تاجدارِ حرم Tajdar-e-Haram — Crowned King Of The Sanctuary

Write a life of peace into my fate. Write that my ship never goes under. Paradise would be acceptable too, but for me, scribe of destiny, write Madina.

Four lines addressed to a clerk. The katib-e-taqdeer is the writer of destinies, and every request here is phrased as an instruction to somebody holding a pen: write this, write that. Then the last two lines make an amendment nobody would expect. Paradise is conceded as acceptable, in the tone you would use about a reasonable offer, and then set aside for a place with a name on the map.

سفینہ safeena

a ship or vessel; a life crossing a sea

گوارا gavara

acceptable, tolerable, will do

کاتبِ تقدیر katib-e-taqdeer

the scribe of destiny; the one who writes down what will happen

Crowned king of the sanctuary, let there be one glance of kindness. Then even our days, the days of the poor, will come right.

The refrain, and the two halves of it are wildly different sizes. A crown, a sanctuary, a king. Then a single look, which is all that is being asked for. Sanvarna is what happens to hair when it is put in order, or to a face when it is made ready, so the days are not being asked to change. They are being asked to be tidied.

تاجدار tajdar

crown-holder, king

حرم haram

the sanctuary; the sacred precinct

نگاہِ کرم nigah-e-karam

a glance of kindness or favour

You who stand behind the destitute: what will the world say, if we go away from your door with nothing?

The cheek of the whole piece is in this line, and it is an argument rather than a plea. Bekas is somebody with nobody, and haami is the one who backs them, so the title itself is the case being made. He is not asking for a favour. He is pointing out, respectfully, that a reputation is at stake and it is not his.

بے کس bekas

destitute; having nobody at all

حامی haami

a supporter, the one who backs somebody

در dar

a door

There is nobody who belongs to us. We are people that grief has struck. We have brought our petition to your door.

Fariyad is a formal complaint or petition, the sort you would carry to a court, and it is the word that turns this into a legal scene rather than a religious one. He has arrived with a document. And the first line establishes standing in the plainest possible terms: there is nobody else to take it to.

غم کے مارے gham ke maare

struck down by grief

فریاد fariyad

a petition, a formal complaint carried to authority

Let there be one glance of kindness. Otherwise we will die right here on your doorstep, saying your name over and over.

Chaukhat is the wooden frame at the bottom of a door, the thing you step over going in, and he never gets past it in the whole piece. The threat, if it is one, has no force behind it at all: he is not going to do anything, he is simply going to stay and repeat a name until he stops. Which is exactly what a qawwali does for the next forty minutes.

چوکھٹ chaukhat

the threshold, the frame at the foot of a door