love, disowned!

I drank
by her hand
greedily, lustily

and in between unapologetic quaffs
I prayed, ‘give me that,
which in your cellar abounds;
for if I taste a vintage rare,
tomorrow, my thirst
all the oases of this wilderness
shall quench, nor sate’.

and she,
in whispers,
cautious and carefree
diffident and bold
expectant and aloof,
spoke:

‘yesterday this day's madness did prepare;
tomorrow’s silence, triumph, or despair:
drink! for you not know whence you came, nor why:
drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.’1

by her fancy,
I drank.

when my rapture
I could not contain
I cried, ‘No more’,
And, meant it not.

she put her burning lips to my ear,
and poured in the nectar of an otherworldly allure:

‘blossoming verse underneath the bough,
a bowl of wine, some bread, and thou,
beside me singing in the wilderness,
oh, wilderness were paradise now!’2

on her shoulder, my stupor did rest
without a thought, a care or regret;

and when I woke
there was naught;
just the scorching sun
to mock my lot.

my face I held in my hands
and through baffled tears
I wondered,
could it be just a dream?
a mirage?
or some unearthly game?

treacherous trickery!

thence,
however, it must be told
to my approach runs dry
every oasis
in this barren
irredeemable
godforsaken
zone.

and I waste away,
thirsty, forlorn
sans that which by her hand
I drank.

--------------------------------------

1 Omar Khayyam. Ruba’i 74.
2 Omar Khayyam. Ruba’i 6.

late last night

sit up with a start. eyes staring glassily at the muted TV screen lose focus for the first time in two hours. 'go to bed. go to bed! can't u see what time it is? go to bed this very instant!' what the hell for, dipshit?! 'it's a weeknight, asshole. you want to sleep through the precious hours of the morning? you want life, shackled and constrained, to wait for you while you get done with your beauty sleep? get up off your monstrous butt right now and go to bed.' oh. haha. jackass! nothing awaits me in the morning. nothing! neither life, nor death. just gaping nothingness. get lost, and leave me in peace. let me at least adorn this vaccuum with dreams of how it would be like to live, for real. fuck off! and don't u dare disturb my reverie again tonight, you paranoid fuck!

the God complex

By writing what I am about to write, I do not presume to conjecture upon the existence of an almighty God. Far be it for me, an infinitesimal speck on the limitless expanse of creation, to be vain enough to put forth hypothetical claims and opinions as regards the existence of an Omnipotent being, the Prime Mover Unmoved, Yahweh, God, Allah. All I mean to do is to talk about certain thoughts that are befuddling my thinking process after a very interesting exchange I had with a friend on the subject of god and his manifestation in terms of nature and life on earth. Although, if I am honest to myself, I think I am actually more motivated by what this other friend said. He told me that my blog seems to be drying up and perhaps I am losing the ability to write; nothing like an affront to what one secretly holds very dear to prod one into action. So, if nothing else, this post provides occasion to play Victor Frankenstein to the lifeless monster that is my blog. Hope that by the end of this piece, I can gleefully announce: ‘it’s alive!’ Here goes, then.

Life, as we experience it, and by ‘we’ I mean every living thing on the planet Earth and not just human beings, is cyclical. The concept was first introduced to me by Mufasa from The Lion King; the great circle of life. It’s an elaborate system in which species prey on other species just to survive in a never-ending game that engages all of life’s basic faculties and instincts: greed, opportunism, stealth, strength, brute force, hunger, desperation, hope, and most importantly, just the pure will to survive. Intense intellectual debate still abounds as regards the origins of this system. Some believe that this natural scheme of things evolved over millennia through rigorous processes of natural selection and the application of Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest in which millions of species existed and then went extinct to reach the face of life on earth as we know it today. Others speak of a divinely ordained intellectual design whereby this system was set in motion by the Lord Himself, persists because He wills it to, and will come to an end at a time of His choosing. In this carefully constructed divine system, God has given power to some species over others to do with as they please, and Man, being the best of all His creations, stands at the top of this power structure.

Now, let me start with the circle of life itself. Mufasa had us believe that although the lion eats the antelope, when the lion dies his body turns to grass, and the antelope eats the grass; a radical, new perspective for any 13-year old Disney enthusiast. At the age of 26 though, Mufasa’s philosophy seems to have broken down as I perceive a definite break in the circle. The circle is more like a triangular pyramid to me where all of the earth’s natural resources tend towards Man because of his intellectual and material superiority over all other species, while Man himself contributes minimally to the balance of nature. Deforestation, extinction of animal species and hazardous climate changes are all instances of Man’s arrogant ascendancy over the planet. The funny bit is that even when he dies, he is disposed off in manners that ensure that the earth does not benefit much from it either in terms of nutrients or as food source for lesser species.

Having said all of the above, it is universal belief that God is an Absolute being. He is One and cannot be compared to any other. His omniscience is unquestionable, and He exists in totality, and not in relation to any other object or being. Life on earth, on the other hand, is relativism incarnated. Man, by depending on his relative strengths upon other beasts and his ability to subjugate them to be used as beasts of burden or as items on the dinner menu, guarantees his own survival and dominance over all else. Lower down the food chain, all species are competing against each other as per their relative strengths and weaknesses in the struggle to survive. The Alaskan Grizzly knows that at this certain time of year, hundreds of thousands of salmon would try and come upstream to breed. And consequently, the salmon have to run a gauntlet of merciless claws and teeth just to be able to perpetuate their kind. It’s a system all right; a system where the strong takes down the weak and all is fair in the battle for survival. It’s a system that works; has worked for millennia, much before any conception of God or religion came about. Notwithstanding the question as to why a Being existing in totality would want to create anything in the first place, does such a system of relativity that we see on the earth seem like the handiwork of an Absolute God? Is a God whose creations are beset with such levels and gradations and relative strengths and weaknesses even absolute? And if an Absolute, Omnipotent God did create the world and gave life to it was this so-called circle of life with all its Darwinist trappings of cutthroat competition and survival of the fittest the only scheme in His Infinite Wisdom to sustain life? Or is one to believe that since Man is created in God’s own image, like Man, God Himself is callous and whimsical in the exercise of His Infinite Power, and has initiated this Great Game of life just to keep Himself entertained as the Lord and King of all in a very human-like conception of Kingdom and Lordship? How is this all to be understood in juxtaposition to the concept of the Absolute God?

Also, we are told since childhood that God is the Supreme Artist, and that He is Absolute Love. Every creation of His is like a work of art, and He loves each of His masterpieces; with a love that is absolute. Yet, he has subordinated some of his creations to others; to be utilized and dealt with according to the latter’s wishes, to be eaten or mistreated or simply killed just for fun. The Absolute Lover loves some of his creations much more than others such that He has made the former the arbiter of the latter’s lives and destinies. So much so that He commands His most favorite creation, Man, to sacrifice the lives of countless goats and sheep and oxen to Him at a given day in the year. Does a bleating goat feel no pain as its throat is slit? Does it not feel the life slowly draining out of it? Are those last-minute spasms and blood spurts signs of joy to be sacrificed to the Eternal One? Or is it just what it is, the macabre dance of death? Is such a bloodlust befitting to the One who professes Absolute Love? What difference then remains between Him and those minor deities he uprooted not too long ago; Baal, with his cult of human sacrifice, and all the gods and goddesses of Greece, Babylon and Egypt? Does either God (as we understand Him) or Man realize that life granted by an Absolute God to any being is an Absolute Reality and that, in principle, taking that life is an Absolute Crime? If Love is Sympathy, can God feel the pain of the dying animal, or is this sympathy overwhelmed by His Love for Man as he merrily takes life and then proceeds to feast on it? Why is human life alone sacred and all other life subject to the will of Man, when all life to all creation is granted by the Absolute God, and He alone should be the arbiter of fates? What is Man but the only beast that requires artificial skin on top of his own to even brave the weather? What is Man but a beast with all the basic instincts and desires of all other living creatures, but just the extra capacity for more efficient execution of all that his animal nature demands?

And what of the Supreme Artist? Why does He prefer a vertical ladder in the arrangement of His works of art, and not a horizontal shelf? From an entirely human, and therefore, probably irrelevant, perspective, would a Creator-Lover ever have His creations do to one another what life does to itself on the planet Earth?

By now, I am certain that any webspace pilgrim who has chanced upon this page has branded my line of thought a fine specimen of utmost stupidity. And it may very well be that. This is one reason I write over here where I am certain not many people will stumble upon it, at least not many of those who can actually get me strung up for such blasphemy, as it would appear to most. My weirdness stays in my own space. However, after many years of empty philosophizing, I have led myself to believe that the notion of God that we humans subscribe to is nothing but solace for our own tormented minds against the vagaries of that very system of life that He Himself is supposed to have created and set in motion, even if its current form has been shaped by human beings themselves over the centuries; a form in which the utility of a Divine Being guiding the hands of destiny stands visibly reduced. And after having observed this system, I can only hope that if there does exist an Absolute God, who is the Absolute Master of all Time and Space, let Him bring about a Day of Absolute Justice, so all would know what it was really all about.

on being cynical

Although I like to believe I am beyond the days when I actually cared about what adjectives people apply to me, I have often been dubbed cynical by my nearest and dearest ones at times when I least expected it. Sometimes it has been because the words ‘sarcastic’ and ‘cynical’ are used interchangeably in colloquial expression; at other times, I admit I may have displayed cynical tendencies. The purpose of this piece of writing at this ungodly hour (for an early sleeper like me) is to, however, discuss two hypotheses: that I am not more cynical than the next guy and that the general understanding of cynicism is somewhat awry.

Cynicism, as explained by an online dictionary, is ‘an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others’. Fair enough. I shall begin with an example from daily life. You go to the market to get something as simple as a turnip and a bagful of potatoes. Why do you haggle and holler with the salesman over the prices? Is it because in some abstract, unreachable corner of your mind, you are convinced that the other person’s foremost purpose is to rip you off, and the least you can do is try and minimize the damage he is going to cause to your wallet? On the other hand, why is the shopkeeper selling his vegetables at bloated prices, if that truly is the case? Perhaps he thinks that if it were up to you, you would never pay him his product’s worth. Hence, the way out for him is to set the initial price higher than the actual so that after all the demeaning haggling, whatever profit he’s making is not compromised. And if you are the rare, not-bargaining kind, he makes an extra buck or two, and you get what you deserve for being naive in the ways of the market. Take this model to a higher level. Why are all corporate deals, all transactions between big businesses, so painstakingly negotiated with attention to every little detail and precautions against all possible loopholes, with all legalities and paperwork in place? The same principle is at work: it’s up to you to save your own ass, because, if given the chance, the other guy will pound it without remorse. It’s the economics of distrust; distrust, the middle finger of the invisible hand that eluded the contemplations of poor old Adam Smith. What we experience everyday then, in the name of laissez-faire, is cynical economics; and we participate in it fully, by choice or by necessity.

Politics, however, is a game more ostensibly cynical in its machinations. Anybody who has grown up in Pakistan would invariably attest to that. As it is, the subject is expansive enough to be fit for a thousand doctoral theses. A half-baked intellectual’s nighttime ranting could hardly do it justice. Therefore, sidestepping any theoretical discourse, I will keep the following Machiavellian proposition as the basic benchmark for my conception of politics: politics, in any shape or form, is the exercise for the attainment of absolute power, and the exercise of such power over the longest possible period of time. Now, in the wake of a lot of kite-flying related deaths in Lahore over recent years, the government took a very noble step; ‘basant’ was banned. The consequent controversy was huge; an entire industry had been destroyed, it was a big blow to tourism and culture, a very cheap and effective means of public entertainment had been lost, etc. In the opinion of a bleeding-heart humanist like me, it was the right thing to do; human life ought never to be the cost of a bit of fun. Along came the long march, a perceivable threat to the power of the people in charge. Now, inevitably, clever functionaries of state put their heads together to think up means to ebb the tide rising towards Islamabad. And the first light bulb that went on in somebody’s head was for the retraction of the ban on basant on the eve of the march on the capital. It would kill countless birds with one stone. The earlier acrimony among the lahoris would die down, and the support for the march in the Punjabi heartland would be checked for people would be more interested in a night of partying and kite-flying than preparing to march for a cause, the ultimate fruit of which remains questionable and distant, for all intents and purposes. Within twelve hours of the lifting of the ban, there have been two deaths, guys in their twenties, throats slit by wayward twine descending from the sky; a macabre exercise in the politics of cynicism. The powers that be had an end to attain. The means they chose for it they knew would be too irresistible for the general public, placing their bets on a national attitude of acting first and thinking later. These two deaths are collateral damage in what war, I fail to understand. If his writings are any estimation of the man himself, Machiavelli must have been one tough guy. Wonder if this made him turn in his grave.

At a more personal level, how often have you been genuinely nice to someone without getting the ‘hope he doesn’t collect too heavily on this one’ look in return? How often have you earnestly sought a friend’s opinion and gotten vigorous affirmation of your own opinion in return, only to be told later that since you only needed corroboration of your own ideas, it was provided in good faith? At the workplace, aren’t all your words and actions first weighed by your coworkers as potentialities by which they could be harmed or, at least, their interests put in jeopardy? Why are there incessant office power plays when everybody’s got their heart in the right place? Life, it seems, is brimming to the full with subtle cynicisms. The catch, however, is that if you live by these contradictions, you are a normal human being, a person striving to make his way in the world, a person having the right to live. If, by some odd chance, you start pointing out the inherent cynicism of life, and choose to have nothing to do with it, wanting rather to lose yourself in the simple pleasures of the dhol, and the shehnai, and love, and an occasional ghazal, you are, surprise surprise, a Cynic, a sociopath, a disparager of all that is good and the upholder of all that is evil. And from here, the circle runs in reverse till you’re the one convinced that you’ve got it all wrong in your head.

the way it is...

tussan malik saadi dil de ho
jadan khwab vichaley mildey ho
janbaz dassan kya haal thheenday?
mein ronda han, tussan khildey ho

- Janbaz Jatoi

ennui?

It comes upon him in the dead of night; an insidious specter, delighting in joining in the melancholic games of solitude the dark is playing on him, yet wary of his cornered spirit, his troubled mind. ‘What do you fear?’ it murmurs, mimicking the breathless tone of a lover about to bestow love's first kiss. ‘My vacillating faith’ he replies, sullenly, resignedly, not showing any interest in being wooed. The stillness of the dark is, for a moment, ruffled. ‘What is there to be afraid of?’ it asks in a manner of gentle bemusement. ‘I do not want to lose it again’ he answers after a long, empty pause. The dark gets denser around him, heavier. ‘And how do you fear losing it?’ it inquires, woefully, as if knowing what is to follow. ‘It’s a cruel, selfish world which does not comprehend the value of trust. When trust is shattered, all faith is shattered, all else is lost. I will not be able to survive any of that anymore’ he speaks wearily, half-expecting to be understood, half-imagining a ray of light in the unrelenting dark. ‘Sanctimonious liar’, it hisses, ‘you yourself are the thief, the desecrator of trust. And your only fear is that you may be avenged of your sin. You fear that which you deserve, and long for that which you do not. Be damned!’ ‘Amen’, he sighs. The dark closes in.

seven years

Chacha Saeen

Ay raat jehri k sirf tuhadi yaad di raat hay te jeendi sik ich meda poora saal langhdey, aj traye baldyein angaryein di veil vaindi payee hay jehray dozakh di aakhri chund toon unchithay meday utey un dhatthin aur meda cheta itna ral gaye k mekoon na apna hosh reh na dunya o mafeeha da. Bus itna pata hay jo medi saari raat hunr tarapdyein guzarsi.

Tuhakoon andaza kaini saeen jo mein kitna sharminda han. Aur kitna mayoos vi kyunke mekoon nazarda pe jo mein een hik saal ich kitna khud-gharz te aapni haqeeqat toon kitna andha thhee giyan. Lekin, aye mein apney naal ehd karendan jo jay agley saal tayeen jeenda reehum, tan vala een raat koon khaali kaina vanjanr desaan. Te je mar giyum tan een kanu behtar biya kya thhee sagdey?

Bus, eeho kujh aahda hum. Kash bala das te phera marendi hovay ha. Kash tuhadi ja mein hovan ha.

Hasni.

haal e dil

aik bhooli bisri muddat k baad
iss be-jaan dil ka koi anjan kona
zindagi ki aik bekhauf lehr se thharra raha hai

jaisey
koi khud-dar shama
her simt k toofanon k beech
machley
per bujhey nahi

jaisey
kisi khar-dar payr ka koi badmast phool
apne ander mehak basane ki saazish ker le
aur kaanton ki baat na ban paaye

lekin
woh shama
yeh phool
muntazir hain tumhare
keh tum aao
inn kaanton se laro
unn toofanon ka rukh badal daalo
aur zindagi ko jila do

per dekho
aa ker agar
tumhare qadam larkharaye
ya in berehm dushmanon ko tum
dekh hee na paaye
toh samajh lena
keh zindagi phir haar gayee
aur iss baar uss ka maseeha
koi na ho ga.

Birthday '08

26. People have families of their own to care for by that age. People have careers, and money, and success, and promising futures, and burgeoning social lives that work to integrate them fully as responsible adults in the larger fabric of society, by the time they are 26. There are even a few who have lived lives so fully that beyond 25 is past their prime for them.

And then, there are others, who are hiding from life, and more so with every passing year. People who don't have what it takes to look life in the eye, and to take from it all that ought to be taken as the rightful prerequisite to happiness and the maintenance of it; people for whom it is nothing but one painfully slow tick-tock to the final hour of emancipation. Among these sorts are the kind who turn off their cellphones on their birthdays just because people wishing them well embarasses them; the kind who are yelling 'leave me alone', but the sound never really makes it past their larynx in the form of anything but polite chuckles and exclamations. And yet, some of these misanthropes dream big dreams, and nurture warm fantasies of happily-ever-afters in some secluded corners of their hearts, without having the decency to admit to themselves that what they crave can never truly reach fulfilment in the suffocatingly narrow conditions of self-confinement that they have created around themselves. What it takes though is a rare courageous fool to be able to mock his own naiveté and capacity for self-delusion.

In any case, 26 down. How many more to go, only the Master Accountant upstairs can tell, or His celestial minion in-charge of The Slate.

and she's gone

before yesterday

'get out of my room'. heh. 'turn down the music. are you deaf or what?' hahah. 'what are u? a pig? can't you just shower and not bathe my entire room with you?'. teehee. 'what is all your stuff doing lying around here all over my room? what in hell is your own room for? just sin?' ouch. 'this is MY computer. I got it out of the ONLY paycheck I ever got. and you act as if you own it! get lost!' heheheheh. 'i swear to God I will retrieve all the porn hidden in this thing and show it to ammi. You have another thing coming if you think im kidding.' bring it on. 'what is my faiz doing by the flush again? do you wanna flush it down the toilet just as you did my dewan-e-ghalib? do you have no respect for anything?' hahahahah. 'I will have as many lights on in my room as I want. I don't care if they're burning your doped eyes. You should thank god i'm not telling ammi baba. Wonder what I did to deserve a leech like you.' snigger. 'You are the equivalent of a middle-aged, parisitic spinster, you know that? Wish I had grown up with some real men around me!' snort.

tonight

I have it all to myself. And yet, unwanted, emasculating tears roll down my face. My head is against this screen that has seldom shown me anything but lies, and I want to smash it in. but what truly is the strangest and the scariest bit is that, tomorrow, life is supposed to go on.

shab-e-firaq: the sublime

raat yoon dil mein teri khhoee hu'ee yaad aayi
jaisey veeraney mein chupkey se bahar aa ja'ye
jaisey sehra'on mein haulay se challey baad-e-naseem
jaisey bemaar ko be-wajah qarar aa ja'ye

- Faiz

shab-e-firaq: the meek

mohsin hijjar di raat koon hanj di zakat dey
ay be-suhag raat azal di ghareeb hey

- Mohsin Naqvi

shab-e-firaq: the overwhelming

stay by me
my tormentor, my heart’s keeper
stay by me

at the hour, the night spreads
intoxicated on the crimson of the heavens
the dark night spreads,
wielding soothing salves of musk,
and agony that pierces every pore

chanting merrily a dirge of sorrow
it comes
rattling wildly the rattle of death
it comes

at the hour
when hearts sink deeper,
looking to hands held hostage in sleeves,
in futile hope

and the sound of wine,
pouring out
as if sobs of a frightened child
in restlessness, implacable, wretched

when no words form a sentence
when no sentence forms meaning

at the hour, the night spreads
at the hour, the grieving, desolate, dark night spreads

stay by me
my tormentor, my heart’s keeper
stay by me

- A transliteration of Faiz's 'Paas Raho'

breathing

[the setting]

late dusk; the marble terrace besides the lawn. the old man sits reclined against his favorite cushion on a charpoy, puffing away majestically at his hookah and humming an old tune. a few of his progeny sit on cane chairs surrounding the charpoy, conversing amongst themselves, and occasionally breaking into raucous laughter. a light westerly breeze makes for a very pleasant evening in the outdoors.

a boy-child, not more than two and a half in years, sneaks up to the charpoy from behind the chairs and stands staring at the old man with a playful look in his eyes. the old man focuses his weak eyes on the child and smiles upon recognizing the moon-face.

[the exchange]

the old man: is that you, asghar?
the child: tee-hee
the old man: come, khan saeen, come. give us a hug. come, o badmash.

the child begins to scramble away but the old man hauls him up onto his chest, and kisses him on the cheeks.

the child: dada?
the old man: your dada’s baba, sardar sahib. you remind me of my Asghar when he was your age.
the child [feigning seriousness]: I want to go to my ammi.
the old man [laughing]: go then, you trickster.

the boy jumps off the charpoy and scampers off to play with the other children in the lawn. the old man’s eyes stare wistfully at the departing child for a long moment.

the old man: may u have the life of Khizr, my child. for your parents, for your children, for your children’s children. may u never know any suffering, nor hardship. may no man’s child ever suffer like I have.

[the remains]

tears

silence

Musings VII

alam-e-khwab mein jo paa'ee ik roz haseena hum ne
aarzoo machal gayee, dil bhi be-taab hua
aur toh kucch na bunn para uss ghari hum se
haalat-e-shauq mein bus bister hee kharab hua

- Hasni Khan

serenading yesterday's jalfrezi

You rip at my entrails like a banshee on fire
Like a rocket at go-time, like a rat in a cage
Like a storm in the pj’s, like a dirty brown motion
You fill up my bedsheets, don’t do that again

Come let me lose you, let me give my all to you
Let me drown you in sewage, let me shake off your charms
Let me wash up beside you, give me one last look at you
Come let me flush you, there you go again.

(sung to the tune of Annie's Song)

buffer post #1

See, the post below this one is beautiful poetry, imbued with profound spirituality and philosophical poignancy; Iqbal at his best (which is rare), artistically postulating what brings sublime joy to many hearts that beat as if war-drums, testifying to the absolute truth of love. Also, these few lines from Iqbal’s works in Farsi hold special meaning for me since I first heard them from my Nana many, many years ago. The post that will follow this one, on the other hand, is crass, nay, outright disgusting. Allowing it to impinge upon the dignified beauty of the previous one by putting it in the latter’s direct neighborhood would be utterly irreverent of someone even the likes of me. Therefore, I follow one of humanity's grandest old traditions, compartmentalization, whereby incompatible phenomena are kept apart, and life made invariably simpler, because then there is neither any need to explore the dynamics of such incompatibility, nor any cause for discarding something that might have caught one’s fancy at any level; hence, this buffer. Do I wish that the two aforementioned posts were not even on the same page? Yes. But there is not much I can do about it. I just hope the universe appreciates what great flip-flops people can be.

Nana Jan's tribute

Mariyam az yak nisbat-e-Isa aziz
Az seh nisbat Hazrat-e-Zehra aziz
Noor e chashm e Rehmatul-il-Alameen
Aan Imam e Awwaleen o Akhireen
Bano e aan Tajdar e hal atta
Murtaza, mushkil kusha, sher e Khuda
Maader e aan Nuqta e parkaar e Ishq
Maader e aan Qafila Salaar e Ishq

- Iqbal

nightlife

Wake up with a cold sweat from the agitated slumber which replaces the long, peaceful hours of sleep of the old days. Creep up to each of three bedsides and pierce the darkness with burning eyes to be certain that every breath that is inhaled is exhaled, mumbling a word of gratitude for that. Climb up to the roof and spread out on the hard, heat-radiating terrace. Stare into the dusty skies, caught between thoughts and notions, hopes and memories, all innately contradictory, all demanding big leaps of faith. Sob, as men do in solitude, and wait for the call to prayer to sound above the lifeless. For then, as the world awakens, sleep overwhelms all consciousness of it. Telle est la vie dans l'obscurité.

deathly still

kucch hameen ko nahi ehsaan utthaney ka demagh
woh toh jab aatey hain ma'yel ba karam aatey hain
aur kucch der na guzrey shab-e-furqat se kaho
dil bhee kam dukhta hai, woh yaad bhee kam aatey hain

- faiz