Shauq har rang raqeeb sar o saman nikla

شوق، ہر رنگ رقیب سر و سامان نکلا
قیس تصور کہ پردے میں بھی عریاں نکلا
زخم نے داد نہ دی، تنگئی دل کی یا رب
تیر بھی سینہ بسمل سے پر افشاں نکلا
بوے گل، نالہ دل، دود چراغ محفل
جو تیری بزم سے نکلا، سو پریشان نکلا
دل حسرت زدہ تھا مائدہ لذّت درد
کام یاروں کا بقدر لب و دندان نکلا
تھی نو آموز فنا ہمّت دشوار پسند
سخت مشکل ہے کہ یہ کام بھی آسان نکلا
دل میں پھر گریہ نے اک شور اٹھایا غالب
آہ جو قطرہ نہ نکلا تھا، سو طوفان نکلا

Dil mera soz e nihan se be mahaba jal gaya

دل میرا سوز نہاں سے بے محابا جل گیا
آتش خاموش کی مانند گویا جل گیا
دل میں ذوق وصل و یاد یار تک باقی نہیں
آگ اس گھر کو لگے ایسی کے جو تھا جل گیا
میں عدم سے بھی پرے ہوں، ورنہ غافل بارہا
میری آہ آتشیں سے بال عنقا جل گیا
عرض کیجئے جوہر اندیشہ کی گرمی کہاں
کچھ خیال آیا تھا وحشت کا کہ صحرا جل گیا
دل نہیں تجھ کو دکھاتا ورنہ داغوں کی بہار
اس چراغاں کا کروں کیا، کار فرما جل گیا
میں ہوں اور افسردگی کی آرزو غالب کہ دل
دیکھ کر طرز تپاک اہل دنیا جل گیا

Kehte ho na den ge ham dil agar para paya

کہتے ہو نہ دیں گے ہم دل اگر پڑا پایا
دل کہاں کہ گم کیجئے؟ ہم نے مدّعا پایا
عشق سے طبعیت نے زیست کا مزہ پایا
درد کی دوا پایے، درد بے دوا پایا
دوست دار دشمن ہے! اعتماد دل معلوم
اہ بے اثر دیکھیے، نالہ نارسا پایا
سادگی و پرکاری، بے خودی و ہوشیاری
حسن کو تغافل میں، جرّات آزما پایا
غنچہ پھر لگا کھلنے، آج ہم نے اپنا دل
خون کیا ہوا دیکھا، گم کیا ہوا پایا
حال دل نہیں معلوم لیکن اس قدر یعنے
ہم نے بارہا ڈھونڈا، تم نے بارہا پایا
شور پند ناصح نے، زخم پر نمک چھڑکا
آپ سے کوئی پوچھے، تم نے کیا مزہ پایا

Juz Qais aur koi na aya baroo e kaar

جز قیس اور کوئی نہ آیا بروے کار
صحرا، مگر بہ تنگئی چشم حسود تھا
آشفتگی نے نقش سویدا کیا درست
ظاہر ہوا کے داغ کا سرمایا دود تھا
تھا خواب میں خیال کو تجھ سے معاملہ
جب آنکھ کھل گیئ نہ زیاں تھا نہ زود تھا
لیتا ہوں مکتب غم دل میں سبق ہنوز
لیکن یہی کے ‘رفت’ گیا، اور ‘بود’ تھا
ڈھانپا کفن نے داغ عیوب برھنگے
میں ورنہ ہر لباس میں ننگ وجود تھا
تیشے بغیر مر نہ سکا کوہکن اسد
سر گشتہ خمار رسم و قیود تھا

Naqsh faryadi hai kiski shokhi e tehreer ka

نقش فریادی ہے کس کی شوخی تحریر کا
کاغذی ہے پیرہن ہر پیکر تصویر کا !
کاو کاو سخت جانی ہاے تنہائی نہ پوچھ
صبح کرنا شام کا لانا ہے جوے شیر کا
جذبہ بے اختیار شوق دیکھا چاہیے
سینہ شمشیر سے باہر ہے دم شمشیر کا
آگہی، دام شنیدن جس قدر چاہے بچھاۓ
مدعاعنقا ہے اپنے عالم تقریر کا
بس کہ ہوں غالب اسیری میں بھی آتش زیر پا
موے آتش دیدہ ہے، حلقہ میری زنجیر کا

Akhri Khat – Woh waqt meri jan bahut duur nahin hai

وہ وقت میری جان بہت دور نہیں ہے
جب درد سے رک جاینگے سب زیست کی راہیں
اور حد سے گزر جاےگا اندوہ نہانی
تھک جاینگی ترسی ہوئی ناکام نگاہیں
چھن جاینگے مجھ سے میرے آنسو میری آہیں
چھن جاےگی مجھ سے میری بیکار جوانی

شاید میری الفت کو بہت یاد کرو گی
اپنے دل معصوم کو ناشاد کرو گی
آؤ گی میری گور پہ تم اشک بہانے
نوخیز بہاروں کے حسین پھول چڑھانے

شاید میری تربت کو بھی ٹھکرا کے چلو گی
شاید میری بےسود وفاؤں پہ ہنسو گی
اس وضح کرم کا بھی تمہیں پاس نہ ہوگا
لیکن دل ناکام کو احساس نہ ہوگا

ال قصّہ مال غم الفت پہ ہنسو تم
یا اشک بہاتی رہو فریاد کرو تم
ماضی پہ ندامت ہو تمہیں یا کے مسرت
خاموش پڑا سوۓ گا درماندہ الفت

Husn marhoone joshe baadae nayaz

حسن مرہون جوش بادہ ناز
عشق منّت کش فسوں نیاز
دل کا ہر تار لرزش پیہم
جان کا ہر رشتہ، وقف سوز و گداز
سوزش درد دل کسے معلوم
کون جانے کسی کہ عشق کا راز
میری خاموشیوں میں لرزاں ہے
مرے نالوں کی گمشدہ آواز
ہو چکا عشق اب ہوس ہی سہی
کیا کریں فرض ہے اداے نماز
تو ہے اور اک تغافل پیہم
میں ہوں اور انتظار بے انداز
خوف ناکامی امید ہے فیض
ورنہ دل توڑ دے، طلسم مجاز

Khuda woh waqt na laye

The first poem in Faiz series from his first book – “Naqsh faryadee”
خدا وہ وقت نہ لاۓ کہ سوگوار ہو تو
سکون کی نیند تجھے بھی حرام ہو جائے
تیری مسّرت پیہم تمام ہو جائے
تیری حیات تجھے تلخ جام ہو جائے
غموں سے آئینہ دل گداز ہو تیرا
ہجوم یاس سے بیتاب ہو کے رہ جائے
وفور درد سے سیماب ہو کے رہ جائے
تیرا شباب فقط خواب ہو کے رہ جائے
غورو حسن سراپا نیاز ہو تیرا
طویل راتوں میں تو بھی قرار کو ترسے
تیری نگاہ کسی غمگسار کو ترسے
خزاں رسیدہ تمنا بہار کو ترسے
کوئی جبیں نہ تیرے سنگ آستاں پہ جھکے
کہ جنس عجز و عقیدت سے تجھ کو شاد کرے
فریب وعدہ فردا پہ اعتماد کرے
خدا وہ وقت نہ لیے کے تجھ کو یار ہے
وہ دل کے تیرے لئے بے قرار اب بھی ہے
وہ آنکھ جس کو تیرا انتظار اب بھی ہے

Urdu poetry online

برو اے عقل و منہ منطق و حکمت درپیش
کے میرا نسخہ غم، ہاے فلاں درپیش است

Urdu poetry, especially that of the masters, is art and beauty at its best. The language has an inherent romance and passion in it, which shines through in all forms of communication, especially in poetry. Unfortunately, the “Deewan” or the collected works of most Urdu poets are not available readily in North America. The internet sites mostly have a few poems per poet at best.

So, after searching for ghazals repetitively with no luck, I actually went out and purchased some works of poetry. And, I think I would post them online as well, just in case some other people are looking for them. It is an ongoing process and hence would be somewhat slow.. but eventually, it would be done.

I would start off with two of my favorite poets – Meerzah Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

Musing

When relationships crumble and come to an end, how ugly and uncomfortable they become. Just like someone took a blooming rose, full of life and color, and drained it off its vivacity, so now it looks brown and crumbles in your hand when touched, leaving nothing but dust of times gone by behind. It even loses its perfume – it is ugly, haggard, a frightening memoir of the past.

Rain rain go to Spain

“Aasmaan girya karta hai!! “,( Even the sky weeps in this city!!)  These were the comments of a friend I once heard as she expressed her distaste for Vancouver and its seemingly incessant drizzle.
Maybe the monotony of the drizzle and the gloom that prevails has tarnished her idea of rain .. but thousands of miles away on the other side of the coast, I still love rain, even when I feel as if the sky is crying its heart out.
It reminds me of times long gone by, with memories as crisp as the red leaves during Fall in Toronto. For instance, I remember, as if it was yesterday, how the mango trees in our back yard looked when I was about 3 or 4. I can feel the rhythm as I swung up and down on the little red swing my parents had kindly installed on the porch, as I looked out at those trees and the skies. There were a lot of ravens in those mango trees. They made a lot of rukkus after the rain, and they destroyed the fruit. We let them be, it was their territory.
Rain in Pakistan came in two flavors. The gentle and sparse rains of the winter, and the flood causing torrential rains of the monsoon. But far up in the Northwestern plains, the two often seemed to have similar characteristics; the Indus never flooded even during the Monsoon, and the winter rains were always foggy and never gentle. To top it off, my parents moved houses like no others. My rains became memoirs of every house I had lived in, the perspective dependent on the few years I had spent in that house and neighborhood. Once we moved into a ‘Muhallah’ for a short period of time; Pakistan’s version of “traditional” neighborhoods. We had a playground next to the house , well just an empty space with grass in it that the kids used as a playground. As always, it was about 10 ft deeper than the streets surrounding it, so during every rain it became a lake / swimming pool. The kids stood on the corners wishing their parents would let em jump in and have some fun – It never happened. That house also had a mulberry tree – and it always grew purple plump mulberries which were always out of the reach of a small 8 year old.  One rainstorm, it fell down and my mother asked someone to clear the mess. However, as it lay on the ground, my sister Jaweria and I, and some rowdy kids from the street had our share of mulberries, even the ones on the very top branches. That was our revenge!
Finally, my parents decided to settle down in one house and hence, the biggest share of my rain memories comes from the house we live in for past 14 years. Summer rains didn’t come alone in my home town, they brought thunder, lightening  and stormy winds with them. And they had a tendency to start at the worst of times. For instance, right about when me and Jaweria had dragged every medical instrument in the house, as well as drugs marked with “Physcian’s sample not for sale” outside to play “Hospital”, thunder would start and we would get afraid. Jaweria was happy I guess, she didn’t have to be subjected to forced check ups and syrups I forced down her throat. Among the two of us, she ended up going to medical school. I never quiet comprehended the irony.  And sometimes, the skies would get dark and the wind louder as soon as our parents were out of the house and we were alone. Each summer, a few of our eucalyptus and poplar trees went down due to thunderstorms. I never understood why our lane and house had so many to begin with, from the 5ft tall ones to the ones above 50 ft. But everything was always so beautiful after the rain. Even if the trees had fallen,  power lines damaged, we were always happy that the small water canals in the lawn were full of rain water, and our paper boats swam beautifully in them.
Have you ever noticed how the rain makes all colors brighter? Or maybe it was just true of the pomegranate blossoms, so starkly red against the dark green of the leaves. They were always beautiful. I was just sad at how many of them fell during the storm – that meant a lot less fruit, a lot less monkey business on the pomegranate trees.  It was always a bittersweet moment.
The memories continue – from north west to the east , across the border from Amritsar.  I would never forget, nor would anyone who made the mistake of coming in that day, a fine fall morning of 2002. We had just started 2nd year and were very happy to see each other after the entire summer break. Not to mention, we were ecstatic about “ragging” the new comers to the school i.e. the 11th graders.  By 8 o clock that morning, the sky was falling down in liquid form on the city of Lahore. Every single person in my class, looked like a wet rag, thanks to the 10 min run from college gate to the “science” block and our classroom. That morning saw some very interesting scenes. For instance, a class room full of women,  every 2 of them holding a dupatta between them, which they moved up and down. On close inspection, one would notice that this was to make it dry and to aerate it with the aid of the excruciatingly slow ceiling fans of the old science block. No matter how drenched we were, we were thankful the rain kept our professors at home, and we spent the entire day waltzing around the school, gossiping and eating Dahi bhale from ‘Open air’ or Chicken Roll from the “PC”.
Almost a decade later, and thousands of miles west, I still love rain. In Toronto, it seems to be evasive, as evasive as the moods of this city. You will see sunny skies, and the next moment you would be drenched. Then a rainbow will find its way across Finch Ave West, right smack in the middle of the city.  In those moments the city is beautiful, almost surreal, like the rains I remember. The only difference is, the cherry blossoms have replaced the pomegranate blossoms, and instead of paper boats and skipping, I have taken to sipping cappuccino as I look out of the window at the rain.

Ah Engineers!!!

I think it all got triggered when Milad sent that note which was supposed to help us figure out if were indeed engineer-ish. So i I wilfully clicked on that link and in 3 seconds was laughing like anything… its strange how your own bizarre attitudes can be so amusing.. and its not only me — its all those people i know around me who have some of these qualities.. such as

At Christmas, it goes without saying that you will be the one to find the burnt-out bulb in the string of Christmas lights <– yeeep!!!

The Salespeople at Circuit City can’t answer any of your questions <– sadly ! (i can see so many techy heads nodding right now!!)

You go on the rides at Disneyland and sit backwards in the chairs to see how they do the special effects <— lol..this one really killed me. i did not realize I do this..until i read thisss…

and this one is a tribute to swats - You see a good design and still have to change it

but email-jokes apart..i started thinking if this was really true. was there some twisted reasn behind all of us selecting this field and then banging our heads on our computer screens…

so yesterday..me and Chris (a colleague/friend) were playing with Vista — finding bugs and complaining about software when somehow the conversation turned to video games. I remember as a young kid I had this reallly old nintendo on which me and sister used to play Mario all day long… along with the Mario — it had another dumb game called duck hunt which, well which mostly 3 years old played. However, it had a cheap gun which one could use to point and shoot at ducks on the screen as they appeared.. and it had, well, good precision!

However what is hilarious is, that 5 mins into the conversation and Chris confessed that since he had that game he has been wondering how do they do it. Unfortunately,me too! Now we did come up with some pretty groovy ideas so as to how it could have been done, maybe googling it would help further… but what I cannot get over is … 2 6-7 years old NOT playing duck hunt, but thinking about how the gun works…

somebody help!!!!

I stay awake and write this poem ..

Its surprising what stuff one comes around when one is, well, cleaning! Whether the cleaning ritual is of your room, your diaries or your inbox, I always come across stuff that makes me go either what on earth were you thinking!  or something like Remember when I used to be that stupid!

well, I came across this today, and if I remember correctly I wrote this while I was either a senior in school or a freshman after receiving news about a school-mate’s accidental death. It certainly doesnt deserve any merit, but after all these years, its somewhat interesting to come across this

 In the dead of the night
Amidst the silence of the leaves and ashes of the eve
Lstening to the sounds of click beetles
 Humming along with the noisy crickets
Mourning for many a moth’s demise
Shadowed by a veiled, hushed darkness
I stay awake and write this poem

Fumbling wid letters, words, emotions
As rusty as we’ ve grown to be
With vain tries to re-kindle that lost fire
With loads of gruesome effort
My head a jumble of dancing figures….shapes…
Dazed!!
Still I stay awake and write this poem

Listen the sounds of the distant bells?
The merry bells of a wedding…
Ringing leagues away.
The muffled laughter of merry comrades
A slumber party maybe?
While you are annoyed by the bored yawns of a younger sibling
Too much life in those young limbs to rest..
And another one gets ready to meet the end
To bite the dust and be the dust
While I stay awake and write this poem.

once upon a time we were all poetic teen-agers and then we realized what we couldnt do..

Le parole di amore

I dont know what to say about these, except these are the most touching, passionate and deep statements of love I have ever read or even come across. So here goes, from my memory/books to the blog

Wuthering Heights (Heathcliff, when Nelly tells him Cathy is dead)

May she wake in torment!’ he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. ‘Why, she’s a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there – not in heaven – not perished – where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer – I repeat it till my tongue stiffens – Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you – haunt me, then! The murdered DO haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!’

The Woodlanders (Marty on the grave of Giles Winterborne)

 ”Now, my own, own love,” she whispered, “you are mine, and on’y  mine; for she has forgot ‘ee at last, although for her you died. But I–whenever I get up I’ll think of ‘ee, and whenever I lie down I’ll think of ‘ee.  Whenever I plant the young larches I’ll think that none can plant as you planted; and whenever I split a gad, and whenever I turn the cider-wring, I’ll say none could do it like you.  If ever I forget your name, let me forget home and Heaven!–But no, no, my love, I never can forget ‘ee; for you was a GOOD man, and did good things!”

The small coincidences in life

It is odd how some seemingly small events can change what path your life takes. I have been helping with orientations ever since I joined school and at each orientation we hear from the Dean and the academic advisor for the faculty of science and school of engineering. Our dean once told this story which is so remarkable, it is set in my mind.

Dean of science is a biologist, and she told us that when she joined college some decades ago, she took an elective called something like ‘principles of logic’ or ‘logical reasoning’.  The first day she went to the class, the professor came in and started going on and on about predicates and leibniz and stuff that did not make sense to her at all. while everyone else was taking notes vigorously, she was getting confused. so after class she enquired about the class from the guy sitting next to her and realized that the class was NOT an English logical reasoning class, unfortunately it was a mathematical logic class.

and after 5 years… the guy sitting next to her became her husband

— i wonder how many people who we meet like this .. the small events in our life..actually turn out to be milestones.