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Dec 2013 · 1.3k
Distitches of Ghalib
Musings123 Dec 2013
To be one with my beloved was not my destiny.
Had I continued living longer, it'd have been the same waiting!    

2. I lived on your promise, thus-beloved, I knew it to be false.
For would not have I died of happiness, in case- I had faith!

3. Your delicacy made me understood that you have made a loose pledge.
You could have never broken it, had it been firm!

4. O’ someone should ask my heart about your half-drawn arrow.
Where would this pricking have arisen from, had it pierced the liver!

5. What kind of friendship is it, that friends have become critics.
If there had been someone as healer, if there had been an assuager of grief!  

6. Blood would’ve unceasingly dripped from the veins of stone,
Had it, which you are considering grief, been a spark!

7. Grief is, invariably, life-consuming; still one cannot escape as 'tis a matter of passions!
Had there been no grief of love, there would've been sufferings of livelihood!

8. To whom would I confide that the distressing night is a severe catastrophe!
Would death be bad for me if I died once and only once!

9. Since my dying disgraced me-- why wasn’t I drowned in the river?
Neither my bier would ever have been carried, nor would anywhere be a tomb.

10. Who would ever be able to see Him, for unique is His Oneness!
If there had been even a sign of twoness, somewhere He’d have been encountered!

11. These inquiries into mysticism, this eloquence of yours, Ghalib!
We would’ve regarded you to be a saint, had you not been a wine-drinker
Translated from the original Urdu verse of Ghalib written around 1857.
Jul 2013 · 1.0k
The Alms of Beauty
Musings123 Jul 2013
Such is the state of your glory that if thought would be given;
It would make the impudence of the heart a pilgrimage place of amazement!

                                           ~~~~~~~

O Manifestation of Perspicacity, bestow on me the alms of Beauty:
That like the sun a begging bowl may be the lamp of dervish's house!
my translations of the 19th century Urdu poet of India, Ghalib.
Jul 2013 · 547
Heat of Passion
Musings123 Jul 2013
Such a heat of passion is the desire that once again, like a candle,
flame demands running down the fragments, as far as the live pulse!
my translation of a couplet by the 19th century Urdu poet, Mirza Ghalib.
Jul 2013 · 687
Self-alienatiom
Musings123 Jul 2013
Thou art my wife,my mother,my babe.
Thou art the mad mosaic of my cradle song.
Thou art my soul's familiar friend.

None deserves to be my destination
Except thee.
Thou art Being and Non-Being of the self of mine
Which is thine
Seated inside thine heart.
I am thy slave,o thou,
Myself who art entirely.
Thine is the kingdom of my thoughts.

Thou hast made me everlasting,
Altering and transforming,
Like thee,never constant.
For thee i have kept the Water of Life.
Thou who hast gone after the I Ching
Like a Chinese fascination of beauty and wisdom.
Verily,thou along with me,
Hast gone after the form.

O Loved One,
Thou hast embraced the reality
That thou canst find in mere assertion.
My love is my life
That i have sought for years.
Although in essence it is nothingness
As the Taoist vessel,
As the quintessence of the utmost Way_
Vast and vague,without shape.

Regard me not from my infirmity.
O' why dost thou make my thoughts frail
Beneath which are six rivers
Of Love and Faith,
Mystery and Secret,Yin and Yang.
Thou art my babe inside my womb
Who hast hundreds and thousands of names
In this far stretching expanse
Of non-existence and nothingness.

Thou art my embryo,
Bowed in worship inside my womb.
I often feel within me
Mine divine bowing performance.

Verily,thou art near me.
Verily,thou art within me.
Verily,thine is
The realm of my existence.
Jul 2013 · 1.0k
Untitled
Musings123 Jul 2013
1.  The moment my beloved asked me, "How does one lose his mind?"
     Being mindful of my selflessness, the wind blow -- "Like this"!

2. It is never more than a single glance- the leisure of existence !
    The cheers of the assemblage exist until a dance of the spark!

3. She, having come into my dreams, could at least give comfort to my restlessness!
    But, only if the convulsions in my heart could give me an opportunity to sleep!!

4. You asserted that why would there be disgrace in seeing a stranger!
    Rightly you remark, truly you speak; do say it again, for why would there be!

5. My heart had made an offering for the appearance I so longed for!
    But upon reflection, the strength of my vision weakened and then vanished!
Yet another translation of the verses by Mirza Ghalib.
The genre of poetry that achieved its sublimity and artistic brilliance by the creativity of Ghalib is called ghazal, a highly aristocratic, classical and rigid form of poetry that was introduced in the Urdu language through Persian. Ghazal, the voice of a passionate lover, is a set of four to eight or more semantically independent distiches (two-line verses) in the same meter that have varying subject matters, style, and mood. These distiches are aptly described by Sir William Jones as "Oriental pearls at random strung." Ghazal, having close analogies to Arabic poetry, is considered by Christopher Shackle as one of the most striking examples of those “successful cultural artifacts, consisting of a seemingly infinitely adaptable combination of essentially simple elements, which are so characteristic of the Persianate civilization of the eastern Islamic world” (Shackle, para.1). Ghalib’s ghazals are replete with concrete and kinesthetic imagery, majestic rhythm, and diffusion of vital, liberal cultures of Iran and Central Asia.
These  couplets are meant to be read as independent units.
Jun 2013 · 577
The madness of passion
Musings123 Jun 2013
Ah, well-away, the madness of passion, that me everlastingly
treading there on my own, and being bewildered all by myself!
This is my translation of a couplet written in Urdu by a 19th century Indian poet, Mirza Ghalib.

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