تو جانے نا Tu Jaane Na — You Don't Know

How do I tell you why I love you, friend? I cannot say it. Look, whatever words of the heart are left over, let them come and explain themselves to you. You do not know, you do not know.

The passage opens with the song's subject in its first two lines: the confession that cannot be spoken. The answer is to delegate, aake tujhe samjhaayen, let the heart's leftover words come and explain themselves, which is the song's whole design: the words will do the work the speaker cannot. The refrain, tu jaane na, is the verdict on the whole attempt, repeated twice, which is how the song says the not-knowing twice as hard.

Even meeting, we did not meet: why, with you, who knows why. There are miles of distance: why, with you, who knows why. The chains of events are unknown: why, with you, who knows why. The dreams lie under the eyelashes: why, with you, who knows why.

The passage is the inventory of the distance, and every line ends with the same refrain, na jaane kyun, who knows why. The four items are the song's whole world: the meetings that do not meet, the miles, the unknown sequences, the dreams under the lashes. The repetition of the refrain at the end of every line is the song's method of hypnotizing itself: the distance is stated until the question becomes the answer.

سلسلہ silsile

chains of linked happenings

پلک palkon

the eyelashes

Look into my eyes: whatever has settled there matches you exactly. Who knows if your eyes or your words were the reason that you became my heart's longing. You, being near, being hope, being the feeling itself, are still not mine. These are the complaints I have: why, with you, who knows why. The distances are in miles: why, with you, who knows why.

The passage is the song's closest approach to an explanation, and the explanation is a mystery. The thing that has settled in his eyes matches her hubahu, exactly, in every particular, and the cause is given two candidates, her eyes or her words, and left unresolved. The threefold description of the beloved, paas, aas, ehsaas, near, hope, feeling, is the passage's engine, and the last of the three carries the grief: even being all three, she is apne nahin, not his. The complaint, gila, is named at last, and the refrain returns to carry it.

ہوبہو hubahu

exactly alike, feature for feature

وجہ vajah

a reason, a cause

گلہ gile

complaints, reproaches

In my thoughts I said a hundred thousand things to you, but spoke nothing in front of you. We did not even become strangers, you belonging to another. Look, you never became mine. There is regret, and this heart cries, it hoards dreams, and having gone mad it thinks: we met, and why, with you, who knows why. The distances are in miles.

The passage turns the song inward for its last verse. The hundred thousand words spoken in thought and the silence in her presence are the song's whole biography in two lines. The strangest line is the middle one: they did not even become strangers, because she belongs to someone else, and the not-becoming-strangers is named as a loss. The last image, the heart gone pagla, mad, hoarding dreams, is the tradition's oldest portrait of the lover, and the refrain returns over it like a verdict.

بیگانہ begaane

strangers, people who are nothing to you

افسوس afsos

regret, sorrow over a thing