وہ جو ہم میں تم میں قرار تھا Vo Jo Ham Mein Tum Mein Qaraar Tha — That Understanding There Was Between Us

That understanding there was between us — whether you remember it or not. That promise, I mean, to see it through — whether you remember it or not.

He starts with the most formal item on the list and then corrects himself mid-couplet. Vahi yaani, that is to say, as though qarar were too vague and he wants the specific thing named. What he settles on is the promise to keep going. That is what the whole poem is about, and he gets it out of the way first.

قرار qarar

an agreement, a settled understanding

نباہ nibah

seeing a thing through, keeping it up

Those kindnesses you showed me, that generosity towards my condition — I remember all of it, every smallest piece, whether you remember it or not.

The one couplet where he says what is in his own head, and he says it in the most emphatic way available: zara zara, bit by bit. Everywhere else the remembering is left to her. Here he puts his on the record once, and after this you can feel exactly how one-sided the arrangement is.

لطف lutf

kindness, favour

کرم karam

generosity

Those fresh reproaches, those complaints, those delicious stories, the sulking over every little thing — whether you remember it or not.

Look at what he has picked. Not vows or crises but friction: the reproaches, the sulks, the small manufactured grievances. Maze maze ki hikayaten, stories told for the pleasure of telling them. He is remembering the texture of being around somebody, which is the part that goes first.

گلے gile

reproaches

حکایت hikayat

a tale, a story

روٹھنا ruthna

to sulk, to take offence

Sometimes, sitting face to face in company, the whole conversation carried on in signals — that open declaration of longing, whether you remember it or not.

The couplet contradicts itself. The talking is done in secret signs, and it is also barmala, out in the open. Both are true. Nobody in the room could decode it, and to the two of them nothing was being hidden at all. That is the exact feeling of a private understanding held in public, and it takes him one line.

اشارات isharat

signs, gestures

برملا barmala

openly, in plain view

If we happened to meet, then to keep proving your devotion, over and over, complaints about the scolding of relatives — whether you remember it or not.

Here he is sceptical for the first time. Vafa jatane ko, to make a show of faithfulness, suggests the complaints about disapproving relatives were doing a job. They proved the risk she was running, and therefore how much she cared. He is remembering the performance, and letting you see that he knew.

وفا جتانا vafa jatana

to make a display of one's faithfulness

ملامت malamat

reproach, blame

اقربا aqriba

relatives, kin

If anything ever happened that struck you badly, forgetting it before it had even been spoken — whether you remember it or not.

A small piece of generosity, remembered exactly. Whatever went wrong was dropped before it reached words. And the refrain does something wicked here, because the thing being remembered is an act of forgetting, so it hardly matters whether she has kept it or not.

بیان bayan

the saying of a thing, its statement

Once there was love between us. Once there was a way open between us. Once we too were close — whether you remember it or not.

Three flat statements, each beginning with kabhi, once. No detail, nothing to picture. After six couplets crowded with specifics he suddenly gives you nothing but the fact that it happened, and the bareness lands all by itself. Ashna is the word he will come back to in the last couplet.

چاہ chaah

love, desire

آشنا ashna

close, familiar, an intimate

Listen — this concerns something several years back. You once made a promise. Never mind keeping it — whether you remember it or not.

He lowers the bar in the middle of the line and you can hear him doing it. Keeping the promise is dropped from the conversation entirely, and all he is asking after now is whether the promise itself is still on file. Suno, listen, is the only time in the poem he tries to get her attention.

نباہنا nibahana

to keep a promise, to see it through

I said that business of the rooftop had gone clean out of my heart. You said, what do I care — whether you remember it or not.

The most novelistic couplet here, and he refuses to explain any of it. Something happened on a roof and we are not told what. He announces he is over it, which is a way of raising it, and she declines to be drawn. Jaane miri bala is a dismissal with a shrug in it, and it is the only line in the poem where she speaks.

کوٹھا kotha

a rooftop

جانے میری بلا jaane miri bala

what do I care, to hell with it

That quarrelling on the night of union, that refusing everything, that no, no offered at every moment as a charm — whether you remember it or not.

He calls the refusals an ada, a grace, a practised mannerism, which reclassifies the whole night. The nos were style rather than rejections, and both of them knew it at the time. It is the couplet that opens the door on the night itself, and he still keeps it light.

وصل vasl

union, meeting

ادا ada

a charming mannerism, a graceful way of doing a thing

The one you counted an intimate, the one you called faithful — I am that same afflicted Momin, whether you remember it or not.

His takhallus is also an ordinary word: a momin is a believer, one who keeps faith. So the last line says he is the man she knew and that he is still the one keeping it, in the same breath, without appearing to claim anything. Then mubtala, afflicted, caught, admits what that has cost, and the refrain takes it all back one final time.

با وفا ba-vafa

faithful, true

مبتلا mubtala

afflicted, caught in something