I just re-read this poem by Gulzar… मैं जितनी भी ज़बाने बोल सकता हूँ
Perhaps you have read it too… In my opinion, it may be one of the subtlest expressions of the human condition in general. By ‘expression’, I mean the outpouring of one’s helplessness in the face of life’s meanness and cruelty.
I think the most poignant line of the poem is this: “पढ़ा लिखा अगर होता ख़ुदा अपना” This one line, I believe, single-handedly captures all the anguish felt by all humanity in all time! I don’t think the specific language used to express that anguish really matters! Language is after all a medium, and the medium doesn’t matter to the Divine or the Brahman! है ना? Perhaps this is what Gulzar laments about in the poem and captures in the title – “मैं जितनी भी ज़बाने बोल सकता हूँ “ It shouldn’t matter which one the 6000+ languages in the known world one uses, the message remains the same! “Help! ” Come to think of it, it shouldn’t matter which one of the billions of worlds in the universe the call is coming from either…
However, the real question is “is there someone listening in the first place!” Being literate or otherwise is a secondary issue. If He is not listening, then, what’s the point! Perhaps He is really “निर्गुण” (nirgun)! Perhaps deaf!
I am tempted to post the entire poem here in hindi or urdu for your benefit, but due to the likely copyright restrictions, I will only post a humble translation as I understood the nazm!
“However many tongues I may speak All have been tried… He understands none, Neither a nod nor an acknowledging grunt ! Perhaps he thinks – Only angels should read it to him, Sometimes I write some sher by ‘Ghalib’ on the Moon Either He washes it off or takes a nibble and [spits] it out If only He were literate… We could at least correspond even if we cannot converse!”
A lovely song from an old Raj Kapoor film, “Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai.” A lively duet with Padmini – you all remember Padmini, right, from Mera Naam Joker? Remember the song मोरे अंग लग जा बालमा? Most memorable! Anyways, back to the बेगानी song. Growing up in Hyderabad in the 60’s we used to hear it all over the place all the time – weddings, festivals, Irani restaurants, you name it. It is really a fun song, go ahead, listen to it (there is a link at the top) and judge for yourself!
The interesting thing is that those days we didn’t really understand the lyrics very much, especially the first misra – बेगानी शादी में अब्दुल्ला दीवाना. We never quite understood who this Abdulla was, why he was at this wedding, and what he was doing there. But we didn’t really care, we just sang along and had fun. Care-free days!
Quite some time later, I remember stumbling upon the meaning of that line, but never really paused to ponder. Kept going, since life had me on call. Turns out, the line actually is a मुहावरा, meaning, to paraphrase the former US Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, “to feel irrationally exuberant about things irrelevant.”
Let’s fast forward a few, well, maybe more than a few, years…On this particular weekend, I was home browsing through my collection of old songs (I may have close to a couple of thousand songs in there, thanks to iTunes) when I found that old song again! Elated, I started playing it, musing over the past. I was a young boy in Hyderabad again. I replayed it a couple more times, and as I started to replay it again, out of the blue, the lyrics just shot out and punched me right in the face! The words were speaking to me and were telling me that ओ अब्दुल्ला में हूँ और ओ शादी जो है बेशक मेरी खुदकी ज़िन्दगी है!
You see, I am a telecommuter and consider myself lucky to be still working. At my age, that is. The empty nest that is our home is also my office. My better half works too, but she has a regular office job. The kids have long since flown the nest…which leaves me alone at home all day. Listening to music keeps me going most days, especially classic old songs and ghazals.
I do have some live company, luckily, in the way of none other than good old Milo. A great conversationalist he is not, but he is a good listener and appears to be a critic of sorts. When I start talking to him, and I do that a lot, he tilts his head first one way and then the other, with a confused and curious look as if he wished that I made better sense. He is also very energetic; I don’t know where he gets all that energy! All in all, an all-around great guy! Look at the way he is posing for the picture, doesn’t he look gorgeous?
Perhaps you think I am rambling, but the reason behind it really is to paint a quick portrait of where I am in life. I have no huge responsibilities anymore. The kids are out of the house…I miss the days when the constant refrains used to be, “daddy, I don’t want this”, “daddy I want that”, “daddy can we…”, etc. None of that anymore. In school, they selected their own majors, they finished college without asking for a penny from me, and found jobs without needing any advice. Now it appears they even found their potential life partners by themselves – no mom and dad involved. On the one hand, we are proud how independent and self-sufficient they turned out. Perhaps we did something right in their formative years after all. The flip side of all that pride is the silence that surrounds me now.
My job doesn’t seem to be help very much either, although it is fine, I think, as far as jobs go. It pays the bills and keeps Kwashiorkor’s at bay, but it’s the kind of job that anyone can do. I contribute nothing unique. Maybe that’s why I am trying to fill the boredom with memories of my childhood. And I see myself doing that more often than I used to, much more often. I wonder if it’s a conscious effort on my part or something natural, like the evening shadows that grow and grow until the night of irrelevance swallows them. Kind of reminds me of an old Bakshi-Burman gem ज़िन्दगी अये ज़िन्दगी (a haunting tune, by the way).
Isn’t this is how fossils and coral reefs come about – all those minerals insidiously seeping in over a lifetime until all that is left in the end is the mineral and the host is history?
The whole point is this growing sense of irrelevance!
कभी कभी लगता है के मैं एक पढ़ी हुवी किताब हूँ जो अब अल्मारी के शेल्फ पर से सदा तरसती है के फिर मुझे यहां से उठाकर पढ़नेवाला और कोई है
या
मैं सालों से वही बचपन वाली आंखमिचौली खेल रहा हूँ लेकिन अब पता लग रहा है के कोई दोस्त मुझे ढूंढ नहीं रहा
And so it will go on I guess.
मैं ओ अब्दुल्ला हूँ जिसकी बन रही है ज़िन्दगी दिन ब दिन बेगानी पता नहीं के इस बेमक़सत बेगानी ज़िन्दगी में कर रहा हूँ क्या.
Jhoombaraabar jhoom 