تجھے دیکھا تو Tujhe Dekha To — When I Saw You

Anand Bakshi

1930– 2002

Geet

A man sees a woman, and the seeing changes the words available to him. That is the whole song: I saw you, and now I know, sanam, that love is a kind of madness. The film is Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, the longest-running Indian film in cinema history, and this is the moment the two leads first see each other, in a Swiss railway station in the middle of a student tour.

Anand Bakshi wrote it in 1995, near the end of a career that had run four decades, and it became the most quoted love song of the decade. Four passages ahead. Each one reports a different thing the sight did to him, and the refrain keeps returning to the same discovery.

01 — tujhe dekha toh ye jaana sanam

تجھے دیکھا تو یہ جانا صنم
پیار ہوتا ہے دیوانہ صنم
تجھے دیکھا تو یہ جانا صنم
تجھے دیکھا تو یہ جانا صنم

तुझे देखा तो ये जाना सनम
प्यार होता है दीवाना सनम
तुझे देखा तो ये जाना सनम
तुझे देखा तो ये जाना सनम

tujhe dekha toh ye jaana sanam
pyaar hota hai deewana sanam
tujhe dekha toh ye jaana sanam
tujhe dekha toh ye jaana sanam

When I saw you, this is what I understood, my dear: love happens, and it is mad, my dear. When I saw you, this is what I understood, my dear.

The refrain is a discovery being repeated so it can be believed. Dekha toh jaana, I saw and therefore I knew: the knowledge is a direct consequence of the sight, and the song refuses to separate them. Deewana, mad, is the word that turns love from a feeling into a condition, and it rhymes with jaana, which lets the two lines exchange places. The repetition is the song's method: the discovery needs to be said again to be real.

صنم sanam: an idol; the beloved

02 — ab yahan se kahan jaayen hum

اب یہاں سے کہاں جائیں ہم
تیری باہوں میں مر جائیں ہم
تجھے دیکھا تو یہ جانا صنم

अब यहाँ से कहाँ जाएँ हम
तेरी बाहों में मर जाएँ हम
तुझे देखा तो ये जाना सनम

ab yahan se kahan jaayen hum
teri baahon mein mar jaayen hum
tujhe dekha toh ye jaana sanam

Now where do we go from here? Let us die in your arms. When I saw you, this is what I understood, my dear.

The passage answers its own question with the tradition's largest image. Kahan jaayen, where should we go, is asked at the very beginning of the love, and the answer is the end of it: dying in the beloved's arms. The film has not yet shown a single obstacle, and the lover has already reached the destination. Bakshi is placing the whole story of the film inside the first meeting, which is what the best first-love songs do.

03 — aankhen meri, sapne tere

آنکھیں میری، سپنے تیرے
دل میرا، یادیں تیری
ہو میرا ہے کیا لا لا لا
سب کچھ تیرا لا لا لا
جان تیری، سانسیں تیری
میری آنکھوں میں آنسو تیرے آ گئے
مسکرانے لگے سارے غم

आँखें मेरी, सपने तेरे
दिल मेरा, यादें तेरी
हो मेरा है क्या ला ला ला
सब कुछ तेरा ला ला ला
जान तेरी, साँसें तेरी
मेरी आँखों में आँसू तेरे आ गए
मुस्कुराने लगे सारे ग़म

aankhen meri, sapne tere
dil mera, yaadein teri
ho mera hai kya la la la
sab kuchh tera la la la
jaan teri, saansein teri
meri aankhon mein aansoo tere aa gaye
muskuraane lage saare gham

My eyes, your dreams. My heart, your memories. What is mine, la la la? Everything is yours, la la la. My life is yours, my breath is yours. Your tears have come into my eyes, and all my griefs have started smiling.

The inventory is a list of swaps: every part of him is exchanged for every part of her. Mera hai kya, what is mine, is the question the song answers with the la la la, the syllable of giving up words. The tears moving from her eyes to his is the song's one act of magic: her grief becomes his, and his grief starts smiling. The passage is the duet's hinge, where the song stops being one person's discovery and becomes two people's.

04 — ye dil kahin lagta nahin

یہ دل کہیں لگتا نہیں
کیا کہوں، میں کیا کروں
ہاں تو سامنے لا لا لا
بیٹھی رہے لا لا لا
میں تجھے دیکھا کروں
تو نے آواز دی، دیکھ میں آ گئی
پیار سے ہے بڑی کیا قسم

ये दिल कहीं लगता नहीं
क्या कहूँ, मैं क्या करूँ
हाँ तू सामने ला ला ला
बैठी रहे ला ला ला
मैं तुझे देखा करूँ
तूने आवाज़ दी, देख मैं आ गई
प्यार से है बड़ी क्या क़सम

ye dil kahin lagta nahin
kya kahoon, main kya karoon
haan tu saamne la la la
baithi rahe la la la
main tujhe dekha karoon
tune aawaaz di, dekh main aa gayi
pyaar se hai badi kya qasam

This heart is not settling anywhere. What do I say, what do I do? Yes, you in front of me, la la la, sitting there, la la la, and I keep looking at you. You called out, and look, I came. What oath is greater than love?

The song ends with the woman's answer, and the answer is the film's answer. The heart that will not settle anywhere is the heart's way of naming the place it is looking for, and the two lines about sitting and looking are the simplest picture of love in the whole song: her, in front of him, forever. The last line is the oath, qasam, and it is the biggest word the song uses: love is the oath that outranks every other, which is the film's entire argument in one line.

قسم qasam: an oath

Reading it whole

The song is built from a single moment stretched over four passages, and the stretching is the point: this is what one sight does when it is the right sight. The refrain names the discovery twice in its first two lines: pyaar hota hai deewana sanam, love happens, and it is a mad thing. The madness is not a complaint. It is the finding of the whole song, and the song celebrates the finding.

The second passage is the surrender, and it is total. Where do we go from here, the lover asks, and answers himself: let us die in your arms. The death in the arms of the beloved is the oldest image in the tradition, and Bakshi places it at the start of the relationship, not its end, which is the song's quiet joke: the first sight has already brought them to the place where love usually finishes.

The third passage is the inventory of ownership. My eyes, your dreams. My heart, your memories. Everything of mine is yours, la la la, the song sings, and the la la la is the sound of the inventory running out of words. Then the entry of the other half of the song: the woman answers. The song becomes a duet, and the duet is the film's promise, that this meeting is not one-sided.

The recording, Lata Mangeshkar and Kumar Sanu over Jatin-Lalit's tune, is one of the most played Indian recordings of the Nineties. It belongs to the sequence more than the film: the mustard fields, the yellow sari, the train. The song and the image have become each other.

Recordings

Lata Mangeshkar and Kumar Sanu

From Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), composed by Jatin-Lalit. The film version from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, with the mustard-field sequence it was written for.

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 song is from the film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), music Jatin-Lalit, lyrics Anand Bakshi. The refrain returns between passages in the recording more often than it is printed here.

Anand Bakshi died in 2002, 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 passage 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.