Sehra

It is with reluctance that I offer the follwing comments hoping that they would not distract from what is good in your article.
In English you write Sehra, a veil made of flowers donned by a bridegroom or a desert.
But in Urdu they are two different words. Sehra which means veil is written with `seen, small hay, ray and alif`. And the one that means desert, it is written witth `saad. big hay, ray and alif`.

Correction: In #17 ``dhammah`` should be ``kasrah`` -- kasrah is zer, dhammah is pesh.

Anil:& Asif
It is thus:

Aake sajaadah nashiin kaise huwa mere baad?
Na rahii dasht mein Khaalii``koii jaa``, mere baad!

Notice the quafias? hwa and jaa.

Jaais farsi for jagaa in hindi, meaning place or area.

Jaa-e Namaz: Namaz kee jagah.

``Aaey bhhee loag , baiThay bhee, UThh kr chalay gaey
MeiN jaa hee dhoondta tiri mehfil meiN reh gaya.``

P.S: You urdu is fine and your interest in it very commendable. You are a rich man because you are not a toataa-maina or Ba Ba Blacksheep [ the root of everything that ails pakistan & India: SLAVELANDS]

Now enjoy this same ghazal by Abida Parveen.
(Bookmark this site: No other site has this album in it. Make sure to tick explorer or Mozzila
before hitting play selected.

A ghazal heaven indeed, this album. Listen to ALL.



http://music.pz10.com/album/2116/
Ghazal%20Ka%20Safar%20Vol%20I-Abida%20Parveen.html

asif:
thank you for sharing Mawlana sahib`s manqabat for the ahl-e-bait.

Yes I am quite fortunate to own several diva`s & kulliyaat of Mir. One of them is handwritten & also has a farhang (glossary) at the end. It is sad that now farhangs are not included.
Not only they help in almost instant reference to find out meanings but also provide contexts, WITHOUT sullying with `tafseers` or ``tashreehs``.

The real fun is in discovering `ab-initio` & aging with time & experience.

You are right Mir himaself has encapsulated his times in such a succinct and complete manner that no historian would ever be able to match it.

Have you read his Manqabats to Hazrat Ali?..they might seem a bit too exaggerated but Mir`s devotion to ali has seldom been excelled in poetry. His father always advised him to not advertise himself as a Shia..and not use Mir as a title but he was adamant. There are very interesting anecdotes about his meetings with the local chieftain when he was 12 yrs old & already making a name for himself as a child prodigy..and a genius later on.

enough........

Dard-i dil likhooN kUb tUk , jaaooN Uun ko dikhlaaooN
UunGliaN figaar Upnee, khama khooNchakaaN Upnaa.

Echoboom, if you like the marsiyas of Mir Babar and Mir Anees then you`d LOVE

the following one by Biradar e Imam e Ahle Sunnat, Mawlana Hasan Raza Khan (shagird of Daagh Dehlavi too)

It is called Zikr e Shahadat and I would translate it for Chowk except they don`t/won`t publish
such mazhabi stuff i don`t think.

Aik taweel nazm hai lekin chand ash`aar zabaanii yaad haiN:


unkay ghar mein bay-ijazat Jibra`eel aatay nahin
Qadr waalay jaantay hain qadr o shaan e Ahle Bayt

Unkii paaki ka Khuda e Paak karta hai bayaaN
Aayah e TaTheer se zaahir hai shaan e Ahle Bayt

Razm ka maidaan bana hai jalwagaah e husn o ishq
Karbala mein ho raha hai imtehaan e Ahle Bayt

Fatima kay laadlay ka aakhrii deedaar hai
hashr ka hangaama barpaa hai miyaan e ahle bayt

Apna sauda baich kar, baazaar soona kar gaye
Kawnsee bastii basaaee taajraan e Ahle Bayt!


ahle bayte paak se gustaakhiyaaN, baybaakiyaaN
La`anatullah `alaykum dushmanaan e Ahle Bayt

Bay-adab, gustaakh, firqay koh sunaa do ay Hasan
yoon kaha karte hain Sunni daastaan e Ahle Bayt

p.s. I feel SORRY for those poor slaves of the mind who cannot read
their zaban e maadrii in its original script...

what joys they miss out on!


Like this:

`Ishq Mir aik baari patthar hai
Kab tujh naatwaan se uThtaa hai?

***
Naazukii uske lab kii kya kehiye
PankhRee ik gulaab kii sii hai

Rekhta kay tum hii ustaad nahin ho Ghalib
Kehtay hain aglay zamane mein koii Mir bhi tha!

This verse becomes magical when one realises that
`ghalib` means `victorious (over) and mir` means `chieftain`...

****

echo, have you read Zikr e Mir, Mir`s sawaaniH e Hayaat? It is v good
especially as social history. Did you know the poor fellow fell in love with
a paRi and nearly went mad? He wrote a famous masnavi about it...
I have his HUGE Kulliyaat e Mir..

***

Aake sajaadah nashiin kaise huwa mere baad?
Na rahii dasht mein koii jaa, khaalii mere baad!

This ghazal of his is stunning. And Mehdi Hassan has done
it justice...

Anil:

Mir is so powerful & daunting that one feels completely decimated by him. He truly is Khuda-i-sukhan. Never has any poet in Ghazal excelled him; the other Mir , Anees, is above everyone simply because he gave up writing Ghazal as his way of expressing reverence to the imam...otherwise , Mir Taqui would still be as big.

For you: both Sahra & Jaras combined

``Iss havas meiN kay puukaaray jaras-e Guul kee sada
dUsht-O Sahra meiN saba phirtee hai yooN avaara
jiss tarah phirtay haiN hUm ahl-e juunooN avaara

hUm peh varaftgiyay hoash kee tohmat naa dharoa
hUm kay rammaaz-e ruumooz-e ghUm-e pinhaanee haiN
Upnee gardan peh bhee hai rishta figan khaatir-e doast
hUm bhhee koo-e rah-i dildaar kay zindaani haiN

jUb bhhee abroo-e dUr-e yaar ney irshaad kiyaa
jiss bayaabaaN meiN bhhee hUm hoanGay chalay aaeNGey
dUr khuula daikhaa toa shayad kay UunhaiN daikh sakaiN
bUUnd hoaga toa sada dey kay chalay aaeNGay...............Faiz

Re: # 10

Echoboom,

You are absolutely right about Mir, unfortunately I am not very well versed with Urdu poetry (just a novice) therefore not aware of Mir Anees (will look up, if it is too Farsi then I will be lost). One thing that I noticed in Ghalib`s work is acid tongue, arrogance. The tenderness Mir evokes is unparallel:

Sirhane Mir ke aahistaa bolo,
Abhi tuk rote rote so gaya hai……..

and thanks for those wonderful ash`aar.

Naqshbandi,

Just a clarification..

Aake sajaadah nashiin kaise huwa mere baad?
Na rahii dasht mein ``koii jaa``, khaalii mere baad!

is there a typing error in ``koii jaa`` shouldn`t it be ``koii jaaN``

If not what does `jaa` stand for?


Anil Kala

Another power word that evokes similar sense of awe is Jaras( bell) and Saut-e-Jaras (Sound of bell)

The soft tolling of bells of a distant passing caravan symbolizes call for renunciation. The quality of sound is simple and pure. Its lingering insistence and easy dissolvability in surrounding fizaa has a compelling urge to leave everything and merge in the pristine nature. All those artistically inclined, occasionally feel that irresistible urge to give up material things and merge with the nature and this distant fading sound evokes that compelling urge. If not anything, at least you are temporarily lost in yourself.

These days I am concentrating on Mir therefore some sh`er and qat`aat of Mir evoking magic of saut-e-jaras:

baraNg-e-jaras tujhse door huN tanha
Khabar nahi hai tujhe aah kaarvaaN meri!
rah ki sunta na tha yaaN raah maiN maaniNd-e-jaras
shor sa karte jaate the ham, baat ki kisko t`aakat thi

Mai pa shikast ja na saka qaafile tak
aati agarche der sadaa-e-jaras rahi
juN subh is chaman meN na khul k haNs sake
fursat rahi jo Mir bhi so ik nafas rahi

Ho gayi shahar shahar ruswaiiai
meri maut tu bhali aayi
ik bayaabaN baraNg-e-saut-jaras
mujh pe hai bekasi-o-tanhaaii

Anil Kala Jee,
where did you live?
I have briefly lived in RK Puram area and Sikh Village.

NaamPalli is my favorite places to visit in India after Nagpur and Punjab ofcourse.

There used to be a Chinese restaurant called Nanking and Blue diamond, I loved there prawn noodles. Owner`s son was a friend of mine, who knows where he is now(a tibetan). Wala Chinga XXXX.

Major Dhyan Chand is long dead. Are you talking 60 ies here.???
I was not born yet...

Muslims in Indian Army dont fit in at Officer level(no offense), as most of them are Bihari, UP types and they still chew Paans or have their 2-3 wives with them.

I have heard of a story from my friend Grewal(who also lived in) SCBD Cantt, that he used to live next to a Muslim Major whose father married a young girl, and it was feast for all chokra-log`s eyes.

Hyderbadi Muslims have mulitiple wives. Did you Salarjang Museum and Charminar?
What about Abids, is Charma still around?

Re: # 7

How come you are delhiwala? You have lived all over India!
True this is about sixties and I was very young.
I don`t believe Hydrabadi Muslims have multiple wives and if they did in past, many Hindus too had multiple wives, one with them in cantt. and one back in their village. Anyway I was too young to know social setup of those times.

Yes, I saw Salarjung Museum, Charminar, the Golkunda Fort, the Nizam Sagar, Hussain Sagar, Maradpalli etc. but do not remember much accept that in Salarjung Museum there was a mechanical clock where a little guy would come out on the hour and bang in hours.

You only remeber what touches you deeply.................

Hi Anil, good one. I`m a Secunderabadi and I still live here as does another Chowkie Salil Kader.

Sehra Sahra

Once I was asked to write a sehra for a friends son. Now one of the uniqueness about a sehra is that somehow the names of close relatives must be incorporated within the lines & they must have their meanings given context.

I accumulated all the names, but there arose one problem.

One of the relatives` name was ``GUY``...an english boy. If I say the word ``GUY`` it would mean a cow in urdu...and that would not fit the occasion.

After raking my mind till midnight the problem was solved thus:

``Shauque mahmood`` ko voh GUY yahaaN pUr sehra.``
GUY as in Gaaey ( meaning sing)

anil a big problem with urdu is that many different letters have the same sound (saad, seen, and say whereas in arabic these are pronounced differently. saad is guttural S., seen is as in Urdu but `say` is pronounced `tha` and not `sa`. thus thamina means `little precious one` whereas in urdu we pronounce the same word `samina` (it is a common name) which actually means `little fat one!`

it makes spellings in urdu problematic. ditto for farsi.

The word is actually saH.ra and is where the English word Sahara comes from for the great desert in Africa.

That`s a great ghazal btw...

The words sehr = dawn, sihr = magic, Sah.ra = desert, and sehra = headband for grooms. although traditionally the word sehra referred to the poem which a father would recite for his son on his son`s wedding (does it still happen: sehra-gaana?): these are often confused even by Urdu experts, esp. Orientalists.

Examples:

Jis ke maathe shafa`at ka sehra raha
Us jabeen e sa`adat pe lakhon salam
-Ala Hazrat.

Yehi kehti hai bulbul e baagh e jinaaN, ke Raza ki tarah koii sihr-bayaan
Nahin Hind mein waasif e Shah e Huda, mujhe shokhi-e-taba`-e-riza ki qasam!
-ditto

Phir uTha valvala e yaad e mugheelaan e `arab
Hai Sah.ra-ye-`arab, hai bayaabaan e `arab
--ditto

and

Sehr-e-gulshan kawn dekhe, dasht e Tayba choR kar
Su e jannat kawn jaaye, dar tumhara choR kar
- Mawlana Hassan Raza Khan

I hope these examples make the different words clear!

**
btw an interesting article but a bit rambling.