یوں ہی کوئی مل گیا تھا سرِ راہ چلتے چلتے Yunhi Koi Mil Gaya Tha Sar-e-Raah Chalte Chalte — Somebody Just Passed Me On The Road

Kaifi Azmi

1919– 2002

Ghazal

Somebody passed her on the road once. Nothing was arranged, nothing was said, and there were no consequences to speak of. And her night, which had been going along perfectly normally, stopped halfway down and has not moved since.

Kaifi Azmi wrote it for Pakeezah, a film that took fourteen years to finish and whose composer died before it was done. Three couplets ahead, and everything in them is caught partway through something.

01 — yunhi koi mil gaya tha sar-e-raah chalte chalte Matla · the opening

یوں ہی کوئی مل گیا تھا سرِ راہ چلتے چلتے
وہیں تھم کے رہ گئی ہے مری رات ڈھلتے ڈھلتے

यूँही कोई मिल गया था सर-ए-राह चलते चलते
वहीं थम के रह गई है मिरी रात ढलते ढलते

yunhi koi mil gaya tha sar-e-raah chalte chalte
vahin tham ke rah gai hai meri raat dhalte dhalte

Somebody just met me at the edge of the road, in passing, for no reason at all. And my night has stopped right there, partway through setting.

Yun hi means for no reason, just like that, and putting it first admits the whole disproportion before anybody can point it out. Nothing was meant by it. Then the night, which had been going down normally, stops in the middle of the movement and stays there. Not a night that will not end. A night that has stopped halfway and left her inside it.

یوں ہی yunhi: just like that; for no particular reason
سرِ راہ sar-e-raah: at the edge of the road; in passing
ڈھلنا dhalna: to decline, to set; what a night does as it goes

02 — jo kahi gai na mujh se wo zamana kah raha hai

جو کہی گئی نہ مجھ سے وہ زمانہ کہہ رہا ہے
کہ فسانہ بن گئی ہے مری بات ٹلتے ٹلتے

जो कही गई न मुझ से वो ज़माना कह रहा है
कि फ़साना बन गई है मिरी बात टलते टलते

jo kahi gai na mujh se wo zamana kah raha hai
ke fasana ban gai hai meri baat talte talte

The thing I could never get myself to say is being said by everybody now. What I kept putting off has turned into a story.

Baat is a thing said, the smallest unit of speech. Fasana is a tale, something with a shape and an audience. The couplet tracks the distance between them and names the cause: it kept being deferred. Her silence did not keep anything private. It only meant that the version now in circulation is not hers.

زمانہ zamana: the age, the times; here, everybody
فسانہ fasana: a tale, a story people tell
ٹلنا talna: to be put off, postponed, deferred

03 — shab-e-intizar aakhir kabhi hogi mukhtasar bhi

شبِ انتظار آخر کبھی ہوگی مختصر بھی
یہ چراغ بجھ رہے ہیں مرے ساتھ جلتے جلتے

शब-ए-इंतिज़ार आख़िर कभी होगी मुख़्तसर भी
ये चराग़ बुझ रहे हैं मिरे साथ जलते जलते

shab-e-intizar aakhir kabhi hogi mukhtasar bhi
ye charagh bujh rahe hain mere saath jalte jalte

Will this night of waiting ever be short, in the end? The lamps are going out beside me, having burned all the way down.

The question never gets answered, because the second line does not answer questions, it produces evidence. Jalna is to burn, and it is also what a person does with envy or with grief, so the lamps have been keeping her company in more than one sense. They started when she started. They are running out first.

شبِ انتظار shab-e-intizar: the night of waiting
مختصر mukhtasar: short, brief, cut down
جلنا jalna: to burn; also to be consumed with envy or grief

Reading it whole

Nothing in this ghazal is allowed to finish. A night halfway through setting and refusing to go the rest of the way. A word half-said that never got out. Lamps burning down but not yet out. Every line ends on a doubled verb, which in Urdu is the form for something going on and on while something else happens, and Kaifi Azmi uses it four times in six lines. The poem is stuck in the middle.

The first couplet is usually heard as romance, and it is the least romantic thing here. Yun hi, just like that, for no reason at all. A stranger crossed her path while both of them happened to be walking, and that was the entire event. Nobody intended anything, and the couplet's whole business is the gap between that and everything she has gone through since.

The second couplet gets sung so sweetly that the damage in it passes you by. She never said the thing herself, and that is exactly how it got taken away from her. The town has taken it up, a baat, a thing said, turning into a fasana, a story with a shape. Silence was supposed to keep it private. Instead it handed the telling to everybody else.

And the last couplet gives up on its own question. Will this night of waiting ever be short? Nobody says. Instead the second line turns to the lamps, burned down to nothing while she waited. They have been through the whole of it with her, and they go out ahead of her.

Ghulam Mohammed composed it for Pakeezah, and died before the film was completed. Meena Kumari, on screen, died within weeks of its release in 1972. It is very hard to hear that last couplet now without both of those facts sitting in the room.

Recordings

Lata Mangeshkar

From Pakeezah, 1972, composed by Ghulam Mohammed.

Text and rights

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

From Pakeezah, released in 1972, composed by Ghulam Mohammed.

The ghazal carries no maqta, so no couplet is signed with the poet's name.

Kaifi Azmi 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 couplet 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.