سرکتی جائے ہے رخ سے نقاب آہستہ آہستہ Sarakti Jaye Hai Rukh Se Naqab Aahista Aahista — The Veil Keeps Slipping, Slowly, Slowly

Ameer Minai

1829– 1900

Ghazal

A veil is coming away from a face, and it is taking its time about it. Then the second line looks again and the same movement turns out to be a sunrise. Nothing else happens in the couplet, and nothing else needs to.

Ameer Minai wrote in the nineteenth century, at Lucknow and later Rampur, in the period when the Urdu ghazal was at its most finished and least hurried. Five couplets ahead. The last one is among the funniest and worst things in the language.

01 — sarakti jaye hai rukh se naqab aahista aahista Matla · the opening

سرکتی جائے ہے رخ سے نقاب آہستہ آہستہ
نکلتا آ رہا ہے آفتاب آہستہ آہستہ

सरकती जाए है रुख़ से नक़ाब आहिस्ता आहिस्ता
निकलता आ रहा है आफ़्ताब आहिस्ता आहिस्ता

sarakti jaye hai rukh se naqab aahista aahista
nikalta aa raha hai aaftab aahista aahista

The veil keeps sliding off her face, slowly, slowly. The sun is coming up, slowly, slowly.

Sarakna carries the whole couplet. It means to slide or creep, the thing a cloth does under its own weight, so nobody is moving it and nobody can be blamed. Then the second line changes what you are looking at without announcing the change, and the same speed that made the first line intimate makes the second one astronomical.

سرکنا sarakna: to slide, to creep along under its own weight
نقاب naqab: a face veil
آفتاب aaftab: the sun

02 — javan hone lage jab wo to ham se kar liya parda

جواں ہونے لگے جب وہ تو ہم سے کر لیا پردہ
حیا یک لخت آئی اور شباب آہستہ آہستہ

जवाँ होने लगे जब वो तो हम से कर लिया पर्दा
हया यक-लख़्त आई और शबाब आहिस्ता आहिस्ता

javan hone lage jab wo to ham se kar liya parda
haya yak-lakht aai aur shabab aahista aahista

The moment she began growing up she started veiling from me. Modesty came all at once. Her youth came slowly, slowly.

Two things arriving at different speeds, and the gap between them is the whole couplet. Yak-lakht means in one stroke, instantly, and it is set directly against the refrain. So the veil went up overnight and the reason for it took years, which means there was a period when he was already shut out and still watching from the other side of the cloth.

حیا haya: modesty, the sense of shame that makes you cover
یک لخت yak-lakht: all at once, in a single stroke
شباب shabab: youth, the prime of it

03 — shab-e-furqat ka jaga hun farishto ab to sone do

شبِ فرقت کا جاگا ہوں فرشتو اب تو سونے دو
کبھی فرصت میں کر لینا حساب آہستہ آہستہ

शब-ए-फ़ुर्क़त का जागा हूँ फ़रिश्तो अब तो सोने दो
कभी फ़ुर्सत में कर लेना हिसाब आहिस्ता आहिस्ता

shab-e-furqat ka jaga hun farishto ab to sone do
kabhi fursat mein kar lena hisab aahista aahista

Angels, I have been awake all through the night of separation. Let me sleep now. Do the reckoning some other time, when you are free, slowly, slowly.

He never says he has died, and he does not have to. The angels are Munkar and Nakir, who come to question the dead in the grave, and hisab is the accounting of a life. So this is a man in his own grave asking the examiners to come back later because he has had a bad night. The politeness is the horror. Nobody in that position has ever sounded so tired.

شبِ فرقت shab-e-furqat: the night of separation
فرشتہ farishta: an angel; here the two who question the dead
حساب hisab: the reckoning, the accounting of a life

04 — saval-e-vasl par un ko adu ka khauf hai itna

سوالِ وصل پر ان کو عدو کا خوف ہے اتنا
دبے ہونٹوں سے دیتے ہیں جواب آہستہ آہستہ

सवाल-ए-वस्ल पर उन को अदू का ख़ौफ़ है इतना
दबे होंटों से देते हैं जवाब आहिस्ता आहिस्ता

saval-e-vasl par un ko adu ka khauf hai itna
dabe honton se dete hain javab aahista aahista

Ask her about meeting and she is so frightened of the rival that the answer comes through pressed lips, slowly, slowly.

The first genuinely hopeful couplet in the ghazal, and it never says so. She is answering. That is the news. She is frightened of being overheard, which means there is something to overhear, and dabe honton se, with the lips held down, is the sound of somebody saying yes as softly as it can be said.

وصل vasl: union, being together
عدو adu: the enemy; the rival for the beloved's attention

05 — wo bedardi se sar kaaten 'amir' aur main kahun un se Maqta · signed by the poet

وہ بے دردی سے سر کاٹیں امیرؔ اور میں کہوں ان سے
حضور آہستہ آہستہ جناب آہستہ آہستہ

वो बेदर्दी से सर काटें 'अमीर' और मैं कहूँ उन से
हुज़ूर आहिस्ता आहिस्ता जनाब आहिस्ता आहिस्ता

wo bedardi se sar kaaten 'amir' aur main kahun un se
huzoor aahista aahista janab aahista aahista

Let them cut my head off without mercy, Ameer, and let me go on saying to them: sir, slowly, slowly. Your honour, slowly, slowly.

The maqta, where the poet signs, and it is built entirely out of manners. Huzoor and janab are the words you use for somebody far above you, and he is using them on the person holding the knife. The request is not that they stop. It is that they draw it out. Being attended to this closely is the nearest he has come to being wanted, and he would like it to last.

بے دردی bedardi: mercilessness, without feeling
حضور huzoor: sir, your presence; a term of high respect
جناب janab: your honour; another term of high respect

Reading it whole

The same two words end every couplet, and they mean something different every time. A veil slipping is slow, and lovely. A body growing up is slow, and unbearable to somebody watching. A night of separation is slow. An answer given through pressed lips is slow because there is somebody else in the room. And in the last couplet, slowness is what a man requests while being beheaded.

The cruelty of the second couplet is in the timing. She started veiling from him when she began to grow up, and the two things did not happen at the same speed. Modesty arrived all at once, in a single stroke. Youth came on by degrees. So there was a stretch of time, and the poem carefully does not say how long, in which she was already hidden from him and still becoming worth hiding.

Then there is a couplet where the speaker appears to be dead and does not mention it. Angels, he says, I have been awake all through the night of separation, let me sleep now, and do the reckoning some other time when you are free. Munkar and Nakir are the two who question the dead in the grave. He is asking them to come back another day, in the voice of a man asking for the curtains to be left shut, and the whole enormity of where he is only arrives if you know who he is talking to.

And then the last couplet, which is very funny and gets worse the longer you look at it. They are cutting his head off without any mercy at all, and what he says to them is: sir, slowly. Your honour, slowly. He keeps the honorifics. He is unfailingly polite to his executioner. And the request is not that they stop, only that they take longer over it, because being attended to like this is the closest thing to being wanted that he is ever going to get.

It reached film in 1982, in Deedar-e-Yaar, sung by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar. That is how most people who know these lines first met them, rather than on a page.

How it rhymes

Every second line closes on the same word — آہستہ آہستہ , aahista aahista. That repetition is the radif. The rhyme falling just before it is the qafiya: The -aab ending before the refrain: naqab, aaftab, shabab, hisab, javab. Hearing the two land together at the close of every sher is most of what makes this form sound the way it does.

Recordings

Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar

From the 1982 film Deedar-e-Yaar, and the version most listeners know.

Text and rights

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

The film version rearranges and repeats the couplets, as film versions of ghazals generally do.

Ameer Minai died in 1900, so the poem has been out of copyright everywhere for over a century. The translation, the reading of each couplet and the essay around them are original work written for Harf.