Harf
Script shown with the Urdu

دیکھ تو دل کہ جاں سے اٹھتا ہے Dekh To Dil Ke Jaan Se Uthta Hai — Look, Is It From The Heart Or The Life

Mir Taqi Mir

1723– 1810

Ghazal

Something is burning and nobody can say what. The first couplet is a man pointing at smoke and asking where it is coming from, and the two places he considers are the heart and the life, as though those were rooms in a building he could go and check.

Mir lost his father young, watched Delhi sacked more than once, and wrote in a plain, unhurried Urdu that later poets found they could not imitate. Nine couplets ahead, and every one of them rises from the same word. By the end the smoke has been traced back to somewhere nobody wanted to look.

01  — dekh to dil ke jaan se uthta hai Matla · the opening

دیکھ تو دل کہ جاں سے اٹھتا ہے
یہ دھواں سا کہاں سے اٹھتا ہے

देख तो दिल कि जाँ से उठता है
ये धुआँ सा कहाँ से उठता है

dekh to dil ke jaan se uthta hai
ye dhuan sa kahan se uthta hai

Have a look. Is it coming off the heart, or off the life itself? Where is this smoke rising from?

An instruction to somebody else to go and check, which makes the speaker a man who cannot bring himself to look. And dhuan sa, a sort of smoke, is doing quiet work: he will not even commit to what he is seeing. Everything in the couplet is held at one remove from a fire nobody has admitted to yet.

جاں jaan
life, the living principle; also 'my life' as an endearment
دھواں dhuan
smoke

02  — gor kis diljale ki hai ye falak

گور کس دل جلے کی ہے یہ فلک
شعلہ اک صبح یاں سے اٹھتا ہے

गोर किस दिलजले की है ये फ़लक
शोला इक सुब्ह याँ से उठता है

gor kis diljale ki hai ye falak
shola ik subh yaan se uthta hai

Sky, whose grave is this? Some burnt-hearted person's, surely. There is a flame that comes up out of it every morning.

The sky gets addressed as the only available witness, and what he is looking at is the sunrise. Diljala, heart-burnt, is an ordinary word for somebody eaten up by grief, and the couplet takes it literally: the burning did not stop when the man was buried, and the flame that comes up at dawn is his, still going.

گور gor
a grave
دل جلا diljala
burnt of heart; somebody consumed by grief
فلک falak
the sky, the heavens

03  — khana-e-dil se zeenhar na ja

خانۂ دل سے زینہار نہ جا
کوئی ایسے مکاں سے اٹھتا ہے

ख़ाना-ए-दिल से ज़ीनहार न जा
कोई ऐसे मकाँ से उठता है

khana-e-dil se zeenhar na ja
koi aise makan se uthta hai

Whatever you do, do not leave the house of the heart. Does anybody get up and walk out of a dwelling like that?

The rhetorical question is the sound of somebody being talked down. Nobody walks out of a place this good, and you are about to. Zeenhar is an emphatic word of warning, closer to on no account than to please. In a ghazal full of things rising and departing, this is the one couplet that asks somebody to stay put.

خانۂ دل khana-e-dil
the house of the heart
زینہار zeenhar
on no account; a strong warning
مکاں makan
a dwelling, a house

04  — naala sar kheenchta hai jab mera

نالہ سر کھینچتا ہے جب میرا
شور اک آسماں سے اٹھتا ہے

नाला सर खींचता है जब मेरा
शोर इक आसमाँ से उठता है

naala sar kheenchta hai jab mera
shor ik aasman se uthta hai

When my lament pulls itself up to full height, a din comes back down out of the whole sky.

Sar kheenchna is what a plant does when it shoots up, so the cry grows rather than being uttered. And the sky does not absorb it. The noise that comes back is a separate noise, from up there, which turns one man complaining in a room into weather.

نالہ naala
a lament, a cry of grief
سر کھینچنا sar kheenchna
to rear up, to shoot up the way a plant does

05  — ladti hai us ki chashm-e-shokh jahan

لڑتی ہے اس کی چشمِ شوخ جہاں
ایک آشوب واں سے اٹھتا ہے

लड़ती है उस की चश्म-ए-शोख़ जहाँ
एक आशोब वाँ से उठता है

ladti hai us ki chashm-e-shokh jahan
ek aashob vaan se uthta hai

Wherever that playful eye of hers picks a fight, a disaster gets up and comes out of the place.

Ladna is to fight, and aankh ladna, for eyes to fight, is how Urdu says two people caught each other's gaze. So the flirting and the violence are the same verb. Aashob is not a private misfortune either; it is the word for a public calamity, the sort that takes a city with it.

چشمِ شوخ chashm-e-shokh
the playful, mischievous eye
آشوب aashob
a public calamity, an upheaval that takes a whole city

06  — sudh le ghar ki bhi shola-e-aavaz

سدھ لے گھر کی بھی شعلۂ آواز
دود کچھ آشیاں سے اٹھتا ہے

सुध ले घर की भी शोला-ए-आवाज़
दूद कुछ आशियाँ से उठता है

sudh le ghar ki bhi shola-e-aavaz
dood kuchh aashiyan se uthta hai

You with the voice like a flame: spare a thought for your own house as well. There is smoke coming off the nest.

The bird with the burning voice is the nightingale of this poetry, singing its grief so hot that it sets things alight. Here somebody points out, drily, that the thing now on fire is its own nest. Anyone who has watched a person perform their sorrow while the rest of their life goes up around them will recognise the scene.

سدھ لینا sudh lena
to take notice of, to look after
دود dood
smoke
آشیاں aashiyan
a nest

07  — baithne kaun de hai phir us ko

بیٹھنے کون دے ہے پھر اس کو
جو ترے آستاں سے اٹھتا ہے

बैठने कौन दे है फिर उस को
जो तिरे आस्ताँ से उठता है

baithne kaun de hai phir us ko
jo tere aastan se uthta hai

Once a man has been made to get up from your doorstep, who is going to let him sit down anywhere else?

The plainest couplet here and the most socially exact. Being turned away from that particular door is not a private disappointment, it is a loss of standing, and everybody else adjusts accordingly. Aastan, the threshold, is where a petitioner waits, so what has been withdrawn is the right to wait.

آستاں aastan
the threshold or doorstep, where a petitioner waits

08  — yun uthe aah us gali se ham

یوں اٹھے آہ اس گلی سے ہم
جیسے کوئی جہاں سے اٹھتا ہے

यूँ उठे आह उस गली से हम
जैसे कोई जहाँ से उठता है

yun uthe aah us gali se ham
jaise koi jahan se uthta hai

The way we finally got up and left that street. Ah. The way a person gets up and leaves the world.

Here the pun stops being a pun and simply becomes true. Urdu does not say a person died; it says they got up from the world and went. So leaving her street and leaving life are described with the same verb, in the same breath, and the couplet does not bother arguing that they are alike. The aah dropped into the middle of the line is the whole poem's grief in one syllable.

گلی gali
a lane or street; the beloved's street, in this poetry
جہاں jahan
the world

09  — ishq ik 'mir' bhaari patthar hai Maqta · signed by the poet

عشق اک میرؔ بھاری پتھر ہے
کب یہ تجھ ناتواں سے اٹھتا ہے

इश्क़ इक 'मीर' भारी पत्थर है
कब ये तुझ ना-तवाँ से उठता है

ishq ik 'mir' bhaari patthar hai
kab ye tujh na-tavaan se uthta hai

Love is a heavy stone, Mir. When was a weak thing like you ever going to lift it?

The maqta, where the poet signs, and he uses it to speak to himself in the second person, unkindly. After eight couplets of smoke and lament and calamity, love turns out to be a rock somebody failed to pick up. It is the least poetic image in the ghazal and the last word in it, and the uthna that has meant rising and dying all night finally just means lifting.

ناتواں na-tavaan
without strength; feeble

Reading it whole

Everything in this ghazal is on its way up and out. Smoke off something burning. A flame coming off a grave at dawn. A cry that climbs until the whole sky joins in. A man got up off a doorstep. A man leaving a street the way people leave the world. Mir found one word that covers all of it and then ended every couplet with it.

Uthna means to rise. It is what smoke does, and what you do when you stand up, and what happens to something when somebody lifts it. It is also what Urdu reaches for instead of saying died: a person does not die, they get up from the world and go. So a poem about smoke turns out to be a poem about leaving, and neither reading ever quite cancels the other out.

The first two couplets are a small investigation, and the findings are terrible. Where is this smoke coming from, the heart or the life? Then, looking upward: whose grave is this, sky, that sends up a flame every single morning? He is standing in front of the evidence of something that has burned, working out whose it was, and the answer is arriving slowly enough for him to keep asking.

The gentlest thing in it is a warning. Never leave the house of the heart, he says. Does anybody get up and walk out of a dwelling like that? It is said the way you would talk somebody out of storming off in a temper, which is an extraordinarily ordinary register for a poem this bleak, and Mir does it without the poem so much as flinching.

Then he signs off by calling himself weak to his own face. Love is a heavy stone, Mir, and when did a feeble thing like you ever manage to lift it? That is the last use of the word and the flattest one, a man conceding he was never strong enough for the thing that has been burning all night. Jagjit Singh's is an early live recording, with very little ornament on it and the couplets given room.

How it rhymes

Every second line closes on the same word — سے اٹھتا ہے , se uthta hai. That repetition is the radif. The rhyme falling just before it is the qafiya: The -aan ending before the refrain: jaan, kahan, yaan, makaan, aasmaan, vaan, aashiyaan, aastaan, jahaan, na-tavaan. Hearing the two land together at the close of every sher is most of what makes this form sound the way it does.

Recordings

  • Jagjit Singh

    An early live recording, plainly sung, with the couplets left room to land.

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All 128 poems, A to Z

Text and rights

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

Sung versions take a selection of the nine couplets rather than all of them.

Mir Taqi Mir died in 1810, so the poem has been out of copyright everywhere for two centuries. The translation, the reading of each couplet and the essay around them are original work written for Harf.