Harf
Script shown with the Urdu

زندگی میں تو سبھی پیار کیا کرتے ہیں Zindagi Mein To Sabhi Pyar Kiya Karte Hain — Everyone Loves While They Are Alive

Qateel Shifai

1919– 2001

Nazm

The first line looks straight past the person being addressed and takes in everybody else in the world. Loving somebody while you are alive, it says, is not much of an achievement. Everyone manages that.

Qateel Shifai wrote for Pakistani films for four decades and knew exactly how much weight a singer could lift off a line, which is part of why this one sounds so easy. Three stanzas ahead, all returning to the same promise. The specifics it reaches for are stranger than the promise is: a breath withheld from a creditor, a theft from the lines of a palm, a smell that stays on the skin.

01  — zindagi mein to sabhi pyar kiya karte hain

زندگی میں تو سبھی پیار کیا کرتے ہیں
میں تو مر کر بھی مری جان تجھے چاہوں گا

ज़िंदगी में तो सभी प्यार किया करते हैं
मैं तो मर कर भी मिरी जान तुझे चाहूँगा

zindagi mein to sabhi pyar kiya karte hain
main to mar kar bhi meri jaan tujhe chahunga

Everybody loves somebody while they are alive. I will go on wanting you after I am dead, my life.

The whole poem is in the two little words at the front of each line. Zindagi mein to, meaning as for during a lifetime, sets up a concession he is about to withdraw. Main to answers it. He is not claiming to love more than other people. He is claiming a longer contract, and the boast works because the first line concedes the point everybody else would have argued about.

چاہنا chahna
to want, and also to love; Urdu keeps the two in one verb

02  — tu mila hai to ye ehsaas hua hai mujh ko

تو ملا ہے تو یہ احساس ہوا ہے مجھ کو
یہ مری عمر محبت کے لیے تھوڑی ہے

तू मिला है तो ये एहसास हुआ है मुझ को
ये मिरी 'उम्र मोहब्बत के लिए थोड़ी है

tu mila hai to ye ehsaas hua hai mujh ko
ye meri umr mohabbat ke liye thodi hai

Since finding you I have realised something. This lifetime of mine is too short a supply for the loving I have to do.

Thodi is the word you use about a quantity running out, not about a duration. So the life is not brief in the tragic sense. It is insufficient, the way flour is insufficient. This is where the promise in the first section gets its justification, and it turns out to be practical.

احساس ehsaas
a feeling; a realisation you arrive at rather than are told
عمر umr
a lifetime, the span of a life

03  — ik zara sa gham-e-dauran ka bhi haq hai jis par

اک ذرا سا غمِ دوراں کا بھی حق ہے جس پر
میں نے وہ سانس بھی تیرے لیے رکھ چھوڑی ہے
تجھ پہ ہو جاؤں گا قربان تجھے چاہوں گا

इक ज़रा सा ग़म-ए-दौराँ का भी हक़ है जिस पर
मैं ने वो साँस भी तेरे लिए रख छोड़ी है
तुझ पे हो जाऊँगा क़ुर्बान तुझे चाहूँगा

ik zara sa gham-e-dauran ka bhi haq hai jis par
main ne vo saans bhi tere liye rakh chhodi hai
tujh pe ho jaunga qurban tujhe chahunga

There is one breath in me that the sorrow of the world has some small claim on. I have put even that one aside for you. I will be spent on you. I will want you.

The finest thing in the poem and it is written like bookkeeping. Gham-e-dauran is the grief that comes with being alive in a particular time, the public sorrow as against the private one, and Urdu poetry usually sets it against gham-e-jaanan, the grief of the beloved. Here it holds a haq, a legal right, over exactly one breath. He acknowledges the claim in full and defaults on it anyway.

غمِ دوراں gham-e-dauran
the sorrow of the age; the world's trouble as against your own
حق haq
a right, a rightful claim on something
قربان qurban
sacrificed, given up entirely for someone

04  — apne jazbaat mein naghmaat rachane ke liye

اپنے جذبات میں نغمات رچانے کے لیے
میں نے دھڑکن کی طرح دل میں بسایا ہے تجھے

अपने जज़्बात में नग़्मात रचाने के लिए
मैं ने धड़कन की तरह दिल में बसाया है तुझे

apne jazbaat mein naghmaat rachane ke liye
main ne dhadkan ki tarah dil mein basaya hai tujhe

So that songs would take hold inside my feelings, I have settled you in my heart the way a heartbeat lives there.

Basana is what you do when you settle people on land, found a village, make somewhere habitable. It is a word about permanence and paperwork. A heartbeat is not a guest in the heart; it is what the heart is doing. Being installed on those terms means there is no version of him left with them taken out of it.

جذبات jazbaat
feelings, emotions
نغمات naghmaat
songs, melodies
بسانا basana
to settle, to establish somewhere as a place to live

05  — main tasavvur bhi judai ka bhala kaise karun

میں تصور بھی جدائی کا بھلا کیسے کروں
میں نے قسمت کی لکیروں سے چرایا ہے تجھے
پیار کا بن کے نگہبان تجھے چاہوں گا

मैं तसव्वुर भी जुदाई का भला कैसे करूँ
मैं ने क़िस्मत की लकीरों से चुराया है तुझे
प्यार का बन के निगहबान तुझे चाहूँगा

main tasavvur bhi judai ka bhala kaise karun
main ne qismat ki lakeeron se churaya hai tujhe
pyar ka ban ke nigehban tujhe chahunga

How am I even supposed to picture being separated from you? I stole you off the lines of my own fate. I will want you, standing guard over this love.

The lines of a palm are where a life is supposed to be written down in advance, closed to appeal. Saying he took them off it makes the beloved contraband. That is also why the last line reaches for nigehban, a watchman, the person posted at a gate: what you have stolen has to be guarded, and the guarding is now part of the loving.

تصور tasavvur
imagining something, holding a picture of it in the mind
لکیر lakeer
a line; here the lines of the palm, where fate is read
نگہبان nigehban
a guard, a watchman, the one posted to keep something safe

06  — teri har chaap se jalte hain khayalon mein charagh

تیری ہر چاپ سے جلتے ہیں خیالوں میں چراغ
جب بھی تو آئے جگاتا ہوا جادو آئے

तेरी हर चाप से जलते हैं ख़यालों में चराग़
जब भी तू आए जगाता हुआ जादू आए

teri har chaap se jalte hain khayalon mein charagh
jab bhi tu aaye jagata hua jadu aaye

Every footfall of yours lights another lamp somewhere in my thoughts. Whenever you arrive, you arrive as a spell that wakes things up.

Chaap is the sound of a footstep, the noise rather than the print, so this is a poem of listening before it is a poem of seeing. One lamp per footfall means the approach is measurable, and the room gets brighter the closer they get. Nothing here has happened yet. They are still walking.

چاپ chaap
the sound of a footfall
چراغ charagh
an oil lamp

07  — tujh ko chhoo lun to phir ai jaan-e-tamanna mujh ko

تجھ کو چھو لوں تو پھر اے جانِ تمنا مجھ کو
دیر تک اپنے بدن سے تری خوشبو آئے
تو بہاروں کا ہے عنوان تجھے چاہوں گا

तुझ को छू लूँ तो फिर ऐ जान-ए-तमन्ना मुझ को
देर तक अपने बदन से तिरी ख़ुश्बू आए
तू बहारों का है 'उन्वान तुझे चाहूँगा

tujh ko chhoo lun to phir ai jaan-e-tamanna mujh ko
der tak apne badan se teri khushbu aaye
tu baharon ka hai unvaan tujhe chahunga

And when I touch you, life of my wanting, let my own body go on smelling of you for a long time afterwards. You are the word spring is written under. I will want you.

After all the talk of dying and eternity, the poem finally asks for something, and what it asks for is an hour. Not to keep them. To keep the smell. And the smell is on his own body rather than theirs, which makes it evidence rather than memory. Unvaan, the heading at the top of a page, does the last turn: the beloved is not like spring, they are the title spring appears under.

جانِ تمنا jaan-e-tamanna
life of my longing; the thing all the wanting is for
بدن badan
the body
عنوان unvaan
a title or heading; the words a thing is filed under

Reading it whole

What is on offer here has nothing to do with feeling more than anybody else does. It is a longer term. The poem concedes at the very start that everyone loves, declines to compete on intensity, and then spends the rest of itself proving that the extended offer is meant seriously. That is a strange and rather moving way to talk somebody into believing you.

One stretch of the poem is dressed as a legal document. Gham-e-dauran, the sorrow of the age, holds a claim on him, and the claim amounts to exactly one breath. Haq is a courtroom word, the kind that gets argued before a judge. He admits the debt, declines to discharge it, and spends the breath on her instead. Devotion has rarely sounded so much like fraud.

Then he confesses to a theft. Palm lines are where a life gets written out in advance, and he reached in and took her off the page. Everything about her since has carried the trace of something stolen, and a man who stole her cannot picture giving her back. You do not hand back what you took from fate.

Set against everything else in the poem, the request is tiny. A touch, and her scent staying on his skin for a while afterwards. Every promise so far has been unprovable, a contract with eternity. This is the one detail anybody could check, and it is the reason the rest of it sounds true.

Mehdi Hassan sits on the refrain until it stops sounding like a boast and starts sounding like something already decided.

Recordings

Read next

All 128 poems, A to Z

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 refrain returns after every stanza in performance, and singers repeat it more often than it is printed here.

Qateel Shifai died in 2001, 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 section 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.