indian ideal of Equality in a most meaningful song: Bane ho ek khaak se to door kyaa kareeb kyaa,
Lahu ka rang ek hai ameer kyaa gareeb kyaa?

bane ho ek Kaak se, to duur kyaa qariib kyaa -(3)
lahu kaa ra.ng ek hai, amiir kyaa gariib kyaa
bane ho ek …

vo hii jaan vo hii tan, kahaa.N talaq chhupaaoge -(2)
pahan ke reshamii libaaz, tum badal na jaaoge
ke ek jaat hai.n sabhii -(2)
to baat hai ajiib sii
lahu kaa ra.ng ek hai …

gariib hai vo isa liye, tum amiir ho gaye -(2)
ke ek baadashaah huaa, to sau fakiir ho gaye
khataa yaha hai samaaja kii -(2)
bhalaa buraa nasiib kyaa
lahu kaa ra.ng ek hai …

jo ek ho to kyuu.N naa phir, dilo.n kaa dard baa.NT lo -(2)
lahu kii pyaas baa.NT lo, ruko ki dard baa.NT lo
lagaa lo saba ko tum gale (2)
habiib kyaa, raqiib kyaa
lahu kaa ra.ng ek hai …

SONG #5 (FRATERNITY)
Insaan ka insaan se ho bhaichaara
Yehi paigham hamara

Republic Day is an affirmation of common aspirations, hopes, strengths, responsibilities, and will of our people.

Many people feel that there is no difference between Independence Day and Republic Day. I am bringing out these differences through songs.

Since the beginning of this post we took up four songs: One, Insaaf ki dagar se bachcho dikhaayo chal ke, telling us about all our ideals as republic; Insaaf ka mandir hai yeh bhagwan ka ghar hai reminding us of Justice (Insaaf), Apani azaadi ko hum hargiz mita sakate nahin to tell us the value of Liberty given to us by our constitution; and Lahu ka rang ek hai ameer kyaa gareeb kyaa (Equality)

Let us take up the fifth song about Fraternity now.

This one was very easy to find since it is from the 1959 movie Paigham (literally, our Proclamation or Declaration of our Intent; indeed the Preamble of our Constitution that came into effect 66 years ago on 26 January 1950).

It has been penned by Kavi Pradeep and has C Ramchandra‘s music (as in Ai mere watan ke logo). It has been sung by Mohammad Rafi.

paigham1

Please enjoy: Insaan ka insaan se ho bhaichaara, yehi paigham hamara….

Please enjoy Manna De sing about our fourth ideal in the Preamble of our Constitution: Insaan ka insaan se ho bhaichaara, yehi paighaam hamaara….

insan ka ho insan se bhaichara
yahi paigam hamara
yahi paigam hamara
naye jagat me huya purana
unch nich ka kissa
sabko mile mehnat ke
mutabik apna apna hissa
sabke liye sukh ka barabar ho bantwara
yahi paigam hamara
yahi paigam hamara

harek mahal se kaho ke
jhopdiyo me diye jalaye
chhoto aur bado me ab
koi phrak na rah jaye
is dharti par ho pyar ka
ghar ghar ujiyara
yahi paigam hamara
yahi paigam hamara
insan ka ho insan se bhaichara
yahi paigam hamara
yahi paigam hamara

Ladies and gentlemen, today is the day to rejoice as we celebrate the 67th Republic Day of India. Let us remember the Preamble to the Constitution of India through these five songs.

Jai Hind!

A HUNDRED GHAZALS IN HINDI MOVIES – PART II

As I brought out in the introduction of ‘A Hundred Ghazals In Hindi Movies – Part I’, the ghazal is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in ancient Arabic poem in Arabia long before the birth of Islam. The term Ghazal is of North African and Middle Eastern origin. Its root term in Arabic is “gh-zl” and is derived from the Arabian panegyric qasida.

I gave you 18 Ghazals so far in Part I starting with Shakeel Badayuni‘s Na milata gham to barbaadi ke afsaane kahan jaate, to Rajinder Krishan‘s Jahan Ara ghazal sung by Talat Mahmood: Phir wohi shaam wohi gham wohi tanhaayi hai. In between I packed ghazals by Kaifi Azmi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Muztar Khairabadi, Hasrat Mohani, Hasrat Jaipuri, Jaan Nisar Akhtar, Majrooh Sultanpuri, and Farooq Qaiser.

Lets proceed further in our Ghazal journey.

Ghazal #19

Mohammad Rafi on Sahir Ludhianvi

This is one of the several favourites that I have of Mohammad Rafi. Lyricist is Sahir Ludhianvi and music is Roshan‘s.

Mohammad Rafi with Roshan and his family (Pic courtesy: www.mohdrafi.com)

It is from the 1960 movie Babur. Babur or Babar, the founder of the Mughal empire in India writes an epistle to his beloved. He was an excellent writer and could have written similar words; except that in this case Sahir Ludhianvi wrote for him.

Babur_of_India — Babur – The first mughal emperor in India, the subject of 1960 movie Babur

I am in love with the lyrics as well its gentle slow music by Roshan.

Please enjoy: Tum ek baar mohabbat kaa imtihaan to lo….

tum ek baar muhabbat kaa imtahaan to lo
mere junuu.N merii vahashat kaa imtahaan to lo
tum ek baar …

salaam-e-shauq pe ra.njish bharaa payaam na do
mere Koluus ko firaas-o-havas kaa naam na do
merii vafaa kii haqiikat kaa imtahaan to lo
tum ek baar …

na taKt-o-taaj na laal-o-guhar kii hasarat hai
tumhaare pyaar tumhaarii nazar kii hasarat hai
tum apane husn kii azamat kaa imtihaan to lo
tum ek baar …

mai.n apanii jaan bhii de duu.N to aitabaar nahii.n
ke tum se ba.Dhake mujhe zi.ndagii se pyaar nahii.n
yuu.N hii sahii merii chaahat kaa imtihaan to lo
tum ek baar …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r18Q8T5BlhQ

Ghazal #20

Jaan Nisar Akhtar

Elsewhere today I wrote about the role of Lyricist in a song, geet, gaana or ghazal. He or she is the starting point of a song. He or she places himself/herself in the shoes of the protagonist and feels for him or her. These feelings are then given words to stand on. The music composer and singer come in later to add to these feelings or emotions through their own brilliance.

I have given you ghazals of a number of poets and lyricists and one by him too. Today I bring to you another one of Jaan Nisar Akhtar.

JaanNisarAkhtarwithSahirLudhianvi — Jaan Nisar Akhar with Sahir Ludhianvi

Jaan Nisar Akhtar was born on 18th Feb 1914 in Gwalior Madhya Pradesh. He had the occasion to work with leading music directors such as Madan Mohan, C Ramchandra, Khayyam and N Dutta.

He wrote very few songs/ghazals; 151 in all but each one is a gem.

I am giving you his best gem, from the 1966 movie Sushila. Music composer was C Arjun and Mubarak Begum was the singer.

Mubarak Begum (born in Sujangarh, Churu, Rajasthan) is an Indian Ghazal, Naat and a popular playback singer in Hindi films in the 1950s and 1960s. A major hit in her career was the song “Kabhi Tanhaiyon Mein Yun” for composer Snehal Bhatkar in Kidar Sharma’s film Hamari Yaad Aayegi which is, till this day, regarded as a classic rendition.

Please enjoy: Bemuravat bewafa begaana-e-dil aap hain….

dard-e-dil dard-e-vafaa dard-e-tamannaa kyaa hai
aap kyaa jaane.n mohabbat kaa takaazaa kyaa hai

bemuravvat bevafaa begaanaa-e-dil aap hai.n -2
aap maane yaa na maane mere qaatil aap hai.n
bemuravvat bevafaa

aap se shikavaa hai mujh ko Gair se shikavaa nahii.n -2
jaanatii huu.N dil me.n rakh lene ke qaabil aap hai.n
bemuravvat bevafaa

saa.Ns letii huu.N to yuu.N mahasuus hotaa hai mujhe -2
jaise mere dil kii har dha.Dakan me.n shaamil aap hai.n
bemuravvat bevafaa

Gam nahii.n jo laakh tuufaano.n se Takaraanaa pa.De -2
mai.n vo kashtii huu.N ki jis kashtii kaa saahil aap hai.n

bemuravvat bevafaa begaanaa-e-dil aap hai.n
aap maane yaa na maane mere qaatil aap hai.n
bemuravvat bevafaa

Ghazal #21

Mirza Ghalib – The Movie

The 1954 movie Mirza Ghalib was produced and directed by Sohrab Modi. It starred Bharat Bhushan as the 19th century (27th Dec 1797 to 15 Feb 1869) noble and wealthy poet Mirza Ghalib who fell in love with a courtesan Chaudhvin played by Suraiyya. This very sensitive poet then went through pangs of ill-fated relationship and ultimate descent into pecuniary. The movie also brought out the conflict between his loyalty and love and he ultimately failed to make a good impression in the mushaira of emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar but managed to win the heart of the courtesan Chaudhvin.

Mirza Ghalib is regarded as the best Urdu poet the world has ever seen. The movie had his ghazals composed by Ghulam Mohammad who also composed music for Pakeezah as you already know.

Lets start with his ghazal that I like the best since it greatly describes his later life and it has the kind of despondency that is the hallmark of good Urdu ghazals. It has been sung by Suraiyya.

Please enjoy: Ye naa thi hamaari kismet ke visaal-e-yaar hota
Agar aur jeete rehate younhi intezzaar hota….

ye naa thii hamaarii qismat ke visaal-e-yaar hotaa
agar aur jiite rahate, yahii i.ntazaar hotaa

tere vaade par jiye ham, to ye jaan jhuuTh jaanaa
ke khushii se mar na jaate, agar aitabaar hotaa

terii naazukii se jaanaa ke ba.ndhaa thaa ahad buudaa
kabhii tuu na to.D sakataa, agar usatavaar hotaa

koii mere dil se puuchhe, tere tiir-e-niim kash ko
ye khalish kahaa.N se hotii, jo jigar ke paar hotaa

ye kahaa.N kii dostii hai ke bane hai.n dost naaseH
koii chaaraa saaz hotaa, koii gam gusaar hotaa

rag-e-sa.ng se Tapakataa, vo lahuu ke phir na thamataa
jise Gam samajh rahe ho, ye agar sharaar hotaa

Gam agar-che jaa.N gusal hai, par kahaa.N bachai.n ke dil hai
Gam-e-ishq gar na hotaa, gam-e-rozagaar hotaa

kahuu.N kis se mai.n ke kiyaa hai, shab-e-gam burii balaa hai
mujhe kiyaa buraa thaa maraN agar aik baar hotaa

hue mar ke ham jo rusavaa, hue kyuu.N na gharq-e-darayaa
na kabhii janaazaa uThataa, na kahii.n mazaar hotaa

use kaun dekh sakataa ke, yagaanaa he vo yakataa
jo duii kii buu bhii hotii, to kahii.n do chaar hotaa

ye masaa-el-e-tasavvuf, ye teraa bean, Gaalib
tujhe ham vaalii samajhate, jo na baadah khaar hotaa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hw6tKjEk_8

Ghazal #22

Mirza Ghalib – The Movie

I have just introduced you to the 1954 movie Mirza Ghalib starring Bharat Bhushan and Suraiyya, on the life and travails of the 19th century poet Mirza Ghalib regarded as the best Urdu poet ever.

This ghazal has been sung by Talat Mahmood and Suraiyya and also has Ghulam Mohammad‘s music.

Talat Mahmood, Suraiyya and Nadira (Pic courtesy guyana.hoop.la)

Please enjoy: Dil-e-nadaan tujhe hua kyaa hai?
Aakhir is marz ki dawa kyaa hai?

dil-e-naadaa.n tujhe huaa kyaa hai
aakhir is dard kii davaa kyaa hai

ham hai.n mushtaaq aur vo bezaar
yaa ilaahii, ye maajaraa kyaa hai

mai.n bhii muh me.n zubaan rakhataa huu.N
kaash puuchho kii mudda kyaa hai

jabaki tujh bin nahii.n koI maujuud
phir ye ha.ngaamaa ai khudaa kyaa hai

ye parii-cheharaa log kaise hai.n
Gamazaa-o-ush{}vaa-o-adaa kyaa hai

shikane-zulafe-amabarii kyaa hai
nigaahe-chashme-surama saa kyaa hai

sabz-o-gul kahaa.N se aaye hai.n
abr kyaa chiiz hai, havaa kyaa hai

hamako unase vafaa ki hai ummiid
jo nahii.n jaanate vafaa kyaa hai

haa.N bhalaa kar, teraa bhalaa hogaa
aur daravesh kii sadaa kyaa hai

jaan tum par nisaar karataa huu.N
mai.n nahii.n jaanataa duaa kyaa hai

maine maanaa ki kuchh nahii.n Gaalib
muft haath aaye, to buraa kyaa hai

Glossary:
dil-e-naadaan: naive heart
mushtaaq: enthusiastic
bezaar: unsatisfied, angry
maajra: issue
hangaama: noise created by a lot of activity/talk
pari-chehra: beautiful (face of a fairy)
gamz-o-aish-o-adaa: vanity(?)
shikne-zulfe-ambari: locks of hair like the sky(?)
nigaahe-chashme-surma: the look of surma filled eyes
sabz-o-gul: greenery and flowers
abr: cloud
darvesh: beggar
ghamza = amorous glance
ushwa = coquetry, work done surreptitiously
ghamza-o-‘ushwa-o-adaa: grace of the coquettish glances or
grace of the concealed glances

Ghazal #23

Mirza Ghalib – The Movie

The 1954 movie on the life of Mirza Ghalib the poet won the National Award For The Best Feature Film. Its script was written by Rajinder Singh Bedi and Saadat Hasan Manto.

Surprisingly, the politics in Hindi movies kept Ghulam Mohammed from getting the Best Music Director award just as it did for his Pakeezah; because of the latter Pran declined to receive his Best Supporting Actor award that year!

Lets listen to the third of the ghazals of the King of Poets Mirza Ghalib. This too has been sung by Suraiyya on the music of Ghulam Mohammad.

Please enjoy: Nuktacheen hai gham-e-dil usako sunaaye naa bane…

nuktaachii.n hai, Gam-e-dil usako sunaaye na bane
usako sunaaye na bane
kyaa bane baat jahaa.N baat banaaye na bane
nuktaachii.n hai, Gam-e-dil

Gair phirataa hai liye yuu.N tere Kat ko ke agar
ko_ii puuchhe ke ye kyaa hai to chhupaaye na bane
nuktaachii.n hai, Gam-e-dil

mai.n bulaataa to huu.N usako magar ai jazbaa-e-dil
us pe ban jaaye kuchh aisii ki bin aaye na bane -2
nuktaachii.n hai, Gam-e-dil

ishq par zor nahii.n hai ye vo aatish Gaalib -2
ki lagaaye na lage aur bujhaaye na bane
nuktaachii.n hai, Gam-e-dil usako sunaaye na bane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36ex-PLvbGA

Ghazal #24

Mirza Ghalib – The TV Serial

In 1988, Gulzar took it upon himself to make TV Series on Mirza Ghalib. He had Naseeruddin Shah in the role of the great poet. He had the ghazals of Mirza Ghalib composed by Jagjit and Chitra Singh and these are regarded as the best compositions ever by the duo.

Jagjit and Chitra Singh (Pic courtesy: archive.indianexpress.com)

Lets listen to Jagjit Singh sing a very popular ghazal of Mirza Ghalib: Aah ko chahiye ik umr hone taq
Kaun jeeta hai teri zulf ke sar hone taq?

aah ko chaahie ek umr asar hone tak
kaun jiitaa hai tere zulf ke sar hone tak

aashiqii sabr talab aur tamannaa betaab
dil kaa kyaa ra.Ng karuu.N khuun-e-jigar hone tak

ham ne maanaa ke taGakul na karoge lekin
khaak ho jaae.nge ham tum ko khabar hone tak

Gam-e-hastii kaa ‘asad’ kisase ho kuz-marg-e-ilaaj
shamaa har ra.Ng me.n jalatii hai sahar hone tak

Ghazal #25

Mirza Ghalib – The Movie

Lets get back to the 1954 movie produced and directed by the great Sohrab Modi for this last ghazal of the evening, which is amongst my all time favourites.

This too has been sung by Suraiyya on Ghulam Mohammad‘s music.

Please enjoy: Rahiye ab aisi jagah chal kar jahan koi naa ho
Hamsukan koi na ho aur hamzubaan koi na ho…

rahiye ab aisii jagah chal kar jahaa.N ko_ii na ho
hamasuKan ko_ii na ho aur hamazabaa.N ko_ii na ho
rahiye ab aisii jagah

be-dar-o-diiwaar kaa ik ghar banaayaa chaahiye -2
ko_ii hamasaayaa na ho aur paasabaa.N ko_ii na ho
rahiye ab aisii jagah

pa.Diye gar biimaar to ko_ii na ho tiimaaradaar -2
aur agar mar jaa_iye to nauhaKwaa.N ko_ii na ho
rahiye ab aisii jagah

Ghazal #26

Raja Mehdi Ali Khan

I have done a full blog on him. Here is from my blog:

Having been born in 1928 in Jehlum in undivided India, when the partition of India took place, Raja Mehdi Ali Khan and wife Tahira refused to go to Pakistan despite communal riots. His patriotism came to fore in 1948 itself when he wrote the famous number: Watan ki raah mein watan ke naujwaan shahid hon for the movie Shaheed starring Dilip Kumar.

Raja Mehdi Ali Khan paired with the Music Director Madan Mohan to produce some of Lata Mangeshkar’s best numbers. She has acknowledged so.

Lets turn to the 1962 movie Anpadh. Here are five songs sung by Lata Mangeshkar with lyrics penned by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan and music composed by Madan Mohan. Four out of these are amongst the best songs of Lata:

1. Aapakii nazaro.n ne samajhaa.
2. Hai isii me.n pyaar kii aabaru.
3. Jiyaa le gayo jii moraa saa.nvariyaa.
4. Ra.ng\-bira.ngii raakhii leke aa_ii bahana.
5. Vo dekho jalaa ghar kisii kaa.

Lets turn to the ghazal Hai isi mein pyaar ki aabru:

hai isii me.n pyaar kii aabaruu
vo zafaa kare.n mai.n vafaa karuu.N
jo vafaa bhii kaam na aa sake
to vohii kahe.n ke mai.n kyaa karuu.N
hai isii …

(mujhe Gam bhii unakaa aziiz hai
ke unhii.n kii dii huii chiiz hai ) – (2)
ke unhii.n kii dii huii chiiz hai
yahii Gam hai ab merii zi.ndagii
ise kaise dil se judaa karuu.N
hai isii …

(jo na ban sake mai.n vo baat huu.N
jo na khatm ho mai.n vo raat huu.N ) – (2)
jo na khatm ho mai.n vo raat huu.N
ye likhaa hai mere nasiib me.n
yuu.Nhii shammaa banake jalaa karuu.N
hai isii …

(na kisii ke dil kii huu.N aarazuu
na kisii kii nazar kii huu.N justajuu ) – (2)
na kisii kii nazar kii huu.N justajuu
mai.n vo phuul huu.N jo udaas ho
na bahaar aae to kyaa karuu.N
hai isii …

Ghazal #28

Raja Mehdi Ali Khan

Hats off to Laxmikant Pyarelal for having composed it so well and hats off to Raj Khosla for the direction of this scene starring his favourite actress of many movies: Sadhana in the 1967 movie Anita, one of the three movies that Raj Khosla made on mystery women.

Lata Mangeshkar with Laxmikant Pyarelal (Pic courtesy: www.hindilyrics.net)

Of course, Lata Mangeshkar has sung this so well.

You will love the picturisation of this ghazal. It is unlike any other ghazal.

Please enjoy: Qariib aa ye nazar phir mile naa mile….

qariib aa ye nazar phir mile mile naa mile
ye aarazuu kaa chaman phir khile khile na khile
qariib aa ye nazar …

bhaTak rahii huu.N sadiyo.n se terii raaho.n me.n
panaah de kisii ghaayal ko apanii baa.Nho.n me.n
ye dil kaa zaKm kabhii phir phir khile khile naa khile
qariib aa ye nazar …

taras rahaa hai ye dil terii ik nazar ke li_e
bas ek nazar terii kaafii hai umr bhar ke li_e
nazar se pyaar jataa lab hile hile naa hile
qariib aa ye nazar …

nazar uThaa ke tere saamane bahaar kha.Dii
ko_ii hasiinaa nigaaho.n me.n le ke pyaar kha.Dii
phir is adaa kii kalii khile khile naa khile
qariib aa ye nazar …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDNU3EMbyR4

Ghazal #27

Raja Mehdi Ali Khan

The movie Aankhen was released in 1950. So, Raja Mehdi Ali Khan was only 21 when he wrote the following ghazal. Once agin the composer is Madan Mohan. However, this time the singer is Shamshad Begum.

Having been born on 14th April 1919, we lost Shamshad Begum, the legend, on 23rd April 2013. She was one of the first playback singers in Indian films and sang over 6000 songs. Some of her famous songs are: Milate hi aankhen dil hua, Kabhi aar kabhi paar laaga teer-e-nazar, Kajra mohabbat wala, Teri mehfil mein kismat aajma kar, and Ek do teen aaja mausam hai rangeen.

Shamshad Begum (Pic courtesy: guyana.hoop.la)

Please enjoy: Mohabbat karne waalon ka yahi anjaam hota hai….

kisii kii yaad me.n ro-ro ke apane
din guzarate hai.n
ye kaisii zindagii hai
ham na jiite hai.n na marate hai.n

mohabbat karane waalo.n kaa -2
yahii a.njaam hotaa hai
ta.Dapanaa unakii qisamat me.n -2
to subah-o-shaam hotaa hai

mohabbat karane waalo.n kaa
yahii a.njaam hotaa hai

( hameshaa ke liye duniyaa me.n
do dil mil nahii.n sakate ) -2
do dil mil nahii.n sakate
nazar milanaa judaa_ii kaa -2
hii ik paiGaam hotaa hai

mohabbat karane waalo.n kaa
yahii a.njaam hotaa hai

( na dil me.n chain hai hamako
na raato.n ko qaraar aaye ) -2
na raato.n ko qaraar aaye
bataa de ko_ii duniyaa me.n -2
kahaa.N aaraam hotaa hai

mohabbat karane waalo.n kaa
yahii a.njaam hotaa hai

( merii barabaadiyaa.N bhii dekh lii.n
tumane jahaa.N waalo.n ) -2
tumane jahaa.N waalo.n
jo karataa hai mohabbat wo -2
yuu.N hii naakaam hotaa hai

mohabbat karane waalo.n kaa
yahii a.njaam hotaa hai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=25&v=bl_3MAhLSBQ

Ghazal #29

Raja Mehdi Ali Khan

I end tonight with this ghazal penned by him for the 1955 movie Inaam, sung by Suraiyya. The composer was SN Tripathi.

SN Tripathi (pic courtesy: www.hindilyrics.com)

Please enjoy: Zara theharo main haal-e-dil suna loon phir chale jaana….

zaraa Thaharo mai.n haal-e-dil sunaa luu.N phir chale jaanaa
tamannaa_o.n ko ashqo.n me.n bahaa luu.N phir chale jaanaa
zaraa Thaharo

are o jaanewaale ek hii pal ke liye ruk jaa -2
mai.n shammaa-e-zi.ndagii apanii bujhaa luu.N phir chale jaanaa

zaraa Thaharo mai.n haal-e-dil sunaa luu.N phir chale jaanaa
zaraa Thaharo

qayaamat kii gha.Dii hai aaj to jii bhar ke rone do -2
mai.n tumako haar ashqo.n ke pinhaa luu.N phir chale jaanaa

zaraa Thaharo mai.n haal-e-dil sunaa luu.N phir chale jaanaa
zaraa Thaharo

tere jaate hii saaj-e-zi.ndagaanii TuuT jaayegaa -2
mai.n apanaa aaKarii nagamaa sunaa luu.N phir chale jaanaa

zaraa Thaharo mai.n haal-e-dil sunaa luu.N phir chale jaanaa
tamannaa_o.n ko ashqo.n me.n bahaa luu.N phir chale jaanaa
zaraa Thaharo

Ghazal #30

Madan Mohan

He lived for a little more than 51 years only (25th June 1924 to 14th July 1975) and yet he left an indelible mark on the Hindi films industry as a composer and music director.

He was the master of ghazals and some of his most popular ghazals have been sung by Mohammad Rafi, Talat Mahmood and Mohammad Rafi. I have already given you quite a few. But, now, it is time to pay him tribute as the best composer of ghazals in Hindi films.

They are all so good that I find it very difficult to select just a few.

Anyway, here is an attempt to find one each of the three singers that I love.

The first one is of Mohammad Rafi from the 1958 movie Aakhri Dao starring Nutan and Shekhar. Majrooh Sultanpuri was the lyricist.

Majrooh Sultanpuri was born on 01 October 1919 in Sultanpur, UP. He was one of the dominating musical forces in Indian Cinema in the 1950s and early 1960s and was an important figure in the Progressive Writers’ Movement and is consideredone of the finest avant-garde Urdu poets of 20th century literature. He won the Filmfare Best Lyricist Award in 1965 for “Chahunga Main Tujhe” in film Dosti, and the highest award in Indian cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for lifetime achievement in 1993.

Majrooh Sultanpuri (pic courtesy: www.newindianexpress.com)

Please enjoy: Tujhe kyaa sunaayun main dilruba tere saamane mera haal hai….

tujhe kyaa sunaaU.N mai.n dilarubaa
tere saamane meraa haal hai
terii ik nigaah kii baat hai
merii zi.ndagii kaa savaal hai

merii har Kushii tere dam se hai
merii zi.ndagii tere Gam se hai
tere dard se rahe beKabar
mere dil kii kab ye mazaal hai

tere husn par hai merii nazar
mujhe subah shaam kii kyaa Kabar
merii shaam hai terii justajuu
merii subaha teraa Kayaal hai

mere dil jigar me.n samaa bhii jaa
rahe kyo.n nazar kaa bhii faasalaa
ke tere baGair o jaan-e-jaa.n
mujhe zi.ndagii bhii muhaal hai

Ghazal #31

Madan Mohan

Undoubtedly the best composer of ghazals in Hindi movies ever was Madan Mohan and the best singer Talat Mahmood.

The 1957 movie Dekh Kabira Roya was supposed to be a comedy but look at the songs and this ghazal. Rajinder Krishan was the lyricist and Talat the singer.

Lagan Tose Lagi Balma	Lata Mangeshkar	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan
Meri Veena Tum Bin Roye	Lata Mangeshkar	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan
Hum Panchhi Mastaane	Lata Mangeshkar Geeta Dutt & Seeta	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan
Humse Aaya Na Gaya	Talat Mahmood	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan
Tum Meri Raakho Laaj Hari	Sudha Malhotra	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan
Tu Pyar Kare Ya Thukraye	Lata Mangeshkar	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan
Ashqon Se Teri Humne	Asha Bhosle	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan
Hum Bulate Hi Rahe	Asha Bhosle & Mohammad Rafi	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan
Bairan Ho Gayi Rain	Manna Dey	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan
Kaun Aaya, Mere Man Ke Dwaare	Manna Dey	Rajendra Krishan	Madan Mohan

Please enjoy: Hamase aaya naa gaya tumase bulaaya na gaya….

ham se aayaa na gayaa tum se bulaayaa naa gayaa
faasalaa pyaar me.n dono.n se miTaayaa naa gayaa

vo gha.Dii yaad hai jab tum se mulaaqaat huI
ek ishaaraa huaa do haath ba.Dhe baat huI
dekhate dekhate din Dhal gayaa aur raat huI
vo samaa.n aaj talak dil se bhulaayaa naa gayaa
ham se AyA na gayA

kyaa Kabar thii ke mile hai.n to bichha.Dane ke liye
qismate.n apanii banaaI.n hai.n biga.Dane ke liye
pyaar kaa baag basaayaa thaa uja.Dane ke liye
is tarah uja.Daa ke phir ham se basaayaa naa gayaa
ham se AyA na gayA

yAd rag jAtI hai aur vaqt guzar jAtA hai
phUl khilatA hai magar khil ke bikhar jAtA hai
sab chale jAte hai.n phir darde jigar jAtA hai
dAG jo tUne diyA dil ne miTAyA nA gayA
ham se AyA na gayA …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esPzSp_jlNs

Ghazal #32

Madan Mohan

What happens when you combine the best ghazal composer in Madan Mohan with the best ghazal writer: Gulzar? Well, the result, as expected is magic. It happened in 1975 movie Mausam starring Sanjeev Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore.

Lata is the singer.

Please enjoy one of her best ghazals: Ruke ruke se kadam ruk ke baar baar chale….

ruke ruke se kadam ruk ke baar baar chale (2)
qarAr leke tere dar se beqarAr chale
ruke ruke se kadam ruk ke baar baar chale
ruke ruke se kadam

subah nA AyI kaI baar nI.nd se jaage (2)
ki ek raat kI ye zi.ndagI guzaar chale (2)
ruke ruke se kadam

uThAye phir de ke ehasAn dil kA sIne par (2)
le tere kadamo.n pe ye kaz.r bhI utaar chale (2)
qarAr leke tere dar se beqarAr chale
ruke ruke se kadam ruk ke baar baar chale
ruke ruke se kadam

Ghazal #33

Madan Mohan

I was about to call it a late night when I remembered that I haven’t given you a fourth singer for whom Madan Mohan composed ghazals. Yes, I am talking about Asha Bhosle.

Asha Bhosle (Pic courtesy: indianexpress.com)

The 1966 movie Neend Hamari Khwaab Tumhaare had one of her best ghazals on the lyrics of Rajinder Krishan. It is picturised on Nanda singing for Shashi Kapoor.

Please enjoy: Koi shiqwa bhi nahin, koi shiqayat bhi nahin
Aur tumahen hamase who pehli si mohabbat bhi nahin….

ko_ii shiqavaa bhii nahii.n ko_ii shiqaayat bhii nahii.n -2
aur tumhe.n hamase vo pahale sii mohabbat bhii nahii.n
ko_ii shiqavaa bhii …

pyaar ke vaade vafaa hone ke din aa_e hai.n -2
ye na samajho Kafaa hone ke din aa_e hai.n
ruuTh jaa_oge to kuchh duur qayaamat bhii nahii.n
aur tumhe.n hamase …

ham vahii apanii vafaa apanii mohabbat bhii vahii -2
tum jahaa.N baiTh ga_e apanii jo jannat hai vahii
aur duniyaa me.n kisii chiiz kii chaahat bhii nahii.n
aur tumhe.n hamase …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEJttVItcVI

Ghazal #34

Khaiyyam

Last night I gave you adequate glimpses of Madan Mohan’s mastery over composing music for ghazals in the Hindi movies. Another composer who loved composing ghazals is Mohammed Zahur Khaiyyam or simply Khaiyyam.

He was born very close to where I was born: the village of Rahon near Nawanshahr on 18th Feb 1927. His music is on the gentler side and he refused to make music for frivolous lyricists.

To the best of my knowledge, Bashar Nawaz has penned just one ghazal in Hindi movies. It is in the 1982 movie Bazaar starring Naseeruddin Shah and the one who was destined to be the modern day Meena Kumari until fate played its last card for her and we lost her prematurely: Smita Patil.

Bashar Nawaz (Pic courtesy: www.newsroompost.com)

The ghazal has been sung by Bhupinder whose one ghazal I have given you earlier, for the movie Aitbaar: Kisi nazar ko tera intezzar aaj bhi hai.

Please enjoy: Karoge yaad to har baat yaad aayegi…..

karoge yaad to, har baat yaad aayegii – 2
guzarate vaqt kii, har mauj Thahar jaayegii – 2
karoge yaad to …

ye chaa.Nd biite zamaano.n kaa aaiinaa hogaa – 2
bhaTakate abra me.n, chaharaa koI banaa hogaa
udaas raah koI daastaa.n sunaaegii – 2
karoge yaad to …

barasataa-bhiigataa mausam dhuaa.N-dhuaa.N hogaa – 2
pighalatii shamo.n pe dil kaa mere Gumaa.n hogaa
hatheliyo.n kii hinaa, yaad kuchh dilaayegii – 2
karoge yaad to …

galii ke mo.D pe, suunaa saa koI daravaazaa – 2
tarasatii aa.Nkho.n se rastaa kisii kaa dekhegaa
nigaah duur talak jaa ke lauT aaegii – 2
karoge yaad to …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X0Z6Qp6Re4

Ghazal #35

Khaiyyam

Talking about Khaiyyam, another beautiful ghazal of the 1982 movie Bazaar has been sung by his wife Jagjit Kaur. This is picturised on Supriya Pathak and the gentlest of all heroes: Farooq Sheikh.

And, it is a Mir Taqi Mir ghazal!

Please enjoy: Dikhayi diye youn ki bekhud kiya….

dikhaa_ii di_e yuu.N ki bekhud kiyaa -2
hame.n aap se bhii judaa kar chale
dikhaa_ii di_e yuu.N

jabii.n sajadaa karate hii karate ga_ii -2
haq-e-ba.ndagii yuu.N adaa kar chale
dikhaa_ii di_e yuu.N

parastish kii yaa.N tak ki ai but tujhe -2
nazar me.n sabho.n kii Kudaa kar chale
dikhaa_ii di_e yuu.N

bahut aarzuu tii galii kii terii -2
so yaas-e-lahuu me.n nahaa kar chale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1cwY3IEWJI

Ghazal #36

Khaiyyam

And, ladies and gentlemen, talking about Khaiyyam, one can never forget the ghazal of Jaan Nisar Akhtar composed by him and sung so beautifully by Lata Mangeshkar.

I have already given you two excellent ghazals by Jaan Nisar Akhtar: Beqasi had se jab guzr jaaye; and Bemurravat bewafa begaana-e-dil aap hain.

This is from the 1977 movie Shankar Hussain and is counted amongst the finest ghazals in Hindi movies.

Please enjoy: Aap youn faaslon se guzarate rahe
Dil se kadamon ki avaaz aati rahi…..

aap yuu.N faasalo.n se guzarate rahe
dil se kadamo.n kii aavaaz aatii rahii
aahaTo.n se a.ndhere chamakate rahe
raat aatii rahii raat jaatii rahii

ho, gunagunaatii rahii.n merii tanahaa_iyaa.N
duur bajatii rahii.n kitanii shahanaa_iyaa.N
zi.ndagii zi.ndagii ko bulaatii rahii
aap yuu.N faasalo.n se guzarate rahe
dil se kadamo.n kii aavaaz aatii rahii
aap yuu.N…

kataraa kataraa pighalataa rahaa aasmaa.N -2
ruuh kii vaadiyo.n me.n na jaane kahaa.N
ik nadii… ik nadii dilarubaa giit gaatii rahii
aap yuu.N faasalo.n se guzarate rahe
dil se kadamo.n kii aavaaz aatii rahii
aap yuu.N…

aap kii garm baaho.n me.n kho jaae.nge
aap kii narm zaano.n pe so jaae.nge, so jaae.nge
muddato.n raat nii.nde.n churaatii rahii
aap yuu.N faasalo.n se guzarate rahe
dil se kadamo.n kii aavaaz aatii rahii
aap yuu.N…

That brings us to the end of Part II of A Hundred Ghazals in Hindi Movies. We have had a total of 36 ghazals so far.

Please let me know in the comments below if some ghazal of yours should appear in the Top 100. I shall try to accommodate. Only, please remember two things: One, there are still four more parts to go of roughly 16 ghazals per part. And, secondly, these are not the best ghazals in all fora; these are only considered the best that appeared in Hindi movies.

A HUNDRED GHAZALS IN HINDI MOVIES – PART I

The ghazal is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in ancient Arabic poem in Arabia long before the birth of Islam. The term Ghazal is of North African and Middle Eastern origin. Its root term in Arabic is “gh-zl” and is derived from the Arabian panegyric qasida.

The best ghazal in the Hindi movies is by my favourite poet and lyricist Shakeel Badayuni. It was the title ghazal for the 1963 movie Mere Mehboob. Only, I am not able to post this ghazal since it is so dear to me. You will have to do with lesser ghazals of Shakeel and others.

Mere Mehboob Tujhe, the title song of Mere Mehboob is the best ghazal in Hindi movies, composed in Raag Jhinjhoti

Ghazal #1

Let me begin by giving you his ghazal for the 1954 movie Amar. As is to be expected, it has Naushad Ali’s music and it has been sung by Lata Mangeshkar for Nimmi, one of the two heroines of the movie (the other being Madhubala) opposite Dilip Kumar.

Shakeel Badayuni and Naushad not just made the best songs in Hindi movies, but, best ghazals too

Please enjoy: Na milata gham to barbaadi ke afsaane kahan jaate….

ho, tamannaa luT ga_ii phir bhii tere dam se mohabbat hai
mubaarak Gair ko Kushiyaa.N mujhe, Gam se mohabbat hai

na milataa Gam to barabaadii ke afasaane kahaa.N jaate
agar duniyaa chaman hotii, to viiraane kahaa.N jaate

chalo achchhaa huaa apano.n me.n koii Gair to nikalaa
jii, koii Gair to nikalaa
agar hote sabhii apane, to begaane kahaa.N jaate

du_aae.n do mohabbat hamane miTakar tumako sikhalaadii
mohabbat tumako sikhalaadii
na jalate shamaa me.n to parvaane kahaa.N jaate

tumhii.n ne Gam kii daulat dii ba.Daa ahasaan farmaayaa,
ba.Daa ahasaan farmaayaa
zamaane bhar ke aage haath phailaane kahaa.N jaate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BKLe-L6Dtg

Ghazal #2

Left to myself, for the next fortnight (these ghazals, you may know, are being reproduced from my Facebook Page Lyrical where I ran this feature for more than a month, giving three every evening/night) I can give you ghazals of Shakeel Badayuni in Hindi movies! That’s how much I adore him.

However, I am going to be less selfish and give you those of many other lyricists and poets.

Lets start with Kaifi Azmi.

Kaifi mastered the art of describing things very powerfully through simple words.

Here is one of my favourite Kaifi Azmi ghazals in Hindi movies. This is from the 1982 movie Arth (Meaning) starring Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil (who was then being talked about the Meena Kumari of modern era) and Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Raj Kiran. Kuldeep Singh composed the music for it. And no marks for guessing the ghazal singer: the ghazal king of our era: Jagjit Singh.

Please enjoy: Jhuki jhuki si nazar beqraar hai ki nahin…

jhukii jhukii sii nazar beqaraar hai ki nahii.n
dabaa dabaa saa sahii dil me.n pyaar hai ki nahii.n …

tuu apane dil kii javaa.N dha.Dakano.n ko gin ke bataa …
merii tarah teraa dil beqaraar hai ki nahii.n …
dabaa dabaa saa sahii dil me.n pyaar hai ki nahii.n
jhukii jhukii sI nazar

vo pal ke jis me.n mohabbat javaan hotii hai
us ek pal kaa tujhe i.ntazaar hai ki nahii.n …
dabaa dabaa saa sahii dil me.n pyaar hai ki nahii.n
jhukii jhukii sI nazar

terii ummiid pe Thukaraa rahaa huu.N duniyaa ko …
tujhe bhii apane pe ye aitabaar hai ki nahii.n …
dabaa dabaa saa sahii dil me.n pyaar hai ki nahii.n
jhukii jhukii sii nazar

Ghazal #3

How about a ghazal from the movie Ghazal? Well, now we are talking about Sahir Ludhianvi. This ghazal achieved iconic proportions and is still being talked about as the ghazal in Hindi movies. Naturally, no one could sing such ghazals better than Mohammad Rafi, especially when it ends in high pitched singing.

The great Madan Mohan who composed music for the best ghazals in Hindi movies did full justice to it.

Sahir Ludhianvi, Madan Mohan and Mohammad Rafi, the team that made one of the best ghazals in Hindi movies.

Sunil Dutt sang it for Meena Kumari (herself a ghazal writer in real life!). She was his beloved in the movie and was being married to his rival Rehman out of a compulsion that she had lost her voice (after they fell in love with he listening to her singing the origin of this ghazal in a private gathering with her female friends): Naghma o sher ki baraat kise pesh karun. Having lost her voice she didn’t want Sunil Dutt to suffer marriage with her! Rehman asked Sunil Dutt to sing the sehra (felicitation song for wedding) and that’s how Sunil Dutt sang it.

Please enjoy: Rang aur noor ki baraat kise pesh Karun…

ra.ng aur nuur kii baaraat kise pesh karuu.N
ye muraado.n kii ha.nsii.n raat kise pesh karuu.N, kise pesh karuu.N

maine jazabaat nibhaae hai.n usuulo.n kii jagah (2)
apane aramaan piro laayaa huu.N phuulo.n kii jagah
tere sehare kii …
tere sehare kii ye saugaat kise pesh karuu.N
ye muraado.n kii hasii.n raat kise pesh karuu.N, kise pesh karuu.N

ye mere sher mere aakhirii nazaraane hai.n (2)
mai.n un apano.n mai.n huu.N jo aaj se begaane hai.n
beta-aa-luK sii mulaakaat kise pesh karuu.N
ye muraado.n kii ha.nsii.n raat kise pesh karuu.N, kise pesh karuu.N

surkh jo.De kii tabotaab mubaarak ho tujhe (2)
terii aa.Nkho.n kaa nayaa Kvaab mubaarak ho tujhe
ye merii Kvaahish ye Kayaalaat kise pesh karuu.N
ye muraado.n kii ha.nsii.n raat kise pesh karuu.N, kise pesh karuu.N

kaun kahataa hai chaahat pe sabhii kaa haq hai (2)
tuu jise chaahe teraa pyaar usii kaa haq hai
mujhase kah de …
mujhase kah de mai.n teraa haath kise pesh karuu.N
ye muraado.n kii ha.nsii.n raat kise pesh karuu.N, kise pesh karuu.N

ra.ng aur nuur kii …

Ghazal #4

Tonight I give you two beautiful ghazals by Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal Emperor of India; it is actually one penned by him and the other penned for the movie on his life, the 1960 movie Laal Qila (Red Fort), by Muztar Khairabadi. He is the subject of William Dalrymple’s famous book ‘The Last Mughal’. His reign lasted twenty years, from 28th Sep 1837 to 14th Sep 1857.

On 20th Sep 1857, heading the Mutiny against the British, Zafar was defeated by the British. Many members of his family were killed by the British. He himself, together with his wife Zeenat were exiled to Rangoon, Burma. Five years later, in 1862, he died in Yangon. He was buried near the Shwe Degon Pagoda at 6 Ziwaka Road, near the intersection with Shwe Degon Pagoda Rd, Yangon. The shrine of Bahadur Shah Zafar Dargah was built there after recovery of its tomb on 16 February 1991.

He was an accomplished Urdu poet and calligrapher. While he was denied paper and pen in captivity, he was known to have written on the walls of his room with a burnt stick.

He wrote the following Ghazal as his own epitaph.

This ghazal was sung very beautifully by Mohammad Rafi on SN Tripathi’s music in the 1960 movie Laal Qila.

Please enjoy: Lagata nahin hai dil meraa ujade dyaar mein….

lagtā nahīń hé jī mérā ūjař’é dayār méń
kiskī banī hé ālam-e-nā-pāyedār méń

būlbūl ko pāsbāń se na saiyyād se gilā
qismet méń qaid likhī tthī fasl-e-bahār méń

kaeh do in hassretoń se kahīń aur jā bas’éń
itnī jageh kahāń hé dil-e-dāGhdār méń

ik shāKh-e-gūl pe baiTh ke būlbūl hé shādmāń
kānTe bichā diye héń dil-e-lālāzār méń

umr-e-darāz māńg ke lāye tthe chār din
do ārzū méń kaT gayé do intezār méń

din zindagī ke Khatm hué shām ho gayī
p’hailā ke pāoń soyeń-ge kūńj-e-mazaar méń

kitnā hé bad-naseeb zafar dafn ke liye
do gaz zamīn bhī na milī kū-e-yār méń

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg4EQcmeBl0

Ghazal #5

I have given the brief history of the Last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in the previous post wherein he wrote his own epitaph in a prison in Rangoon, Burma, where he was exiled in 1857.

This is the second famous ghazal was not written by him but by Muztar Khairabadi for the 1960 movie Laal Qila on the life of Zafar.

This is the second best ghazal (the first, I have already told you is Mere Mehboob) ever sung by Mohammad Rafi. It features in the 1960 movie Laal Qila and like the last one (Lagata nahin hai dil meraa) it has SN Tripathi’s music.

Please enjoy: Naa kisi ki aankh ka noor hoon…..

na kisii kii aa.Nkh kaa nuur huu.N
na kisii ke dil kaa qaraar huu.N
jo kisii ke kaam na aa sakaa
mai.n vo ek musht-e-gubaar huu.N

na to mai.n kisii kaa habiib huu.N
na to mai.n kisii kaa raqiib huu.N
jo biga.D gayaa vo nasiib huu.N
jo uja.D gayaa vo dayaar huu.N, jo kisii ke …

meraa ra.ng-ruup biga.D gayaa
meraa yaar mujhase bichha.D gayaa
jo chaman fizaa.n me.n uja.D gayaa
mai.n usii kii fasl-e-bahaar huu.N, jo kisii ke …

Ghazal #6

Ghulam Ali was born on 5th Dec 1940, in a village near Sialkot in British India (now part of Pakistan). He is the most famous of the ghazal singers of this era. Being from the Patiala gharana of ghazal singing, he combined Hindustani classical music and ghazal singing into a unique blend.

His most famous ghazal in Hindi movies is in the 1982 BR Chopra movie Nikaah starring the singer-actor Salma Agha, Deepak Prashar and Raj Babbar.

In Nikaah,B.R Chopra makes a social comment on the Sharia laws of divorce (Talaq) and its misuse among Indian Muslim society. According to Chopra, it is a story of all women.

It is in this background that Ghulam Ali’s ghazal is to be listened to. It has Hasrat Mohani’s lyrics. Ghulam Ali, as always, has sung it on his own music.

Please enjoy: Chupake chupake raat din aansu bahaana yaad hai….

chupake chupake raat din aa.Nsuu bahaanaa yaad hai
ham ko ab tak aashiqii kaa vo zamaanaa yaad hai

khii.nch lenaa vo meraa pad.re kaa konaa baf-a-tan
aur dupaTTe me.n vo teraa mu.Nh chhupaanaa yaad hai

berukhii ke saath sunanaa dad.r-e-dil kii daasataa.N
vo kalaa_ii me.n teraa ka.ngan ghumaanaa yaad hai

vaqt-e-rukhsat alavidaa kaa lafz kahane ke liye
vo tere suukhe labo.n kaa thar-tharaanaa yaad hai

chorii chorii ham se tum aakar mile the jis jagah
muddate.n guzarii.n par ab tak vo Thikaanaa yaad hai

dopahar kii dhuup me.n mere bulaane ke liye
vo chhajje par teraa na.nge paa.Nv aanaa yaad hai

tujhase milate hii vo bebaaq ho jaanaa meraa
aur teraa daa.Nto.n me.n vo u.ngalii dabaanaa yaad hai

tujh ko jab ta.nhaa kabhii paanaa to az_raahe-lihaaz
haal-e-dil baato.n hii baato.n me.n jataanaa yaad hai

aa gayaa agar vasl kii shab bhii kahin ziqr-e-firaq
vo teraa ro ro ke bhii mujhako rulaanaa yaad hai

Ghazal #7

Lata Mangeshkar

Born on 29th Sep 1929, Lata Mangeshkar is India’s best known playback singer who has sung sung more songs than any other singer.

Born in Indore, she started singing at the age of 13. Her father, Pandit Deenanath Mangeshkar was a classical singer and theater actor. Lata not only took her music lessons from him but also acted in his plays.

Her singing career started when her father died, when she was only 13. Mangeshkar sang the song “Naachu Yaa Gade”, Khelu Saari Mani Haus Bhaari” which was composed by Sadashivrao Nevrekar for Vasant Joglekar’s Marathi movie Kiti Hasaal (1942).

She has lost count of the number of awards that were conferred on her, the highest being India’s highest award Bharat Ratna in 2001. In 1974 Guiness listed her as the most recorded artist in the history of the world. The estimate of the songs that she has recorded ranges between 25000 to 50000! In 1969 she requested that she not be considered for Filmfare Best Playback Singer (Female) award as she had already won it four times and she wanted to promote fresh talent.

Her ghazal singing in Hindi movies, especially in her young days, would leave you breathless with its stunning beauty.

Her “bhai sahaib” Madan Mohan, as acknowledged by her personally, brought out the best in her. Her ghazals of 1958 Nargis starrer Adalat are beautiful in many ways: Rajinder Krishan’s lyrics are superb and meaningful, Madan Mohan’s music has the soulful quality about it and her singing brings out the ‘dard’ as if it is not playback but she can feel the protagonist’s pain.

Please enjoy one of her most famous ghazals: Youn hasraton ke daag mohabbat mein dho liye…..

yU.N hasarato.n ke dAG, muhabbat me.n dho liye
khud dil se dil kI bAt kahI, aur ro liye
yU.N…

ghar se chale the ham to, khushI kI talAsh me.n -2
khushI kI talAsh me.n
Gam rAh me.n kha.De the vahI, sAth ho liye
khud dil se dil kI bAt kahI, aur ro liye
yU.N…

murajhaa chukaa hai phir bhii ye dil phuul hii to hai
haa.N phuul hii to hai
ab aap kii Khushii ise kaa.NTo.n me.n toliye
khud dil se dil kii baat kahii, aur ro liye
yuu.N …

ho.nTho.n ko sI chuke to, zamAne ne ye kahA – 2
zamAne ne ye kahA
ye chup sI kyo.n lagI hai ajI, kuchh to boliye
khud dil se dil kI bAt kahI, aur ro liye
yU.N…

Ghazal #8

Lata Mangeshkar

The 1958 movie Adalat had another remarkably beautiful ghazal by her, once again with Rajinder Krishan’s lyrics and Madan Mohan’s music.

Please enjoy: Unako ye shikayat hai ki ham kuchh nahin kehate….

un ko ye shikAyat hai ke ham, (kuchh nahI.n kahate – 2)
apanI to ye aadat hai ke ham, (kuchh nahI.n kahate – 2)

majabUr bahaut karatA hai ye, (dil to zubaa.n ko – 2)
kuchh aisI hI haalat hai ke ham, (kuchh nahI.n kahate – 2)
apanI to ye aadat …

kahane ko bahaut kuchh thA agar, (kahanepe aate – 2)
duniyA kI inaayat hai ke ham, (kuchh nahI.n kahate – 2)
apanI to ye aadat …

kuchh kahanepe tUfAn (uThA letI hai duniyA – 2)
ab isape qayAmat hai ke ham, (kuchh nahI.n kahate – 2)
apanI to ye aadat …

Ghazal #9

Lata Mangeshkar

I have given you two of her most famous ghazals from the 1958 movie Adalat starring one of the greatest actresses of her times: Nargis. Now, lets see Lata ji singing for the most intense actress of the times: Meena Kumari.

This is from the same 1964 movie Ghazal from which I took one of the best ghazals of Mohammad Rafi: Rang aur noor ki baraat kise pesh Karun.

Predictably, this too has Madan Mohan’s music. However, the lyrics are those of Sahir Ludhianvi.

The excellence of her singing this ghazal is matched by Meena Kumari’s supreme elegance.

Please enjoy: Nagma o sher ki saugat kise pesh karun….

naGamaa-o-sher kii saugaat kise pesh karuu.N
ye chhalakate hue jazabaat kise pesh karuu.N

shoK aa.Nkho.n ke ujaalo.n ko luTaauu.n kis par
mast zulfo.n kii siyah raat kise pesh karuu.N

garm saa.nso.n me.n chhipe raaz bataauu.N kisako
narm hoTho.n me.n dabii baat kise pesh karuu.N

koi hamaraaz to paauu.N koI hamadam to mile
dil kii dha.Dakan ke ishaarat kise pesh karuu.N

Ghazal #10

Salma Agha

The other day I gave you a ghazal sung by Ghulam Ali for the 1982 BR Chopra movie Nikaah that brought out that the Sharia law of Talaaq was being misused in India. The woman who was, in the movie, on the receiving end of the law was Salma Agha. She is a British singer and actress of Pakistani origin. In her first movie itself, ie, in Nikaah, she won the Filmfare Best Female Playback singer award.

And this was that ghazal.

Please enjoy: Dil ke armaan aansuyon mein beh gaye….

dil ke aramaan aansuon men bah gaye
ham vafaa kar ke bhi tanaha rah gaye
dil ke aramaan aansuon men bah gaye

zindagi ek pyaas ban kar rah gai \-2
pyaar ke qisse adhoore rah gaye
ham vafaa kar ke bhi tanaha rah gaye
dil ke aramaan aansuon men bah gaye

shaayad un ka aakhiri ho yeh sitam \-2
har sitam, yeh soch kar ham sah gaye
ham vafaa kar ke bhi tanaha rah gaye
dil ke aramaan aansuon men bah gaye

khud ko bhi hamane mita daala magar
faasle jo daramiyaan the rah gaye
ham vafaa kar ke bhi tanaha rah gaye
dil ke aramaan aansuon men bah gaye

Ghazal #11

Mohammad Rafi

The best of ghazals in Hindi movies owe their existence to the quartet of Shakeel Badayuni, Naushad Ali, Dilip Kumar and Mohammad Rafi.

Here is one from the 1966 movie Dil Diya Dard Liya wherein four of them worked together to create some of the finest ghazals.

Even after all these years they are as popular as they were when they were fresh.

Please enjoy: Guzaren hain aaj ishq mein ham us maqqam se,
Nafrat si ho gayi hai mohabbat ke naam se….

guzare hai.n aaj ishq me.n ham us maqaam se
nafarat sii ho ga_ii hai muhabbat ke naam se

hamako na ye gumaan thaa, o sa.ngadil sanam
raah-e-vafaa se tere bahak jaae.nge qadam
chhalakegaa zahar bhii terii aa.Nkho.n ke jaam se

o bevafaa teraa bhii yuu.N hii TuuT jaae dil
tuu bhii ta.Dap-ta.Dap ke pukaare haay dil
teraa bhii saamanaa ho kabhii, Gam kii shaam se

ham vo nahii.n jo pyaar me.n rokar guzaar de.n
parachhaaI.n bhii ho terii to Thokar se maar de.n
vaaqif hai.n ham bhii Kuub har ek i.ntaqaam se

Ghazal #12

Mohammad Rafi

Talking about Mohammad Rafi and Guzar theme helps you to get to the 1968 movie Mere Huzoor starring Raaj Kumar, Mala Sinha and Jeetendra.

What a beautiful story it was:

Akhtar Hussain (Jeetendra) saves the life of Nawab Salim (Raaj Kumar), and earns his gratitude. Salim invites Akhtar to come to his palatial home, and Akhtar does so. On the way, he meets beautiful Saltanat (Mala Sinha), and falls in love with her. On arrival at Salim’s house, Akhtar is treated with utmost respect, provided employment, and a place to live. Akhtar meets with Saltanat and both plan to get married. Unknown to them, Salim also loves Saltanat, but Saltanat rejects his advances, and proposal, leaving him heartbroken. On the day, when the news of the impending marriage of Akhtar and Saltanat is given to Salim, he sings this ghazal.

This ghazal has been put together by Hasrat Jaipuri, Shankar Jaikishen and Mohammad Rafi.

Please enjoy: Woh khushi mili hai mujhako use kaise main bataayun……

jo guzar rahii hai mujh par use kaise mai.n bataa_uu.N -2
vo Kushii milii hai mujhako mai.n Kushii se mar na jaa_uu.N -2

mere dil kii dha.Dakano.n kaa ye salaam tumako pahu.Nche
mai.n tumhaaraa hamanashii.n huu.N ye payaam tumako pahu.Nche
use bandagii mai.n samajhuu.N jo tumhaare kaam aa_uu.N
vo Kushii milii hai …

mere dil kii mahafilo.n me.n vo muqaam hai tumhaaraa
ke Kudaa ke baad lab par bas naam hai tumhaaraa
merii aarazuu yahii hai mai.n tumhaare giit gaa_uu.N
vo Kushii milii hai …

merii zindagii me.n hamadam kabhii Gam na tuu uThaanaa
kabhii aa_e.N jo a.Ndhere mujhe pyaar se bulaanaa
mai.n chiraaG huu.N vafaa kaa mai.n a.Ndhere jagamagaa_uu.N
vo Kushii milii hai …

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HiOKDngPkRM

Ghazal #13

Asha Bhosle

She was born on the 8th of Sep 1933 in Sangli. Lata Mangeshkar, her elder sister is four years older to her. Hence, she was only 9 years old when their father Deenanath Mangeshkar died. Both the sisters took to singing in order to support the family.

Whereas Lata emerged as the most versatile singer, Asha emerged as the young-at-heart sexy voice, as seen by Music Director OP Nayyar who refused to make songs for Lata.

Many of Asha’s songs are the lilting, romantic, numbers with a dash of daring in them.

However, she also sang bhajans and ghazals with equal ease.

Take this ghazal from the 1960 movie Kalpana for example. It has pathos, deep emotions and pain.

To understand this ghazal, have a look at the story-line:

Widower Amar (Ashok Kumar) leads a middle-class lifestyle in Bombay along with his widowed mom, and a daughter, Munni (Baby Farida), whose mom passed away just 3 days after giving birth and makes a living working as the Principal of Bharti Kala Kendra. When he goes for a vacation to Kashmir with his Butler, D’Souza (Sunder), he meets with and falls in love with a woman named Kalpana (Padmini) and includes her in his painting. They meet several times and are drawn to each other. One day when Amar goes to propose, he finds out they have left for an unknown destination. When he returns home by train he meets with another young woman, Asha (Ragini), who he subsequently hires as the Kendra’s Dance Instructress. He takes her home to meet his mom, and Munni, and both approve of her hoping that she will marry Amar. Then Amar watches Kalpana performing a dance item in the theater, meets with her and both rekindle their romance. Asha notices this and steps away, albeit heartbroken. Amar asks Kalpana to go and meet his mother and Munni, which she does. It is during this meeting that they will get an unexpected visitor, none other than Johar (Iftekar), who is Kalpana’s brother, and this is when the truth about Kalpana, her mom, and their background will surface – changing everyone’s lives forever.

The ghazal shows the reality of Kalpana (Padmini) and how she was forced to become a courtesan.

Such a powerful ghazal was penned by Jaan Nisar Akhtar. It has OP Nayyar‘s music.

Please enjoy: Baqasi had se jab guzr jaaye
Koi ai dil jiye ke mar jaaye….

beqasii had se jab guzar jaa_e
ko_ii ai dil ji_e ki mar jaa_e

zindagii se kaho dulahan ban ke -2
aaj to do gha.Dii sa.Nvar jaa_e
ko_ii ai dil …

unako jii bhar ke dekh lene de -2
dil kii dha.Dakan zaraa Thahar jaa_e
ko_ii ai dil …

ham hai.n apanii jaan ke dushman -2
kyo.n ye iljaam unake sar jaa_e
ko_ii ai dil …

mere naGamo.n se unakaa dil na dukhe -2
Gam nahii.n mujhape jo guzar jaa_e
ko_ii ai dil …

https://youtube.com/watch?v=QKL_GPfsABE

Ghazal #14

Asha Bhosle

Now that I have given you a very famous ghazal by Asha Bhosle sung for Padmini in the 1960 movie Kalpana, how about a ghazal of hers picturised on Meena Kumari?

You can’t believe it, can you?

Well, it happened in the 1967 movie Bahu Begum. Lyrics are by Majrooh Sultanpuri and it is Roshan‘s composition.

Please enjoy: Hum intezzar karenge teraa qyaamat taq
Khuda kare ki qyaamat ho aur tu aaye….

ham i.ntazaar kare.nge (2) qayaamat tak
khudaa kare ki qayaamat ho, aur tuu aae (2)
ham i.ntazaar kare.nge …

## Duet Version ##
(aashaa:)
ham i.ntazaar kare.nge
ham i.ntazaar kare.nge teraa qayaamat tak
Kudaa kare ki qayaamat ho, aur tuu aae -2
ham i.ntazaar kare.nge…

ye i.ntazaar bhii ek imtihaa.n hotaa hai
isiise ishq kaa sholaa javaa.n hotaa hai
ye i.ntazaar salaamat ho
ye i.ntazaar salaamat ho aur tuu aae
Kudaa kare ki qayaamat ho, aur tuu aae
ham i.ntazaar kare.nge…

bichhaae shauq se, Kud bevafaa kii raaho.n me.n
kha.De hai.n diip kii hasarat li_e nigaaho.n me.n
qabuul-e-dil kii ibaadat ho
qabuul-e-dil kii ibaadat ho aur tuu aae
Kudaa kare ki qayaamat ho, aur tuu aae
ham i.ntazaar kare.nge…

(rafii:)
vo Kushanasiib hai jisako tuu i.ntaKaab kare
Kudaa hamaarii mohabbat ko qaamayaab kare
javaa.n sitaaraa-e-qismat ho
javaa.n sitaaraa-e-qismat ho aur tuu aae

(aashaa:)
Kudaa kare ki qayaamat ho, aur tuu aae
ham i.ntazaar kare.nge…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=iPx5cZOjIvE

Ghazal #15

Asha Bhosle

Asha Bhosle has sung many of her songs for Asha Parekh. This ghazal is a gem though in the end Mohammad Rafi gets to make an appropriate response to her through Joy Mukherjee.

It is from a combination of Lyricist and Music Director that stayed with Asha Bhosle in large number of her songs: Majrooh Sulatnpuri with OP Nayyar.

This was one of the best movies of OP Nayyar with record number of super-hit songs; the 1963 movie Phir Wohi Dil Laaya Hoon.

Please enjoy: Zulf ki chhaon mein chehre ka ujaala de kar….

aa: zulf kii chhaa_o.N me.n chehare kaa ujaalaa lekar
terii wiiraan sii raato.n ko sajaayaa hamane
ra: merii raato.n me.n jalaaye tere jalawo.n ne charaaG
terii raato.n ke liye dil ko jalaayaa hamane

ye tere garm se lab ye tere jalate ruKasaar -2
dekh hamako ke banaayaa hai inhe.n dil kaa karaar
kaise a.ngaaro.n ko siine se lagaayaa hamane
terii raato.n ke liye dil ko jalaayaa hamane

aa: hamane har dil ko sikhaayaa hai dha.Dakane kaa chalan -2
de ke ulfat kii ta.Dap de ke mohabbat kii jalan
tujh se diiwaane ko i.nsaan banaayaa hamane
terii wiiraan sii raato.n ko sajaayaa hamane

ra: siikh le rasm-e-wafaa husn bhii diiwaano.n se -2
daastaa.N apanii bharii hai inhii.n afasaano.n se
rakh diyaa sar ko jahaa.N phir na uThaayaa hamane
terii raato.n ke liye dil ko jalaayaa hamane

aa: zulf kii chhaa_o.N me.n chehare kaa ujaalaa lekar
terii wiiraan sii raato.n ko sajaayaa hamane

Ghazal #16

Asha Bhosle

I was about to call it a night with my usual quota of three ghazals a night, but, I am reminded of this ghazal duet between Bhupinder and Asha Bhosle and it is so beautiful that I have to give it to you.

It is a Farooq Qaiser ghazal with music composed by Bappi Lahiri. It is picturised on Suresh Oberoi being the ghazal singer in a hotel where he gets to meet his old flame Dimple Kapadia now married to Raj Babbar.

Once again, Asha through Dimple was eminently able to bring out the pain of her existence and the momentary happiness at seeing the love of her life.

Please enjoy: Kisi nazar ko teraa intezzaar aaj bhi hai….

Bhupinder:
kisii nazar ko teraa i.ntazaar aaj bhii hai
kahaa.N ho tum ki ye dil beqaraar aaj bhi hai

Bhupinder:
vo vaadiyaa.N vo fazaaye.n ki ham mile the jahaa.N
merii vafaa kaa vahii.n par mazaar aaj bhii hai

Bhupinder:
na jaane dekh ke kyo.n un ko ye huaa ehasaas
ki mere dil pe u.nhe.n iKhtiyaar aaj bhii hai

Asha:
vo pyaar jis ke liye hamane chho.D dii duniyaa
vafaa kii raah pe ghaayal vo pyaar aaj bhii hai

Bhupinder:
yakii.n nahii.n hai magar aaj bhii ye lagataa hai
merii talaash me.n shaayad bahaar aaj bhii hai

Asha:
na puuchh kitane mohabbat ke zaKhm khaaye hai.n
ki jin ko soch ke dil soGavaar aaj bhii hai

Ghazal #17

Mohammad Rafi for Shashi Kapoor

Imagine Sahshi Kapoor singing a ghazal in a movie, complete with band-gala achkan! It happened in the 1968 movie Kanyadan wherein Shashi Kapoor acted opposite Asha Parekh.

Story-line:

The film starts with a hockey match between the girls’ team Bulbuls, and the boys’ team Heroes. The girls win by 2 goals to one. Amar (Dileep Raj) from the boys’ team and Lata (Sayeeda Khan) from the Bulbul team are attracted to each other and get married. Kumar (Shashi Kapoor) a poet, and Amar are good friends. Kumar decides to go to a village and his car has a break-down where he meets Rekha (Asha Parekh), a village girl. They both fall in love and decide to get married. But when Rekha’s mother (Achala Sachdev) is approached with the proposal she refuses the marriage stating that Rekha was already married in childhood to a boy called Amar. When Kumar returns to the city he realises that Amar, who is now married to Lata, is the childhood groom involved in Rekha’s life. Rekha comes to the city and finds out about Amar when she unwittingly falls in front of his car. But seeing he’s married, she keeps silent about their childhood marriage, and starts working in their house as a maid. Kumar tries to convince Rekha that a marriage taking place when they were children does not legally constitute as one. Rekha disagrees, but over time and several tense scenes later, things are sorted out when Rekha’s mother declares that a marriage performed in childhood is illegal and not binding. Rekha and Kumar get married.

So, now that I have introduced “tense scenes” in the movie, this is one of them in the song.

Lyrics are by Hasrat Jaipuri and music by Shankar Jaikishen.

Please enjoy: Meri zindagi mein aate to kuchh aaur baat hoti….

unakii zulfe.n unake chehare se haTaa sakataa nahii.n
dil kii betaabii kisii suurat chhupaa sakataa nahii.n
kitanii dilakash hai.n muhabbat kii javaa.N majabuuriyaa.N
saamane ma.nzil hai aur paa.Nv ba.Dhaa sakataa nahii.n

merii zindagii me.n aate ( to kuchh aur baat hotii ) -2
ye nasiib jagamagaate ( to kuchh aur baat hotii ) -2

ka_ii baar mil chukii hai.n ye hasii.n-hasii.n nigaahe.n -2
vo hii beqaraariyaa.N hai.n na milii Kushii kii raahe.n
mere dil se dil milaate ( to kuchh aur baat hotii ) -2
merii zindagii me.n …

mujhe kyaa Garaz kisii se ha.Nse phuul yaa sitaare -2
hai.n merii nazar me.n phiike ye javaa.N-javaa.N nazaare
agar aap muskaraate ( to kuchh aur baat hotii ) -2
merii zindagii me.n …

ye Kushii rahe salaamat yuu.N hii jashn ho suhaanaa -2
jise sun rahii hai duniyaa mere dil kaa hai taraanaa
mere saath tum bhii gaate ( to kuchh aur baat hotii ) -2
merii zindagii me.n …

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gUT4Zeiu7mk

Ghazal #18

Jahan Ara Movie

Jahan Ara was a 1964 movie starring Mala Sinha in the title role with Bharat Bhushan playing Mirza Yusuf Changezi. have been good friends since childhood. Things are not quite the same as they grow up, as Jahan Ara’s father is none other than Emperor Shah Jahan, and men are not permitted to meet with the princess under any circumstances. However, Jahan and Mirza do meet secretly and promise to marry each other. Misfortune visits the emperor, when his wife, Mumtaz Mahal (Achala Sachdev), passes away. The emperor gets deeply devastated, and, still mourning his wife’s death, he pledges to build a memorial in her name (which would subsequently be called Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders on Earth). At her deathbed, Mumtaz makes Jahan promise that she will take care of her father, which she promises to do. This responsibility makes her sacrifice her love for Mirza, who is heartbroken and continues to believe that Jahan will sooner or later reunite with him.

This unsuccessful love affair gave rise to a number of ghazals in the movie such as shown below; making Jahan Ara as the movie with the largest number of ghazals in a Hindi movie:

1. “Baad Muddat Ke Yeh Ghadi Ayee” Mohammed Rafi, Suman Kalyanpur
2. “Main Teri Nazar Ka Suroor Hoon” Talat Mahmood
3. “Woh Chup Rahen To Mere” Lata Mangeshkar
4. “Phir Wohi Sham Wohi Gham” Talat Mahmood
5. “Aye Sanam Aaj Aye Qasam Khayen” Talat Mahmood, Lata Mangeshkar
6. “Teri Aankh Ke Ansoo” Talat Mahmood
7. “Kisi Ki Yaad Mein Duniya Ko” Mohammed Rafi
8. “Haal-E-Dil Yoon Unhe Sunaayaa Gayaa” Lata Mangeshkar
9. “Jab Jab Tumhe Bhulaya, Tum Aur Yaad Aaye” Lata Mangeshkar, Asha

It is well-nigh impossible to select just one! But, I think, in quality of singing and popularity, the ghazal Phir wohi shaam wohi gham wohi tanhaayi hai…scores over the others.

All these ghazals were put together by Rajinder Krishan and Madan Mohan as a team of Lyricist and Music Composer. This one has been sung by Talat Mahmood.

Rajinder Krishan, Madan Mohan and Talat Mahmood

Please enjoy: Phir wohi shaam wohi gham wohi tanhaayi hai
Dil ko behlaane teri yaad chali aayi hai….

phir vohii shaam vahii Gam vahii tanahaaI hai
dil ko samajhaane terii yaad chalii aaI hai

phir tasavvur tere pahaluu me.n biThaa jaaegaa
phir gayaa vaqt gha.Dii bhar ko palaT aaegaa
dil bahal jaaegaa aakhir ye to saudaaI hai
phir vohii shaam …

jaane ab tujh se mulaaqaat kabhii ho ke na ho
jo adhuurii rahe vo baat kabhii ho ke na ho
merii ma.nzil terii ma.nzil se bichha.D aaI hai
phir vohii shaam …

phir tere zulf ke rukhasaar kii baate.n ho.ngii
hijr kii raat magar pyaar kii baate.n ho.ngii
phir muhabbat me.n ta.Dapane kii qasam khaaI hai
phir vohii shaam …

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JAWdqHPYwDQ

That brings us to the end of Part I of A Hundred Ghazals in Hindi movies. As you can quickly calculate, we have another five parts to go. I hope so far you have enjoyed my selection.

I shall be back with Part II shortly.

PHILOSOPHIES THAT MAY HELP YOU

At the end of the last year I wrote an article titled: ‘Debatable Philosophies of Life’. I gave you five of them that have become obsolete and don’t make sense anymore.

You may be tempted to ask as to which are the philosophies that would help you. In this article, I have listed some that have helped me.

Philosophy #1 Have a World of Your Own

This follows naturally from the first debatable philosophy: We should be selfless.

It is not possible to be selfless. Hence, make space for yourself where you are by yourself, comfortable, and without having to explain to others the why and how.

Two anecdotes shall make it clearer. One is about our cat Minnie. Out of all the toys that we have for her, she likes an empty cardboard box the first. Every once in a while she goes and sits in her box and imagines that no one can touch her there.

The second one was related to me by an ex army officer during the recent Pathankot terror attack. He told me about the time when he was in a unit in J&K engaged in anti-terrorist operations. One evening, after they returned from an encounter in which two terrorists were killed, he looked down from his room to the river bank where some children were playing in the sand. He watched them for sometime and noticed they were totally oblivious of terrorists or other distasteful things of life. It won’t have mattered to them where they were: in India or Pakistan; their play was much more important to them. It was a world of their own.

Now, I am not suggesting that you become a recluse or isolate yourself from everyone. All I am saying is that you should have a world that you can retreat into when you want.

My world, for example, has music (old Hindi songs) and writing. When I am in this world, for the duration of time that I spend here, the other world ceases to exist even with all its seemingly urgent chores, problems and tribulations.

Try it; it is not escapism. Everyone requires a world of one’s own.

Philosophy #2 Train Yourself Not To Have Regrets

I have proved it in my earlier article about Debatable Philosophies Of Life that the philosophy ‘We shouldn’t live in the past or we should forget the past’ is ludicrous, not pragmatic and is against the progress of civilization through knowledge since all knowledge is essentially past knowledge.

I have also discussed in an article called Absolute Virtue that all virtues in this universe are relative; the only absolute is God. It is the same for evils too. The realisation that neither your virtues and evils nor of any other person or persons on earth are absolute (and can only be better than some and at the same time worse than others) should automatically lead us to the pragmatism of the philosophy that I am suggesting.

Indeed, it is not just a question of more or less; sometimes, it is difficult to make out the difference between good and bad, virtue and evil. As the English say: one man’s meat is another’s poison.

Hence, whilst remembering your past (that you cannot get rid of), you don’t have to have either regrets or false pride; you can be worse off than some and better off than others.

It should also fill you with relatively guiltless existence or life. If you have consciously done what you were convinced was right and good and it actually resulted in a catastrophe for people you know or do not know, you don’t have to constantly or relentlessly curse yourself.

In one of my essays, I have brought out that when Christ on Cross said, “God, forgive them for they know not what they do”, He certainly didn’t mean it spitefully or superciliously. He was conscious that human beings will never have absolute knowledge of the cause and effect of their actions; it would be Godlike if they did.

One can, therefore, keep one’s conscience clear.

In case you haven’t trained yourself, it won’t come to you simply because I suggest. Gradually you will learn to be free of regrets and guilt-feelings. It is a great liberating feeling.

Philosophy #3 Have Least Expectations From People Close To You

You are a good man or woman and you have a world of your own and have not many regrets. However, it gnaws you a lot to know that people are both unreasonable and ungrateful. No matter what you do for them, they do not appear to have any gratefulness at all towards you.

A close friend of mine in the last one year, to his utter shock and horror, found out that the person whose career he had nurtured with his own hands for the last two decades suddenly chose to tell everyone that he had become what he had become due to his own hard-work, professionalism and vision. Now my friend is not the one who is prone to say ‘Et tu Brute’ to all those who ditched him. He is a great leader and a great realist. But, it proved to me that none of us are beyond expectations. The least that we expect is for the recipient of our goodwill to acknowledge and say, “Thank you”.

However, the realisation that being selfish is hardwired into man for his survival over centuries and that to expect a person to see things from your point of view is totally unrealistic should help us to gradually calibrate or moderate our expectations until we bring them to near zero.

Good leaders, for example, do not motivate people by just telling them what they (the leaders and the organisation) would get out of following the leaders’ schemes or plans; but, they do tell them what they (the people) would gain from them.

Your expectations of people become more realistic and viable if you are able to align them with their expectations.

Philosophy #4 Train Yourself To Be Filled With Hope

It is a four-lettered word like Life, Love and Time. Many a times when it sounds most unrealistic (a myth), start believing in it, build stories around it, relentlessly think of it and you will see it works. The fact is that the whole world is a myth too. You are what you believe you are; you see what you believe you see (Please read: ‘The Virtual World’). There is a saying that if you think of a virtue repeatedly; it would soon become yours. Hence, it is possible to be trained to become Hopeful.

Now, you are bound to argue with me that two of the failed philosophies, viz, All men are born equal, and ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’ actually do not leave much room for Hope. People who are meant to get better of you will get better of you, you will argue. Very true; however, Philosophy #2 above: ‘Train Yourself Not To Have Regrets’ should, if followed correctly, should fill you with Hope. We never have complete knowledge of causes and effects concerning us. How can we have this about others? Hope is simply about the wellness of the outcome concerning you. It is not lessened by their doing well too. The more you dream it is all working out well for you, the more it fills you with Hope.

Philosophy #5 Do Not Chase Friends, Love And Happiness

All these three are a natural fallout of social existence of man. How can Happiness be a fallout of social existence, you may ask. Agree; but, chasing Happiness is. Amongst all the virtues that are relative, the one where we do most comparison is Happiness. Many a times people feel happy and content but are saddened by comparison with those that they think have more.

My close friend whom I have mentioned above in the article is fond of telling about officers feeling happy about being given Excellent grading in their annual performance review. However, such happiness is short-lived when they discover that some others whom they regarded as good-for-nothing have also obtained Excellent grading.

Chasing Happiness is like chasing a rainbow; anytime you feel it is close and you can almost touch it, it appears far away. I have come across many people who would have been happy but the chase after Happiness has left them fatigued and sad. I must have Happiness at all costs even if that makes me miserable they seem to say like the Manna De song in the 1974 movie Aavishkaar: Hansane ki chaah ne itana mujhe rulaaya hai (the longing for laughter made me cry a lot).

Chasing Friends is a hobby that one indulges in similar to collecting stamps and trophies; the more one has, the happier he or she would be. Various philosophies are thrown in such as Life without Friends is meaningless and No one understands you better than your friends.

Yes, indeed, Friends are important in one’s life. However, making Happiness dependent upon having them as friends is not called for. At the back of one’s mind should always be the thought that another person on earth is as unique as you are. No one can really be selfless; it is not in the nature of the man. People would naturally be your friends of their interests and needs coincide with yours. Chasing them won’t get you anywhere. The opposite may actually be the result.

Finally, even though Love is the best emotion on earth, chasing Love is unrealistic. It is a bird that would sit at your window when you don’t go hunting for it.

I read a poignant piece by a middle-aged lady who awaits her children visiting her in the same fashion as she used to visit and spend time with her parents. She bemoaned how the very definition of love between parents and children have changed; the latter don’t appear to have time for the former. Love demands a lot of time thinking about the loved ones and spending with them. This lady should have realised that the nature of people is always selfish; only the degree of selfishness changes with people and time. If this lady had somehow read this article and paid heed to my usable Philosophy #1 about building a world of her own whilst concentrating on building one for the children, it would have never come to this pass. Chasing Love, now, or any time isn’t going to help.

There, I have given you my short list of usable philosophies. When you do a thing over and over again, it becomes a habit. God has intended the world to be like this wherein like the earth rotating on its axis and revolving around the sun, each one of us is required to achieve perfection by repetitions. So, first time in case the practice of these philosophies do not come easily to you, do them again and again and your mind, like a trained dog, would follow your command of Go fetch it.

Best of luck.

CUT, CUT, CUT…..

You might think that the title of the article suggests a movie shoot and a burly man sitting on his canvas folding chair shouting these three words through a megaphone, in the manner of a Muslim man shouting to his third (or whatever number) wife, “Talaaq, talaaq, talaaq“.

Well, you are as far away from what this post is about as you can get. This post is about the penchant for haircuts that the armed forces leadership has.

As far as armed forces are concerned, anything at all that needs to be done well requires a haircut – a smart haircut at that.

Lets say, for example, you are expecting a VIP to visit the ship. It is a 5000 Crores of latest destroyer with state of the art weapons and sensors to impress the VIP with. However, we sincerely feel that unless the ship’s company (crew) has a fresh crew-cut, the VIP is unlikely to be impressed. Or, lets say, we want to launch ourselves into Operation Prakaram, going the harm’s way, close to Makaran Coast. Nothing like a fresh haircut, we believe, to put us in the right mood and resolve. You can almost hear the Indian Naval force commander tell his men, “Alright gentlemen, lets tighten our girdles, keep our powder (gun-powder that is) dry and have a close haircut to teach the b——s a lesson.”

This sacred knowledge that wars can be won and success in anything can be achieved by simply having haircuts is passed down from generation to generation – like the gospel truth. It came my way when I was just an Acting Sub-Lieutenant (we acted our roles so well that soon Naval Headquarters finished with the rank itself; but, that’s another story) engaged in earning my watch-keeping certificate on board INS Himgiri. Rear Admiral MR Schunker was our Fleet Commander. The last time when men in his family had hair longer than half an inch was in the 17th century.

The C-in-C in the Western Naval Command was the legendary Vice Admiral Robert Lynsdale Pereira. He was being transferred to Naval Headquarters as the Vice Chief and the Fleet was to give him two farewells: one in harbour with Guard of Honour and Parade and another at sea the traditional way. Parade and Guard rehearsals were being held every morning so that Ronnie (nickname for RL Pereira), as a hardcore gunner, won’t find a flaw. On the penultimate day the Fleet Commander himself was present on the Cruiser Wharf to satisfy himself that everything was ship-shape.

He inspected the Guard and to my horror and utter surprise declared that at least half the men in the Guard required proper haircut. After the Fleet Commander left, these unfortunate men were lined up separately for their unthinkable misdemeanour of not having proper haircut. I went behind the line to have a look and nearly fainted after what I saw. These men were repeatedly given such crew-cuts in the last few days of the rehearsals that the barber would have to probably cut through their scalps to find any more hair.

However, I, a young subaltern, had learnt a valuable lesson about naval readiness states.

Until I left the Navy, this lesson never left me. The truth is that even after leaving the Navy, I associated haircuts with preparation for anything of import. Last to last year I got my son married. Whilst the rest of the family busied themselves in preparations for various functions of the wedding, my primary concern was to have a haircut so that I would look smart as the father of the bridegroom.

What a life we in the Navy lead? We always insist on having short haircuts and never value long hair. Therefore, for most of us, long hair abandon us at a certain age; a kind of hair-today-gone-tomorrow. We keep having haircuts until it is no longer necessary to have haircuts at a certain age.

Hence, whenever the ship’s company is gathered on the deck to read out Warrant of Punishment, it is preceded by a reading of relevant excerpt of the Navy Act 1957. The last line is invariably about haircuts; viz:

“…….or such other punishment as is hair-in-after mentioned….”

Everyone removes his cap at this stage and confirms that there is no hair-in-after.

WHY AND HOW DO I BLOG?

Mujhe kuchh kehna hai…

Jorn Barger is around the same age as me. He coined the term weblog on 17 Dec 1997. Basically, during those days of surfing the net, logging the web would be to leave one’s own imprint on the web rather than merely accessing it. Barger’s weblog became a term to describe a novel form of web publishing. The term was shortened to blog by Peter Merholz in 1999; the shortening process was actually a lighthearted way to pronounce weblog first as we blog and then simply blog.

I was an Indian Navy officer until 28 Feb 2010. From 01 Mar 2010, I joined the blogging community. In Feb 2014, it tickled me to know that I am one of the 172 million bloggers on the net.

In a blog-post titled ‘All Photographers And Writers, No Viewers And Readers’, I brought out that the biggest two techno-social changes that have happened in the last decade or so have affected our lives in a huge manner. Thanks to these two changes, everyone is a photographer now and everyone can write and publish.

Lets compare, for example, shayar (Urdu poets) of yore with the modern day ones. In the earlier days, you wrote when the brainwave hit you; actually since most of the shayars were heart-broken or heart-struck, it was more of heart-wave than brainwave. Now, after writing, you waited for an invitation to a mushaira (a poetic symposium) whereat you hoped to read out your nazm or ghazal amidst shouts of waah waah and mukarrar mukarrar from your audience. Once in a while you got noticed – like Hasrat Jaipuri by the movie mughals Prithviraj or Raj Kapoor – and then life was made for you.

Nowadays, within minutes of your writing you publish on the web. And in case you have nursed your audience, you start receiving waah waah and other accolades straightway. Who are these guys and gals who give you accolades? Well, they are bloggers like you who offer waah-waahs and give the urls of their own blogs so that these would be both ways or many ways rather than one way.

Bloggers on Indiblogger, for example, have excelled in the art of discussion blogs (similar to their personal Facebook Group). By a rough estimate many of these blog-posts wouldn’t take more than ten minutes to write and that too not one’s own writing but – say – quotes picked up from here and there. And then the voting starts; exactly how we elect the parliamentarians or the prime minister. There are ways and means in which you get noticed whilst voting for someone’s post so that he/she would be obliged to vote on your post too.

Nearly three and half years back, after understanding how the blogging community works, I wrote an essay titled aptly: ‘Blogging – Race Or Stampede?‘

In a recent Bloggers Meet, Indiblogger organisation itself brought out proudly how a particular blogger had built up for herself great discussions following. So, whilst Wikipedia describes a blog as a discussion or informational site on the world wide web, most of Indiblogger sites are merely discussion sites. The sheer numbers mitigate against Indiblogger even attempting to assess or encouraging blogs by their quality.

Now, why would you use blogging for the purpose of discussions when better and more efficient means are available such as Facebook or Twitter? I guess the idea is to provide your posts with a degree of permanency rather than most of social discussion sites being transitory; the retrieval is better on a blog – say, by date or title.

I blog differently; it is a means available to me alternate to publishing on the primary media. It matters to me little whether any discussion (comments) takes place on the post itself though I have gone on record that I encourage them. But, I would rather have meaningful comments (however few) from people who have read and digested what I had to say and carry forward the discussion or debate rather than merely complimentary comments.

I run as many as sixteen Facebook Groups and Pages for discussions on varied issues such as songs and music, greetings, poetry, pride in India and its armed forces, quotes and general subjects. My experience shows that majority of the people doesn’t even know what it s liking or commenting on. It is merely what Indibloggers do: you scratch my back and I scratch yours; a reading and writing community all rolled into one.

I have a list of about a dozen blogs (imagine from 172 million) that I seriously read. I don’t leave my foot-prints on those in the fear that I would be counted as one of the thousands of back-scratchers that I have on Indiblogger; with an obligation to vote on, like or comment upon my blog too.

It has been a great discovery with me that there are people who do write to make a difference and are not so much concerned about the web-design, widgets and plugins as much as the quality of their posts.

I go out to eat in restaurants and clubs with the family. Yes, the restaurant decor should be attractive, the crockery and cutlery and serviettes of high and appealing quality, the lighting gentle and soothing and the service prompt. But, over and above all this, the food should be cooked well, tasty and healthy. I never forget that all else is peripheral to the food, the main purpose of a restaurant.

It is the same with me on the blog.

Mujhe kuchh kehna hai…

FRIENDS, FRIENDS, EVERYWHERE BUT…..

Breathes there a man or woman who hasn’t read Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ with its famous line: ‘water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink’? I doubt it.

The story of the sailor returning from a long sea voyage can be replicated, with hardly any variations, in the sea of social media and finally in the sea of life.

You may have hundreds and even thousands of ‘friends‘ on Facebook. Some of them may even Like what you put up and once in a while say “nice” “good one” and “hilarious” on your posts. But, it is all so that you will do the same for their posts. Most of them have no idea of what they have liked. Ultimately, on Facebook, as in life, you are by yourself. As Sahir Ludhianvi said in his famous Dev Anand number in Hum Dono (when I started writing this article it was 03 Dec, Dev Anand’s death anniversary):

Kaun rota hai kisi aur ki khaatir ai dil?
Sabako apani hi kisi baat pe rona aaya.
(Who weeps for someone else’s sake?
Everyone weeps remembering something of one’s own)

On Facebook or in life, you are a bore in case you have something to say. Your penchant about saying something fits in well with the definition of a bore: A bore is a person who continues to talk about himself when you want to talk about yourself.

A few years back, when emails just came into vogue, I was one of the early birds who opened an email account. By the time a close friend followed suit, I had a sizable fan following and I used to send each one of them (what I thought) interesting mails. When this close friend joined, I took him in too and started sending these mails to him. One fine day, he sent (forwarded) me a story about a hotel guest not wanting the housekeeping to keep giving him fresh soaps three times a day. He thus conveyed to me that my mails to him were as much a nuisance as the housekeeping bombarding the hotel guest with new soap bars kept all over the bathroom even when the guest hadn’t used the earlier ones. I took the hint and stopped the supply of mails to him. But, the story doesn’t end there. Very soon, he discovered the joy of sharing mails and felt that his were actually more interesting. So, he started sending mails. I didn’t have the heart of sending him back his soap-story.

Recently, he was a little more direct. He belatedly joined whatsapp and forbade me from repeatedly bombarding him with my posts. He said that his eyes get affected reading posts on the whatsapp. He said he’d rather read them on emails (the expression back to square one was intended for such a scenario).

Sabako apani hi kisi baat pe rona aaya…

These are, of course, lighthearted examples. But, seriously, the very nature of man is such that even for his existence he has to forever be concerned with self-preservation and own survival. Even when a friend doesn’t ask you, when face to face with your story, proposal, request, you can almost hear him ask, “What’s in it for me?”

That brings us to the question, “How many friends do you require in life?” And, the next question is even more harsh: “Do we really require friends in our life?” Here is one of the responses:

Friends are, indeed, like Happiness in one important aspect: you are better off not chasing them.

I have seen people actually displaying friends like trophies; such and such is a really influential person in Modi government or close to Shah Rukh Khan or Deepika Padukone…..we used to play gilli-danda together. I had this VVIP in one of my company’s sites. His name-throwing of friends at important positions in his part of the country used to make me think that the entire political and bureaucratic set-up in the state used to by dependent upon his advice.

Most often than not, people ain’t friendly with you but the position you hold. As soon as you retire or are transferred from the position, the friendship, such as the way it was, becomes more realistic and people realise what a bore (my children’s vocabulary has this word called loser; a very fascinating word) you were all along. The office where I work has this person whom I frequently call as the finest leader that I have come across. All my friends often echoed these thoughts of mine and added quite a few stories of their own regarding his sterling qualities, sagacity, professionalism, human-touch, and result-oriented approach towards everything. A year back the management side-lined him and brought a fire-brand, young and outstanding person in his place. Gradually I was stunned to notice that these friends gushed about the sterling qualities, sagacity, professionalism, human-touch, and result-oriented approach of – hold your breath – the new boss. They would begin every presentation with the oblique suggestion that somehow the wonderful, pragmatic ideas of the new leader were not even thought of by the earlier loser.

The way the world is made, after human life appeared on earth; it is a need that brought people together (You may refer to Abraham Maslow’s ‘Pyramid of Needs‘) . Relationships and friendships are either causes or results of this need. Else, these have no other special basis for existence. Religion and Spiritualism teach us that the sooner we are rid of – or at least less dependent upon – these needs, the better off we are.

Now, I am not suggesting that we go out of our way to offend people or have them as unfriendly. All I am saying is that don’t have friends as obsession or score-cards or trophies. If we can have one or two whose needs (I am using the world in its larger connotation) coincide with ours, these are much better than thousands who like everything that you say without even listening to it or reading it.

In this song penned by lyricist Indeevar for the 1967 movie Upkaar, one gets close to what the scriptures tell you:

Kasame vaade pyaar wafaa sab, baate.n hai.n baato.n kaa kyaa
KoI kisii kaa nahii.n ye jhuuThe, naate hai.n naato.n kaa kyaa
(Vows, promises, love, loyalty, all are mere words; and words mean nothing
No one belongs to anyone, these are false relations; and relations mean nothing)

Hogaa masiihaa saamane tere
Phir bhii na tuu bach paayegaa
Tera apanA khuun hii aakhir
Tujhako aag lagaayegaa
Aasamaan me u.Dane vaale miTTii me.n mil jaayegaa
(The Saviour would be in front of you
And yet you won’t be saved
Your own blood (relation) will ultimately
Light-up your funeral-pyre
O’ ye, who flies high in the sky now, you will be razed to the ground)

Sukh me.n tere saath chale.nge
Dukh me.n sab mukh mo.De.nge
Duniyaa vaale tere banakar
Teraa hii dil to.De.nge
Dete hai.n bhagavaan ko dhokhaa, inasaa.n ko kyaa chho.De.nge?
(They will walk with you in good-times
And turn their face away in bad times
The worldly people who become yours
Will (finally) break your heart
They deceive God too; why would they leave human beings?)

Happy New Year, Friends!

DEBATABLE PHILOSOPHIES OF LIFE

One of the biggest truths about God’s Creation is that He/She/It made all virtues and evils Relative. The only Absolute is God Himself. Thanks to Albert Einstein, the Relativity of Time in the Universe is now somewhat well known to us. For others, please read my Absolute Virtue if you entertain any doubts.

What an essay, at the end of the year, you may remark. The fact of the matter is that end-of-the-year itself is not universal or absolute reality. It exists on Earth simply because of rotation of Earth around its axis and its revolution around the Sun. It doesn’t universally exist. It is a convenient method adopted by us to anchor our lives to a dimension called Time, which too is purely our own creation. You may argue with me that Time does exist; after all, we do get older, trains and aircraft are scheduled by hours and minutes (and sometimes seconds), we get our salaries because of it and if there was no Time, our world would collapse. Fair enough; but do remember that our invention of Time is actually an effort, on our part, to give a beginning and end to things, events and people on Earth only and has relevance only to our minuscule part of the Universe, ie, very micro part of God’s endless Creation as a whole.

One of the fundamental laws of the universe that we have discovered (not invented) is the Law of Conservation of Energy. The law of conservation of energy is a law of science that states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only changed from one form into another or transferred from one object to another. This law of science is actually a pointer towards the ludicrousness of considering our self-invented dimension of Time so as to define beginning and end to things and people.

Einstein's Spacetime Cone (All of physical reality is contained within this cone; the region outside ("elsewhere") is inaccessible because one would have to travel faster than light to reach it. (Pic courtesy: einstein.stanford.edu) — Einstein’s Spacetime Cone (All of physical reality is contained within this cone; the region outside (“elsewhere”) is inaccessible because one would have to travel faster than light to reach it. (Pic courtesy: einstein.stanford.edu)

That leaves Events, Ideas, Thoughts, and Emotions. Lets take Events first. All Events actually result in Energy and Mass to be changed from one form to the other and hence it is covered in Law of Conservation of Energy. As far as Ideas, Thoughts and Emotions are concerned, we often claim to be the first person to have come up with a thought or idea; whereas, all these already exist in one form or the other. We only re-discover them. Mercifully, as far as emotions are concerned, we never claim to be the first persons to become angry, happy, fall in love with, hate etc. We have no idea how these evolved and who was the first person to get angry, love-stricken, hated or happy.

From my Facebook Page 'Make Your Own Quotes — From my Facebook Page ‘Make Your Own Quotes

The second last thing to consider before we take up the main discussion is whether there are any universal truths, beliefs or perceptions that have withstood the test of time. There ain’t many; not even the most sacred ones. Consider that Adam and Eve were sent on the earth and they produced a boy and a girl. For the world to progress, this boy and girl, brother and sister, that is, must have procreated amongst themselves. Likewise, hundreds of beliefs and tenets have changed over centuries. Hence, whilst there are no Absolute Truths in Space, there are none in Time too except one.

The last thing that I want to take up is the distinction between Natural and Artificial that we have made. Natural is defined as existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind. Artificial is the exact opposite of it; made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural. On the easier side is the difference between natural flowers with their texture, hues and fragrance and artificial look-alike flowers. On the complex side is the natural way (fire, flood, solar-action, wind-force etc) to convert one form of energy into another and artificial way of doing it say in lighting a bulb. It becomes even more complex when we think of the fact that human beings are part of Nature and there is nothing that they can do that has Free Will (Please read: ‘How Unbiased Or Innocent Can We Become?’). Hence, if Natural is God’s Creation, accepting as something Artificial is like accepting that someone other than God can create. Let alone faith, it is against the science of law of conservation of energy. So much for the distinction between Natural and Artificial. God makes the temperature drop as we move away from the centre of the Earth (increase altitude) and away from the Sun (in earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun); that is natural. But, we, as human beings made air-conditioning (God had no role to play in it!) and made temperature fall wherever we are even when we are closest to the Sun in the orbit of the Earth. Now, that is Artificial.

(Michaelangelo's The Procreation) — (Michaelangelo’s The Procreation)

With this background, lets look at some of the debatable philosophies of life; I call all our philosophies as philosophies of convenience to serve specific purposes or objectives. Lets examine if these are anachronisms.

Philosophy #1 We Should Be Selfless

An ideal man, it is said, is the one who is selfless. To start with, if you read ‘How Unbiased Or Innocent We Can Become?’, you would know that to be completely selfless (without ‘haume’ as Guru Granth Sahib calls it) is to find and merge with param atma. Therefore, we can only be partially selfless.

Now, lets examine how being selfless is against the grain of human nature (what a word, you may say, when seen in the light of the discussion on Natural and Artificial.

Every instinct and every reflex action of a human being, over generations and centuries, is honed towards self-preservation and survival. Indeed, Men have come up with Herculean efforts, brave and courageous acts that we have admired in furtherance of their survival instincts.

You take away self from Man and he merges with Param Atma. That means that it is not possible to be absolutely selfless for a man. Would that really be the purpose of Life that God sent us on this earth and we should always be doing everything to merge back with Him? We can only be partially selfless. However, in the bigger definition of selflessness, to do something for the betterment of one’s soul, family, nation and world still has the element of haume’ about it; one does it because it is one’s own. There is still me and mine involved in it. A mother, for example, does everything for her child; it would be somewhat more selfless if she did for other than her own child. It would be somewhat more selfless if she did it without thinking of gains for her own soul.

Philosophy #2 We Should Not Live In The Past or We Should Forget The Past

All our knowledge is in the past. The world is made safer, securer and better place to live in because of past knowledge. And yet, many of those who have the best interests of our society in mind routinely tell us to forget the past.

In our survival instincts, we are hard wired to remember the past and learn from it. We don’t have to, for example, die ourselves to learn the horrors of dying. We have knowledge of people dying and we consciously avoid all those things that can kill us; say, for example, jumping from high-rise buildings.

Think of how dangerous the world would become if all of us we were to forget the past and start discovering everything afresh. Think of how lost we would be if we were to start with a clean slate everyday or every hour. In this case, Ignorance will not be bliss.

There are people and countries such as Taliban in Afghanistan who tried to bury the past. But, these generally have disastrous results.

Another connected advice or philosophy is to live in the present. It is like living in a house made of just one straw. That’s exactly what Present is; a fleeting moment that becomes past like a bubble in a pond. Trying to capture the Present is like holding this bubble in the palm of one’s hand.

Lastly, the Past also enables us to provide an anchor to excel. So, if you are trying to break the world record in high jump, and you have been jumping, say, 6 feet, you are able to make out the gap that you must fill. Other people’s similar feats also enable us to emulate and excel.

Philosophy #3 All Men Are Born Equal

Of all the hogwash that is dished by those who are adept at making feel-good philosophies, this takes the cake.

Millions of years ago when Life started on earth, it is possible that God may have made all men equal. However, over all these years, generational and genetic memory ensured that each became unique and different. It is for this reason that even though the DNA of even twins at birth is the same, it undergoes changes as they grow up and their children do not have the same DNA.

This philosophy of convenience actually fills us with hope that we have the same chances of succeeding as, say, Bill Gates or Narendra Modi.

Every once in a while we have success stories from those who were not born with silver spoons in their mouths but did well through sheer grit and commitment. The fact is that if similar grit and commitment were displayed by the ones born with silver spoons, it would be a totally different story.

Now, I am not suggesting that it should fill each of us with defeatism that we were not born of the same mould as Ambanis or Birlas. All I am saying here is that it is okay to make peace with one’s circumstances dictated by generations of data-memory and move on to do one’s best to achieve the best under the circumstances.

Philosophy #4 As You Sow, So Shall You Reap

There is absolutely no proof of this philosophy except in folklore. It appears to be a plaintive cry for divine justice by the meek and the downtrodden and fills him with hope when he sees that the thugs, ruffians, and cheaters in the world seem to be doing well in comparison to the good guys. The latter imagine the former burning in the fires of the hell and paying for their sins.

In South India there is a respectable chain of restaurants. At the entrance of these restaurants is a picture of the founder with huge sandalwood garland around it. You are filled with great respect for the man whose vision, sagacity and generosity enabled him to set up mass eating joints at affordable prices. Decades later many had forgotten that he had spent time in jail for making counterfeit money and that he was enjoying the fruits of his earlier labour after his jail term.

These days, the rich and the influential don’t even have to go to jail before enjoying the fruits of their deceit and swindles.

In a recent article titled ‘Is Truth Worth Fighting For?’ I had concluded that all that the conscientious and the saintly do get is the hope that, in the end, they would die happily. So the reward for them to have spent their lives in constant toil and misery is the promise of happiness when the body and soul part. Some compensation that.

Most people are nowadays already aware of it and leave the count of those that live wretchedly but are promised happy deaths.

When the evil don’t appear to be getting just punishments, we cover it up by saying that someone somewhere in one of their previous lives has done something good or that they would suffer in their next lives.

The charade goes on.

It is absolutely debatable whether your deeds, good or bad, will repay you in kind.

It is time we found a new philosophy.

Philosophy #5 Religions Started Centuries Back Should Be Preserved Till The End of the World

Lastly, all present major religions in the world are based on the premise that God or Son of God arrived in this world only during a certain period of time in history, started the religion for all times to come and all those who are loyal adherents of these religions are pious and righteous. The rest are as good or bad as pagans. God will one day punish the non-believers.

The followers of all major religions also believe in and practice the philosophy that even violence and war, in the name of God and Religion are just and justified. Hence, Religion and God are worth laying down lives for – one’s own and those of one’s enemies.

Lastly, the followers of all major religions in the world believe that since the founders of the religions were God or descendants, these have been writ in stone and nothing in these should ever change.

In my ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?’ I had brought out that when, for example, Mohammad told his followers that men should marry many women, he had in mind the war widows of the 7th century AD in Arabia who were young and required shelters, which could be provided to them if men married them. He won’t have made this as a law for all times to come.

There, I have given you at least five philosophies and beliefs that are debatable and suffer from obsolescence. Let me hear your views, if you so desire, in the comments below.

Beliefs, perceptions and philosophies take a long time changing. Why, even expressions do. We still use the expression, for example, skeletons in the cupboard though the last person to see them must have been a hundred years ago.

It is high time we change them in keeping with the modern times. Please remember that when religions were founded they changed the existing beliefs and philosophies of those times. It can’t, therefore, be sacrilegious to do so.

Happy new year 2016 to all my readers and friends.

EK AUR NAYA SAAL AA RAHA HAI

एक और नया साल आ रहा है,
वादी – ए – दिल पे भंवरा मंडरा रहा है I

नया वादा – ए – आरज़ू है, नया दिल – पसंद है,
खुशियों के ख़ज़ाने भर के ला रहा है I

यादों के जज़ीरे खड़ा कर गया जो,
वह माज़ी के धुंदले में कदम बढ़ा रहा है I

“अलविदा दोस्तों, इक रोज़ मैं भी नया था यहाँ”,
यह कह के उदास ओ तनहा वह जा रहा है I

दुनिया में हर नयी चीज़ का यही तो है अंजाम,
बुत – तराश अपनी ही तख़लीक़ पे मुस्करा रहा है I

लाल ओ गौहर तख़्त – ए – ताऊस किस के रहें हैं हरदम,
जो आ रहा था कल, आज वह भी जा रहा है I

जनाज़ा – ए – क़दीम है पर माहौल – ए – जष्न है,
यही ज़िन्दगी का पहलू हमें समझा रहा है I

ज़िन्दगी में नए की तमन्ना बेशक करना, ऐ रवि,
पर ना भूलना कभी जो पुराना सिखा रहा है I

Ek aur naya saal aa raha hai,
Waadi-e-dil pe bhanvra mandra raha hai

Naya vaada-e-aarzoo hai, naya dil-pasand hai,
Khushiyon ke khazaane bhar ke laa raha hai

Yaadon ke jazeere khada kar gaya jo,
Woh maazi ke dhundle mein kadam badha raha hai

“Alvida dosto, ik roz main bhi naya tha yahan”,
Yeh keh ke udaas o tanha woh jaa raha hai

Duniya mein har nayi cheez ka yehi to hai anjaam,
But-taraash apani hi takhleek pe muskara raha hai

Laal o gauhar takht-e-taa.uus kis ke rahen hain hardam,
Jo aa raha tha kal, aaj woh bhi jaa raha hai

Janaaza-e-qadeem hai par mahaul-e-jashn hai
Yahi zindagi kaa pehlu hamen samajha raha hai

Zindagi mein naye ki tamanna beshaq karna, ai Ravi,
Par naa bhoolana kabhi jo maazi sikha raha hai

AAP KE EHSAANO KI HADD PAAR HO GAYI

आप के एहसानो की हद्द पार हो गयी,
गरीब की यह दुनिया माला – माल हो गयी

तन्हाईयों की दौलत का न था नाम – ओ – निशाँ,
अब यूं मिली है कि शाम शर्मसार हो गयी

यूं तो ज़िन्दगी में ग़म यहाँ वहां पढ़े थे,
तुमने दिए कुछ ऐसे कि ग़म – ए – बहार हो गयी

अपने ही अश्क़ों की कीमत का न था हमें एहसास,
आँख खुश्क हुई तो देखा तंग – हाल हो गयी

मासूमियत – ए – मोहब्बत पे बहुत नाज़ था हमें,
तेरी महफ़िल में जाने क्यों गुनाहगार हो गयी

दिल की धड़कन को अपनी ज़मानत समझते थे,
रफ्ता रफ्ता वह भी तेरी तरफदार हो गयी

सोचता हूँ, रवि, कैसे बचा रखूं इसे,
मेरी ज़िन्दगी की दौलत सर – ए – बाज़ार हो गयी

Aap ke ehssano ki hadd paar ho gayi,
Gareeb ki yeh zindagi maala-maal ho gayi.

Tanhaayiyon ki daulat ka na tha naam-o-nishaan,
Ab youn mili hai ke shaam sharamsaar ho gayi.

Youn to zindagi mein gham yahan wahan padhe the,
Tumane diye kuchh aise ke gham-e-bahaar ho gayi.

Apane hi ashqon ki keemat ka na tha hamen ehsaas,
Aankh khushk hui to dekha tung-haal ho gayi.

Masoomiat-e-mohabbat pe bahut naaz tha hamen,
Teri mehfil mein jaane kyun gunaahgaar ho gayi.

Dil ki dhadkan ko apani zamaanat samajhate the,
Rafta rafta woh bhi teri tarafdaar ho gayi.

Sochata hoon, Ravi, kaise bacha rakhun isse,
Meri zindagi ki daulat sar-e-bazaar ho gayi.

Author: Sunbyanyname

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EK AUR NAYA SAAL AA RAHA HAI

AAP KE EHSAANO KI HADD PAAR HO GAYI

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