میرے رشکِ قمر Mere Rashk-e-Qamar — You, Whom The Moon Envies

You, whom the moon is jealous of: the first time you met my eyes with yours, it was wonderful. Something like lightning came down, finished the job, started a fire like that. Wonderful.

Rashk-e-qamar means the envy of the moon, which is a compliment with a victim in it: she is not like the moon, the moon is put out about her. Then the second line describes what happened as an accident with casualties, lightning and a fire and a job finished, and closes on three words that mean I had a lovely time.

رشکِ قمر rashk-e-qamar

the envy of the moon; one the moon is jealous of

برق barq

lightning

مزا maza

pleasure, enjoyment; the taste of something good

Beauty's intoxications were stirred into the cup, and the moonlight smiled. Wonderful. Under the shadow of the moon, my cup-bearer, the way you poured. Wonderful.

Ghol kar, stirred in, is a kitchen word, the thing you do with sugar, and it puts the beauty in the cup as an ingredient rather than a comparison. Then the second line does something subtly odd: not moonlight but the shadow of the moon, which the moon does not cast. Nobody minds. By this point in the evening precision is not the priority.

جام jaam

a cup of wine

چاندنی chandni

moonlight

ساقی saqi

the one who pours the wine

The intoxication began stretching itself inside the flask. Cups started ringing against each other in the drinkers' gathering. And when the clouds gathered and came over, intoxication rained down on the tavern. Wonderful.

Angdai is the stretch you do on waking, a whole-body movement, and handing it to the liquid inside a glass makes the wine itself seem to wake. Then the sound arrives, cups ringing, and then the weather. Three lines and the scene has grown from one flask to an entire sky, without anybody in it doing a thing except being there.

انگڑائی angdai

the long stretch of a body waking up

بزمِ رنداں bazm-e-rindan

the gathering of drinkers, of the unrespectable

گھٹا ghata

gathered rain clouds

They came out in front of me with nothing covered, and youth collided with youth. Their eye fought mine like that, and watching the fight was wonderful.

Two words for violence in two lines, takrana to collide and ladna to fight, and both are being used for things people enjoy. Aankh ladna, for eyes to fight, is simply how Urdu says two people caught each other's gaze. And then the last line steps outside the whole scene: he watched the fight, as a spectator, though he was one of the two parties in it.

بے حجابانہ be-hijabana

unveiled, with nothing covered

ٹکرانا takrana

to collide, to crash into

There was modesty in the eyes at every meeting, and the cheeks went red when union was mentioned. The way she lowered her neck, embarrassed, at my questions. Wonderful.

Here somebody else's inner life finally gets a look in, and only from the outside. Everything is registered in physical evidence: the eye, the colour in the cheek, the angle of a neck. He never reports what she said. The bent neck is presented as the answer, and taken as a good one.

حیا haya

modesty; the sense of shame that makes you look down

عارض aariz

the cheek

وصل vasl

union, being together

The shaikh's faith got sold in the end. One look at the cup-bearer's beauty and he simply melted. Until today, how proud of himself this man was. His piety has been robbed. Wonderful.

The shaikh is the standing villain of Urdu poetry, the professional moralist, and here he is not argued with, only watched. Bik hi gaya and pighal hi gaya both carry that little hi, meaning in the end, as expected, after all this time. Nobody is surprised. And lut gai, was robbed, turns the piety into somebody else's property that he was only holding.

ایمان iman

faith; the creed a believer professes

مغرور maghroor

proud, full of himself

پارسائی paarsai

piety, abstinence, holding yourself apart

Fana, thank God that today, after annihilation, she kept the honour of my love. With her own hands she laid a sheet of flowers on my grave. Wonderful.

The maqta, and the pen-name turns the whole poem over. Fana is annihilation, and in Sufi usage it is the self dissolving into God, so baad-e-fana means after I died and after I was dissolved into the beloved, and the couplet refuses to pick. He is in the ground. Somebody came, by hand, with flowers. And the three words that have closed every couplet all night close this one too, spoken from a grave.

فنا fana

annihilation; in Sufi usage, the self dissolving into God

آبرو aabru

honour, good name, standing

چادرِ گل chadar-e-gul

a sheet of flowers, laid over a grave