Yeh na thi hamari kismat ke visaley yaar hota Agar aur jeetey rehte, yahi intezaar hota Tere vade par jiye hum, toh yeh jaan, jhoot jana Ke khushi se mar na jaatey, agar aitbaar hota Koie mere dil se poochchey tere teere neemkash ko Yeh khalish kahaan se hoti, jo jigar ke paar hota Yeh kahaan ki dosti hain ke baney hain dost, naseh Koi chaarasaaz hota, koi ghamgusaar hota Huey markey hum jo rusva, huey kyoon na gharke dariya Na kabhi janaaza utatha, na kahin mazaar hota --Mirza Ghalib
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Literal translation
It was not in my fate that I should meet my lover
If I had continued living, the same anticipation would have existed
That I am living because of your promise, then know this to be untrue
I would not have died so happily, if I had any faith in you
If somebody asks my heart about your half drawn arrow
Where would this prick (or sting) come from, if it (the arrow) had crossed my heart
What kind of friendship is this that my friends have become strangers
Someone would have been healers, someone would be confidantes
Why have I died so notorious, why did I not drown in the river
Never would my funeral (coffin) have been lifted, never would there have been a tomb
-Gautam Nadkarni
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Another version
It wasn’t my destiny, else with my beloved I’d have been
Were I to live longer, still waiting for her, I’d have been
That I’ve been living because of you, forget this. This isn’t true
If I had faith in you, dead in happiness long ago I’d have been
Let someone ask my heart about your half-drawn arrow
Had it pierced my heart, no stinging in it would have been
What’s this friendship that my friends have become strangers?
I wish some as healers others as confidantes would have been
I was disgraced on death. Why didn’t I drown myself in a river?
Neither a funeral-procession nor a tomb there would have been
-Ravi Kopra
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Is Love the beginning of the knowledge of separation and the desire for union ?
Putting in own words – poet’s precious thought :
It was not my destiny that I would be united with my beloved
The longing to meet would have been there till my last breath
If I said I lived trusting you would keep your promise, that would be a lie..
If I had complete faith, would I not have died of happiness from such conviction
It was not my destiny that I would be united with my beloved..
If someone had asked my heart about your arrow that now pierces it half-way,
Its only regret is that, had it gone in all the way through,
there would be no pain at all.
It was not my destiny that my existence will not be possible without my beloved…
What is this friendship, that friends had to be estranged ?
A true friend is a confidante and a reliever of sorrows.
It was not my destiny that I would be one with my beloved…
Why was I dishonored by death ?
I would rather have drowned in a river.
No funeral procession would have taken place
Nowhere would there be a tomb to remember me.
It was not my destiny that my identity will be inseparable from my beloved…
-Roshmi Bhaumik
Link to the song Yeh na thi hamari kismat – by Jagjit Singh
A LEAF IN THE WIND 