اے اجنبی تو بھی کبھی آواز دے کہیں سے Aye Ajnabi Tu Bhi Kabhi Aawaz De Kahin Se — Stranger, Call Out To Me Somewhere, Sometime

Gulzar

1934– living

Geet

A man is talking to somebody who is not there. He does not even call her by a name. He calls her the stranger, ajnabi, and asks her to call out to him from wherever she is. The whole song is that request, repeated, and everything around it is what he knows about her: that she is somewhere, that she is as broken as he is, that her smile survives without her.

Gulzar wrote it for Dil Se in 1998, and Udit Narayan and Mahalakshmi Iyer sang it for Mani Ratnam's film about a man who falls for a woman he can never quite reach. Three passages ahead, and every one of them is a question with no answer in it.

01 — aye ajnabi tu bhi kabhi aawaz de kahin se

اے اجنبی تو بھی کبھی آواز دے کہیں سے
میں یہاں ٹکڑوں میں جی رہا ہوں
تو کہیں ٹکڑوں میں جی رہی ہے

ऐ अजनबी तू भी कभी आवाज़ दे कहीं से
मैं यहाँ टुकड़ों में जी रहा हूँ
तू कहीं टुकड़ों में जी रही है

aye ajnabi tu bhi kabhi aawaz de kahin se
main yahan tukdon mein jee raha hoon
tu kahin tukdon mein jee rahi hai

O stranger, you too, call out to me sometime, from somewhere. I am living here, in pieces. And you are living somewhere, in pieces.

The whole song is compressed into these three lines. Ajnabi, stranger, keeps her at arm's length even as he begs her to speak. The request has no address on it: somewhere, sometime, kahin se, which is the geography of a love that never got coordinates. And the confession underneath it: both of them are in pieces, and the song never says which pieces are whose.

اجنبی ajnabi: a stranger; somebody who is not yours
ٹکڑا tukda: a piece, a fragment

02 — roz roz resham si hawa aate jaate kahti hai bata

روز روز ریشم سی ہوا آتے جاتے کہتی ہے بتا
وہ جو دودھ دھلی معصوم کلی وہ ہے کہاں
وہ روشنی کہاں ہے وہ جان سی کہاں ہے
میں ادھورا تو ادھوری جی رہی ہے

रोज़ रोज़ रेशम सी हवा आते जाते कहती है बता
वो जो दूध धुली मासूम कली वो है कहाँ
वो रोशनी कहाँ है वो जान सी कहाँ है
मैं अधूरा तू अधूरी जी रही है

roz roz resham si hawa aate jaate kahti hai bata
wo jo doodh dhuli masoom kali wo hai kahan
wo roshni kahan hai wo jaan si kahan hai
main adhoora tu adhoori jee rahi hai

Every day the silken wind, coming and going, asks me, tell me: that bud, washed in milk, so innocent, where is it. Where is that light, where is that life-like one. I am incomplete, and you, incomplete, go on living.

The wind becomes a nagging chorus, and the questions it puts are all versions of one question, which the song will not let anyone ask outright. Doodh dhuli, washed in milk, makes the bud both clean and fragile, the way innocence is. Then the questions turn to things that were never specified in the first place: that light, that life-like one. He is looking for a thing he cannot name, which is why the wind keeps asking and he keeps failing to answer.

ریشم resham: silk
کلی kali: a bud
ادھورا adhoora: incomplete, unfinished

03 — tu to nahin hai lekin teri muskurahat hai

تو تو نہیں ہے لیکن تیری مسکراہٹ ہے
چہرا تیرا نہیں ہے پر تیری آہٹیں ہیں
تو ہے کہاں کہاں ہے تیرا نشان کہاں ہے
میرا جہاں کہاں ہے
میں ادھورا تو ادھوری جی رہی ہے

तू तो नहीं है लेकिन तेरी मुस्कुराहट है
चेहरा तेरा नहीं है पर तेरी आहटें हैं
तू है कहाँ कहाँ है तेरा निशाँ कहाँ है
मेरा जहाँ कहाँ है
मैं अधूरा तू अधूरी जी रही है

tu to nahin hai lekin teri muskurahat hai
chehra tera nahin hai par teri aahatein hain
tu hai kahan kahan hai tera nishaan kahan hai
mera jahan kahan hai
main adhoora tu adhoori jee rahi hai

You are not here, but your smile is. Your face is not here, but your footsteps are. Where are you, where, where is your trace, where is my world. I am incomplete, and you, incomplete, go on living.

The passage that turns absence into a person. Everything that is left of her is sound and trace: a smile without a face, footsteps without feet. Aahatein are the small noises of somebody moving just beyond sight, and it is the perfect word for the woman this song is about. Then the questions collapse into the last one, which is not about her at all. Mera jahan kahan hai. Where is my world. He started by asking where she was, and ends by admitting he does not know where he is.

مسکراہٹ muskurahat: a smile
آہٹ aahat: the sound of someone's coming; a footstep just out of sight
نشان nishaan: a trace, a mark left behind

Reading it whole

The address is the whole story. Aye ajnabi: O stranger. It is the politest word the language has for somebody who is not yours, and the entire song is addressed to her with that word. He never once claims her. He asks her to make a sound, from wherever she is, so he can know which direction she is in. That is the level of ownership this love song is built on.

The reason he asks is the second passage's business. Main yahan tukdon mein jee raha hoon, tu kahin tukdon mein jee rahi hai: I am living here, in pieces, and you are living somewhere, in pieces. The song does not say the pieces are each other's, but the two lines are built so that the reader fills it in. Two people cut into fragments, and each fragment has part of the other in it. That is the song's quiet version of the soulmate idea, and it is the saddest possible one, because fragments do not reassemble.

The next passage stops calling and starts looking. The silken wind, passing to and fro, asks him to say what he is missing: that bud, washed in milk, so innocent. Where is it. Where is the light. Where is the life-like one. The questions pile up without waiting for answers, and the last line of the passage stops being a question at all. I am incomplete, and you, incomplete, go on living. It is a description, not a plea.

The last passage is the one that earns the song its place in the film. You are not here, but your smile is. Your face is not here, but your footsteps are. Aahatein are the sounds a person makes moving around just out of sight, and the whole passage is built on them: she is present exactly the way absence can be, in traces. Then the questions start again and land on the hardest one. Mera jahan kahan hai. Where is my world. He has spent three passages asking where she is, and the song ends by admitting that he does not know where he is either.

Dil Se was the last film of Mani Ratnam's trilogy of the decade, after Roja and Bombay, and Gulzar wrote all of it. Udit Narayan and Mahalakshmi Iyer trade the passages between them, and the recording people mean is the one from the film.

Recordings

Udit Narayan and Mahalakshmi Iyer

From Dil Se (1998), composed by A.R. Rahman. The lyrical video on Ishtar Music.

Text and rights

Devanagari text supplied and checked by a reader who knows the language. The Urdu script and the transliteration follow that reading.

From the 1998 film Dil Se, composed by A.R. Rahman. The refrain paakhi paakhi pardesi, bird of the foreign land, opens and returns between passages in the recording, more often than it is printed here.

Gulzar is alive and writing, so this song is still in copyright. It is quoted here as the subject of Harf's own criticism: the translation, the reading of each passage and the essay around them are original work written for this page. If you hold the rights and would like something changed, tell us on Instagram.