Love lines.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Wild nights – Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

This love verse was penned by America’s Emily Dickinson. The poet of Amherst was writing her passion poems around the same time when a world away another poet was writing his equally passionate poems—our Dilli’s Mirza Ghalib! This Valentine’s Day, here’s a selection of some of Ghalib’s romantic verses. All that you have to do, dear reader, is to go o Lodhi Garden, and read aloud these lines amid bees, bougainvilleas, and the park’s many dogs. (The verses have been chosen by poetry scholar Aqil Ahmad of Delhi’s Ghalib Academy who spends his days editing and annotating the lines that young folks rhyme out in love’s despair.)

Ishq par zor nahin hai, ye vo atish Ghalib,
Ki lagae na lage aur bujhae na bane.
(Love is a thing so uncontrollable, O Ghalib, it is like a flame,
That refuses to be kindled, that refuses to be doused.)

Dil mein zauq-e-wasl-o yad-e yaar tak baqi nahin,
Aag iss ghar mein lagi aisi, ke jo tha, jal gaya.
(Neither the memory of love, nor the desire for an encounter remains,
So fierce a fire blazed in this home, that whatever was here, it’s now all burned down.)

Boo-e-gul, naala-e-dil, dood-e-chiragh-e-mehfil,
Jo teri bazm se nikla, so pareshan nikla.
(The scent of the rose, the sigh of the heart, the dhua of the candle,
All were in anguish as they drifted out of your presence.)

Garche hoon diwana, par kyun dost ka khaen fareb,
Asteen mein dashna pinhan, haath mein nashtar khula.
(A love-sick fool I might be, but why be lured by my love?
See, under her sleeve—a concealed dagger; in her hand, a knife ready to stab.)

Dil-e nadan, tujhe hua kya hai,
Akhir is dard ki dawa kya hai?
(O innocent heart, just what has happened to you,
What balm is there to assuage just such a pain?)

Ye na thi hamari qismat, ke wisal-e yaar hota,
Agar aur jite rehte, yehi initizar hota.
(It wasn’t written in my fate, to have a date with the mehboob,
Had I lived even longer, I’d still be waiting.)

Ishq ne Ghalib nikamma kar diya,
Varna ham bhi aadmi thhe kaam ke.
(This love has made me good for nothing,
Else I too was a somebody.)

PS: Photo shows Dawood, a shop staffer, at Ghalib’s tomb