رفتہ رفتہ وہ مری ہستی کا ساماں ہو گئے Rafta Rafta Vo Meri Hasti Ka Samaan Ho Gaye — Little By Little They Became My Whole Existence

Tasleem Fazli

1947– 1982

Ghazal

Somebody arrived slowly. That is the entire event. No meeting, no parting, no refusal, just a person who used to be at the edge of a life and is now at the centre of it, having covered the distance in stages small enough that nobody noticed them happening.

Tasleem Fazli died at thirty-five, and this is the ghazal of his that outlived everything else he wrote. Nothing in it is sudden, which is unusual for a form that mostly deals in lightning and wounds. Four couplets ahead, and the last of them is the one people quote.

01 — rafta rafta vo meri hasti ka samaan ho gaye Matla · the opening

رفتہ رفتہ وہ مری ہستی کا ساماں ہو گئے
پہلے جاں پھر جانِ جاں پھر جانِ جاناں ہو گئے

रफ़्ता रफ़्ता वो मिरी हस्ती का सामाँ हो गए
पहले जाँ फिर जान-ए-जाँ फिर जान-ए-जानाँ हो गए

rafta rafta vo meri hasti ka samaan ho gaye
pahle jaan phir jaan-e-jaan phir jaan-e-jaanaan ho gaye

Little by little they became the furniture of my existence. First my life, then the life of my life, then the life of everything alive.

Samaan is goods, equipment, the things a household is made of, which is a startlingly ordinary word to reach for and exactly the right one. They did not descend on him. They moved in. The second line then gives the method the rest of the ghazal will use: one word, taken up three times, each time carrying a little more than it did before.

رفتہ رفتہ rafta rafta: gradually, by degrees, little by little
ہستی hasti: existence, being; a person's whole life
ساماں samaan: goods, furnishings, the equipment of a household
جانِ جاناں jaan-e-jaanaan: the life of all living things; the beloved above all beloveds

02 — din-ba-din badhti gain us husn ki ranaiyan

دن بہ دن بڑھتی گئیں اس حسن کی رعنائیاں
پہلے گل پھر گل بدن پھر گل بداماں ہو گئے

दिन-ब-दिन बढ़ती गईं उस हुस्न की रानाइयाँ
पहले गुल फिर गुल-बदन फिर गुल-बदामाँ हो गए

din-ba-din badhti gain us husn ki ranaiyan
pahle gul phir gul-badan phir gul-badaaman ho gaye

Day after day that beauty kept adding to itself. First a flower, then a body made of flowers, then someone with their lap full of them.

Gul-badaaman means flower-in-the-hem, from the daaman, the skirt of a garment that women in this poetry gather up to carry things in. So the last step is not a further comparison. The flowers have come loose from the person and are being carried, and there are enough of them to need carrying.

رعنائی ranai: grace, loveliness, elegance of form
گل بدن gul-badan: flower-bodied
داماں daaman: the hem or skirt of a garment, gathered up to carry things

03 — aap to nazdeek se nazdeek-tar aate gaye

آپ تو نزدیک سے نزدیک تر آتے گئے
پہلے دل پھر دل ربا پھر دل کے مہماں ہو گئے

आप तो नज़दीक से नज़दीक-तर आते गए
पहले दिल फिर दिल-रुबा फिर दिल के मेहमाँ हो गए

aap to nazdeek se nazdeek-tar aate gaye
pahle dil phir dil-ruba phir dil ke mehmaan ho gaye

You kept coming closer, and then closer than close. First you were my heart, then the one who steals it, then a guest staying inside it.

Dil-ruba is heart-stealer, a compliment worn so smooth by use that nobody hears the theft in it any more. Putting a guest in the next slot brings the burglary back. Somebody who took the heart is now living in it, and mehmaan carries an obligation with it, because a guest is owed hospitality no matter how they got in.

نزدیک تر nazdeek-tar: nearer; the comparative of near
دل ربا dil-ruba: heart-stealing; the standard word for a beloved
مہماں mehmaan: a guest, someone owed hospitality

04 — pyar jab had se badha saare takalluf mit gaye

پیار جب حد سے بڑھا سارے تکلف مٹ گئے
آپ سے پھر تم ہوئے پھر تو کا عنواں ہو گئے

प्यार जब हद से बढ़ा सारे तकल्लुफ़ मिट गए
आप से फिर तुम हुए फिर तू का उनवाँ हो गए

pyar jab had se badha saare takalluf mit gaye
aap se phir tum hue phir tu ka unvaan ho gaye

Once love went past its limit, all the formality dissolved. You were aap, then you were tum, and then you became the very heading under which tu is written.

Urdu makes you pick a second person every time you speak, and the three are ranked. Aap keeps a respectful distance. Tum is what you use with a friend. Tu is either the most intimate word in the language or the rudest, and only the relationship settles which. Takalluf is the effort of being polite, the ceremony you keep up with people you do not know well. So the couplet tracks the whole affair through nothing but grammar, and unvaan, the title at the top of a page, makes the last pronoun into a heading rather than a step.

تکلف takalluf: ceremony, formality, the effort of politeness
حد had: a limit, a boundary
عنواں unvaan: a title or heading, the words at the top of a page

Reading it whole

This is a poem about not noticing something happen. Not falling in love, which is loud and easy to date, but the slow part afterwards, where a person moves from the edge of your life to the middle of it in steps so small that no single one seems worth remarking on. By the end they are the furniture, and nobody can say when that started.

He shows it rather than describing it. Life, then the life of my life, then the life of all living things. Each barely more than the one before it. Put three in a row and you have watched something become total without once seeing it move. He does that four times over and it never wears out, because the steps are so short.

Then the imagery goes and grammar takes over, and the last couplet works on you before you know what it is doing. Urdu keeps handing the speaker a new word for you as the couplet moves, and each one lets the distance shrink a little more. No flowers, no hearts, just the pronoun softening twice, which is how the thing actually happens to people who speak this language.

The idea is small and exactly right, and it has carried the ghazal past almost everything else its poet wrote. Everybody has a version of this. Very few people have the words for it.

Mehdi Hassan takes the second lines slowly enough that all three steps land separately, which is the only way to sing a poem built like this one.

How it rhymes

Every second line closes on the same word — ہو گئے , ho gaye. That repetition is the radif. The rhyme falling just before it is the qafiya: The -aan ending before the refrain: samaan, jaanaan, badaaman, mehmaan, unvaan. Hearing the two land together at the close of every sher is most of what makes this form sound the way it does.

Recordings

Mehdi Hassan

The reading everyone knows, from a live set issued by Universal Music India.

Text and rights

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

This is the ghazal as it is usually printed and sung. It carries no maqta, so no couplet is signed with the poet's name.

Tasleem Fazli died in 1982, so this poem is still in copyright. It is quoted here as the subject of Harf's own criticism: the translation, the reading of each couplet 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.