Kabhi Kabhie...

Yash Chopra's Kabhi Kabhie is the ultimate poetic experience for me as far as nineteen seventies' Hindi cinema is concerned. Of course Pakeezah is also from the seventies and a number of other Gulzar movies would qualify as well, but this one never fails to captivate me even when I watch it now, almost forty years after its release. 

As much as the angry young man persona of Amitabh Bachchan delighted me as a child, his brooding, yearning poetic avataar haunts me as an adult even more. And as much as I love the poetry of Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shaayar Hoon and the happy version of Kabhi Kabhie, the version that Amitabh recites when he meets his long-lost college sweetheart is the one that I find absolutely arresting. The sense of desolation and emptiness that this verse conveys in such an understated manner is a ghazal at its finest for me.

When I found myself having moments like this more often than ever -- perhaps symptoms of midlife crisis -- I started paying more attention to the words in this poem. And as I looked up meanings of the Urdu words that I did not know, the verse became even more beautiful. I am no Urdu expert, but here's my attempt at decoding the lyrics for those of you who might have been stumped due to some of the Urdu words also. This search led me to rediscover Sahir Ludhianvi, the talented lyricist behind these verses, but more on that in a future post.

So first, here's a quick listing of the words that I did not fully understand previously:

• शादाब = green, हरा-भरा
• शुआ = ray of sun, ray of light
• जुस्तजू = quest, search
• सुराग = sign
• नफ़स = breath, breathing 

And now look up these words in the full verse below:

कभी कभी मेरे दिल में ख़याल आता हैं,

की ज़िन्दगी तेरी जुल्फों की नर्म छाओं में गुज़रने पाती, 

तो शादाब हो भी सकती थी

ये रंज-ओ-गम की स्याही जो दिल पे छाई है,

तेरी नज़र की शुआओं में खो भी सकती थी

मगर ये हो न सका...

मगर ये हो न सका, और अब ये आलम है -- 

की तू नहीं, तेरा गम, तेरी जुस्तजू भी नहीं,  

गुज़र रही है ज़िन्दगी ऐसे,

की इसे किसीके सहारे की आरजू भी नहीं

न कोई राह, न मंज़िल, न रौशनी का सुराग, 

भटक रही है अंधेरों में ज़िन्दगी मेरी

इन्ही अंधेरों में रह जाऊंगा कभी खोकर,

मैं जानता हूँ मेरी हमनफ़ज़,

मगर यूँही...

कभी कभी मेरे दिल में ख़याल आता हैं...

कभी कभी मेरे दिल में ख़याल आता हैं

Watch Amitabh render this verse so beautifully in this clip from Kabhi Kabhie. Fast forward to 2:00 if you are impatient and want to cut straight to the chase, but I recommend you watch the entire scene; it's only about 3 minutes long.