Ghalib humein na chhed ke phir josh-e-ashq se,
Baithe hain hum tahayya-e-toofaan kiye hue.
[By Mirza Ghalib]
Ghalib, tease us not again with the flood of tears,
We sit with a determination to rival the storms.
[Translated by Siyaah]
josh-e-ashq: literally josh means 'to boil', ashq=tears. There is no exact expression to capture the effect in English. "Flood of tears" has a similar idea.
tahayya-e-toofaan: tahayya=determination. One could interpret it either as a determination to face storms, or a determination as strong as that of storms - I have tried to capture both ideas with 'to rival the storms'
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4 comments:
The ghazal from which you have picked this sher was the first ghazal of Ghalib i ever read with an intent to read ghalib. A collection of good urdu poems by several poets was done by a certain Ms Nasim Mukri. The book was lying in my house around the place and one afternoon when i was pretty jobless, i picked it up and said to myself 'ok let's see whats so great about Mr. Ghalib'. this was the first poem i read and it was a case of instant love.
"phir pursish-e-jaraahat-e-dil ko chala hai ishq, saamaan-e-sad hazaar namakdaa.n kiye hue"
Nice one. Thanks for sharing...
Illusionist: It's one of my Ghalib favorites for sure- I first encountered it by listening to the version by Iqbal bano which really does justice to it...
Tap: glad you liked it. I rarely attempt to translate Ghalib here, and even then it is only one couplet at a time. A man's got to know his limitations!
Naseem Mukri whom you mention is the daughter of film comedian Mukri. She has authored several books of poetry
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