This Colour of My Heart

 

This Colour of My Heart

Romantic love is a fabric of many shades. It is a melange of disparate emotions: obsessive longing, peaceful contentment, perpetual unease, imperturbable calm, incurable desolation, unparalleled ecstasy, throbbing tenderness, delusional envy, abject devotion, obsessive jealousy. This love is a necessity of life. It engenders life and nourishes it. Only purpose of life on earth– there is no extant evidence of life anywhere else in universe– is self-replication. Nature has stumbled on a sophisticated mechanism to fulfil this aim in our species: the romantic love. What a convoluted process to achieve a simple, although universal goal of life! This longwinded approach of nature– not wasteful, as nature is incorrigibly parsimonious in using its resources– has painted the canvas of human experience in unbelievably vibrant colours. These have been the muse of poets and story tellers since the time man discovered such occupations of mind.

 

Faiz Ahmad Faiz, one of the finest poets of twentieth century, is known for his poetry with social themes. He brought an unmatched elegance and a breath-taking finesse to this genre. His urbane language and the refinement of his thoughts, in the portrayal of human condition in its stark existence, leaves one spellbound. Even his love-poems are not divorced from the social realities of his time.

 

But he wrote some ineffably beautiful, pure romantic poems too. Alas! these are pitifully few. ‘रंग है दिल का मिरे’ (‘Rang hai dil ka mere’) is one such nazm. Guardian reported some years back that this poem was included in a selection of fifty best romantic poems in the world, selected by a team from the South Bank Centre for the Festival of Love. Faiz had read it first in Moscow, in 1963. It is included in his collection Dast-e-Tah-e-Sang.

 

A dominant feature of romantic love is the perpetual edginess, it inflicts on its subjects. One knows that only patience will fetch them the reward they crave, but they are doomed to spend every moment in a prison of restlessness. In this turmoil, woebegone sufferers see the world through glasses, tinted in colours of their own feelings. Poets in different languages have written dazzling verse on these emotions.

 

Harivanshrai Bachhan echoes these sentiments in his poem ‘क्या आज तुम्हारे आँगन में भी घन छाए?’ (‘Kya aaj tumhare aangan mein bhi ghan chhaye?’), included in his collection Pranay Patrika.

 

जब आसमान घिर आता है, उर भी घिरता घुमड़ा करता,

जब आसमान विगलित होता, उर भी गलता उमड़ा करता,

अब अश्रु न रुकते, छ्न्द न थमते हैं मेरे, लो गीत बहा,

क्या आज तुम्हारे भी नत नयना भर आये?

क्या आज तुम्हारे आंगन में भी घन छाये?

 

 

When clouds roll in the sky, heart darkens and is stirred as well,

When the sky thaws, heart melts and overflows as well,

I can’t dam the tears anymore, can’t hold-back the verse,

Here flows the song,

Do your eyes too, brim with tears today?

Is the sky in your yard too, overcast today?

 

 

Mirza Ghalib, in a couplet refers to this aspect of love.

 

आशिक़ी सब्र-तलब और तमन्ना बेताब

दिल का क्या रंग करूँ ख़ून-ए-जिगर होते तक ^{1, 2}

 

Love demands patience, while desire is restless,

How shall I colour my heart, till you accept my love?

 

1.       ‘Khoon-e-zigar hona’ is a saying in Urdu meaning, acceptance of love.

        2.    Faiz considered Ghalib the most influential modern poet in Urdu. He uses the phrase ‘Khoon-e- zigar hone tak’ in the nazm, ‘Rang hai dil ka mere’.

 

 

Faiz describes this facet of love in his nazm.

Love conditions poet’s perception of the world. When the beloved hadn’t come into his life, every object was as it was ordained to be. But now, his changing emotions, as he eagerly awaits acceptance of his devotion, have painted every object in their kind. World to him now, feels like a mirror which reflects his rapidly changing mood, a sky reflecting the spectra of light’s essential colours in its rainbow. Once the love arrives, Faiz pleads with her to stay a while, so that his world resumes its original form. And he can then take his bearing in this stable world.

 

I follow the original nazm with my transcreation.

 

 

रंग है दिल का मिरे

फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़

 

तुम न आए थे तो हर इक चीज़ वही थी कि जो है 

आसमाँ हद्द-ए-नज़र³ राहगुज़र राहगुज़र⁴ शीशा-ए-मय शीशा-ए-मय⁵ 

 

और अब शीशा-ए-मय राहगुज़र रंग-ए-फ़लक⁶ 

रंग है दिल का मिरे ख़ून-ए-जिगर होने तक 

चम्पई⁷ रंग कभी राहत-ए-दीदार⁸ का रंग 

सुरमई⁹ रंग कि है साअत-ए-बेज़ार¹⁰ का रंग 

ज़र्द¹¹ पत्तों का ख़स-ओ-ख़ार¹² का रंग 

सुर्ख़¹³ फूलों का दहकते हुए गुलज़ार का रंग 

ज़हर का रंग लहू रंग शब-ए-तार¹⁴ का रंग 

आसमाँ राहगुज़र शीशा-ए-मय 

कोई भीगा हुआ दामन कोई दुखती हुई रग¹⁵ 

कोई हर लहज़ा¹⁶ बदलता हुआ आईना है 

 

अब जो आए हो तो ठहरो कि कोई रंग कोई रुत¹⁷ कोई शय¹⁸ 

एक जगह पर ठहरे 

फिर से इक बार हर इक चीज़ वही हो कि जो है 

आसमाँ हद्द-ए-नज़र राहगुज़र राहगुज़र शीशा-ए-मय शीशा-ए-मय 

 

3.       Bounds of vision   4. Path   5. Glass of wine   6. Colour of sky   7. Bright coloured    8.     Pleasure of meeting   9. Grey    10. Weary moments      11. Pale   12. Grass & thorns    13. Red   14. Dark night   15. Nerve   16. Moment   17. Season        18. Object

 

 

 

Colour of My Heart 

Faiz Ahmad Faiz

 

Before you came, every object was as it should be,

Path like path, glass of wine a glass of wine, and sky as far as eyes can see.

 

And now glass of wine, path, colour of sky,

Are the colour of my heart, till my love you comply.

Pleasure of beholding beloved is coloured enticing white,

Grey is the colour of wearied moments, dull and trite,

Grass and thorns are coloured like leaves pale and dried,

Alike red flowers, is the colour of smouldering garden, alight,

Poison's colour is the colour of blood, colour of deep dark night.

sky, path, glass of wine, are:

Drenched hem of a robe, some aching nerve,

A mirror that changes every moment.

 

Now that you have arrived, 

Rest a little so that some colour, some season, some object, agree,

To stay in a place, however transiently.

And once again every object becomes as it should be,

Path like path, glass of wine a glass of wine, and sky as far as eyes can see.