Shaam (Evening)

Many poets over the years have found inspiration for their poetry watching the sun go down. Evenings are an equally overwritten subject much like love and death. I would have said love and life but then Galib says –

मोहब्बत मैं नहीं है फर्क जीने और मरने का

उसीको देख कर जीते है के जिस काफिर पे दम निकलें 

(What can I say what is life and what is death and if there is any difference. For am I alive coz I am dying in love of my tormentor who doesn't believe in love)  

You see that is what my problem is these days. Each time I get down to write a piece I end up putting someone else’s thought and I realize I can never sound so profound or do justice to the subject like they did. And I can’t write anything original these days. But was I ever original?

Sometimes the realization that my thoughts are mere dust of somebody else’s ember is also comforting because that somebody is definitely far better than me. I shamelessly keep borrowing these days and I keep writing in order to search myself in my own written words. I reckon it is a long road ahead but I am in no hurry. Thus once again I have written something that is so much the Gulzar genre and I know it is a blasphemy to think I can emulate Gulzar sahib but his is an influence i can't easily shrug off and this nazm and its recitation is my offering to him (above youtube video).

Kanupriya Singh writes - “You know which part of the day is most beautiful? Evenings are beautiful. Probably the second most beautiful part of the day for someone in love; other than dead at night, when the silence underscores every act of intimacy and magnifies it tenfold. But the same evening can also be a time of suffering. If you have ever been in love and spent an evening waiting futilely for that someone, you'll know the pain it brings. Not a stabbing pain either, just a dull ache accompanied by a feeling of being deserted. Now imagine this happening to you day after day." 

This is what i have taken as a backdrop to this nazm. And here it is - 

ज़िन्दगी तो फिरभी गुज़र जाएगी,

इन तनहा शामो का क्या करू?

लूटी लुटाई बेवासी आके उतर जाति है मेरे इंक पॉट मैं हर रोज़।

लिखे हुए सारें अलफ़ाज़ फिर बेमानी लगतें है।

सुनो तुम एक काम करना,

कल शाम ओढ़े तुम आजाना।

मैं कुछ नज़्में तुम्हारें आँखों के सुरमें से लिख दूंगा।

फिर शायद उन शब्दों के मानी मिल जायें।

Illustration (in third person. Cause this is how I was taught in school J ) :

The poet say that he doesn't care for how his life will pass without his beloved lover and he knows that he will somehow scrape through life; but what should he do about these lonely evenings that come surreptitiously like a defiled widow (बेवा) and trickles down his pot of ink.

So the actual words are

ज़िन्दगी तो फिरभी गुज़र जाएगी,

इन तनहा शामो का क्या करू?

लूटी लुटाई बेवासी आके उतर जाति है मेरे इंक पॉट मैं हर रोज़

At such time during the day when all that the evening brings is a gloomy darkness he tries to write but all the words (अलफ़ाज़) look meaningless (बेमानी) 

लिखे हुए सारें अलफ़ाज़ फिर बेमानी लगतें है

The poet wants his lover to cloak (ओढ़े) herself with one such evening and come to meet him

सुनो तुम एक काम करना

कल शाम ओढ़े तुम आजाना

When on one such evening she is there with him he will try writing some poems (नज़्में) from the khol / kajal (सुरमें) of her eyes

फिर मैं कुछ नज़्में तुम्हारें आँखों के सुरमें से लिख दूंगा

May then those written words will find their meaning (माने)

फिर शायद उन शब्दों के माने मिल जायें