Be-Khudi Be-Sabab Nahin Ghalib — Mirza Ghalib
Table of Contents
phir kuchh ek dil ko be-qarari hai
sina juya-e-zaKHm-e-kari hai
phir jigar khodne laga naKHun
aamad-e-fasl-e-lala-kari hai
qibla-e-maqsad-e-nigah-e-niyaz
phir wahi parda-e-amari hai
chashm dallal-e-jins-e-ruswai
dil KHaridar-e-zauq-e-KHwari hai
wahi sad-rang nala-farsai
wahi sad-gona ashk-bari hai
dil hawa-e-KHiram-e-naz se phir
mahsharistan-e-be-qarari hai
jalwa phir arz-e-naz karta hai
roz bazar-e-jaan-sipari hai
phir usi bewafa pe marte hain
phir wahi zindagi hamari hai
phir khula hai dar-e-adalat-e-naz
garm-bazar-e-faujdari hai
ho raha hai jahan mein andher
zulf ki phir sirishta-dari hai
phir diya para-e-jigar ne sawal
ek fariyaad o aah-o-zari hai
phir hue hain gawah-e-ishq talab
ashk-bari ka hukm-jari hai
dil o mizhgan ka jo muqaddama tha
aaj phir us ki ru-bakari hai
be-KHudi be-sabab nahin ‘ghaalib’
kuchh to hai jis ki parda-dari hai
Sher 1 #
پھر کچھ اک دل کو بے قراری ہے
سینہ جویائے زخمِ کاری ہے
سینہ جویائے زخمِ کاری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| phir | phir | again |
| be-qarari | be-qarari | restlessness, agitation |
| sina | sina | chest, breast |
| juya | juya | seeking, in search of |
| zaKHm-e-kari | zaKHm-e-kari | a deep wound, a mortal wound (kari = fatally effective) |
The ghazal opens with *phir* — again. The heart is restless again, and the chest is actively seeking not comfort but a deep wound. This is not passive suffering; the chest goes looking for the wound that will finish it. The desire for pain as proof of feeling is Ghalib's recurring theme, and here it announces itself in the very first line. Fourteen shers will unfold from this single word: *again*.
Sher 2 #
پھر جگر کھودنے لگا ناخن
آمدِ فصلِ لالہ کاری ہے
آمدِ فصلِ لالہ کاری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| jigar | jigar | liver; in Urdu, the seat of pain and passion |
| khodne laga | khodne laga | has begun to dig, to gouge |
| naKHun | naKHun | nail, fingernail |
| aamad | aamad | arrival, coming |
| fasl | fasl | season, harvest |
| lala-kari | lala-kari | tulip-planting, the season of tulips |
The nails begin digging into the liver again — a visceral image of self-inflicted passion. But Ghalib frames it as a season: the arrival of tulip-planting time. The tulip (*lala*) in classical Urdu poetry is the flower of blood and wound — its red bloom carries the mark of fire in its heart. To say the nails are digging is to say spring has come, the season of wounding has returned, as naturally and inevitably as a harvest.
Sher 3 #
قبلہ مقصدِ نگاہِ نیاز
پھر وہی پردہ عماری ہے
پھر وہی پردہ عماری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| qibla | qibla | the direction of prayer; here, the object of devotion |
| maqsad | maqsad | purpose, object, aim |
| nigah-e-niyaz | nigah-e-niyaz | the gaze of supplication, a pleading look |
| parda-e-amari | parda-e-amari | the curtain of the amari (a covered litter/palanquin carried on an elephant) |
The direction toward which a supplicating gaze is aimed — the qibla of devotion — is once again the curtain of the beloved's palanquin. The beloved travels veiled, unseen, only the curtain visible. And yet that curtain is the entire destination of the poet's longing. This is worship directed not at a face but at a veil — the inaccessibility itself has become the object of prayer.
Sher 4 #
چشم دلّالِ جنسِ رسوائی
دل خریدارِ ذوقِ خواری ہے
دل خریدارِ ذوقِ خواری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| chashm | chashm | eye |
| dallal | dallal | broker, tout, go-between |
| jins-e-ruswai | jins-e-ruswai | the merchandise of disgrace, the goods of dishonour |
| dil | dil | heart |
| KHaridar | KHaridar | buyer, purchaser |
| zauq-e-KHwari | zauq-e-KHwari | the taste for abasement, the pleasure of humiliation |
A market transaction described with precise cruelty. The eye is the broker — it spots the beloved and brokers the deal. The merchandise being sold is disgrace. And the heart is an eager buyer with a taste for humiliation. Ghalib is not lamenting this arrangement; he is describing it with the detached accuracy of someone who has observed it in himself too many times to be surprised. The heart buys what ruins it, and it does so willingly.
Sher 5 #
وہی صد رنگ نالہ فرسائی
وہی صد گونہ اشک باری ہے
وہی صد گونہ اشک باری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sad-rang | sad-rang | a hundred colours, of every variety |
| nala-farsai | nala-farsai | the wearing out of laments, incessant wailing |
| sad-gona | sad-gona | a hundred kinds, of every sort |
| ashk-bari | ashk-bari | a rain of tears, weeping |
*Wahi* — the same. The same hundred-coloured lamenting, the same hundred-fold weeping. No new grief, no new tears — only the familiar ones returned. Ghalib does not dramatise this; he catalogues it flatly, the way you note a recurring weather pattern. The laments wear themselves out (*nala-farsai* carries the sense of exhaustion) and yet they come again. The rain of tears falls again. It is all the same and it is all again.
Sher 6 #
دل ہوائے خرامِ ناز سے پھر
محشرستانِ بے قراری ہے
محشرستانِ بے قراری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| hawa | hawa | breeze; also desire, longing |
| KHiram | KHiram | graceful gait, the swaying walk |
| naz | naz | coquetry, pride, the beloved’s airs |
| mahsharistan | mahsharistan | a place of tumult, like the Day of Judgement (mahshar) |
| be-qarari | be-qarari | restlessness, agitation |
The breeze of the beloved's swaying, coquettish walk has turned the heart into a field of Judgement Day. *Mahsharistan* is a powerful compound — not just chaos but apocalyptic chaos, the disorder of the last day when all souls are gathered and no order holds. All of this from a walk. The beloved does not even glance; the mere movement through space undoes everything.
Sher 7 #
جلوہ پھر عرضِ ناز کرتا ہے
روز بازارِ جاں سپاری ہے
روز بازارِ جاں سپاری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| jalwa | jalwa | radiance, manifestation, the beloved’s display of beauty |
| arz-e-naz | arz-e-naz | the offering of coquetry, presenting one’s airs |
| roz | roz | every day, daily |
| bazar | bazar | marketplace |
| jaan-sipari | jaan-sipari | the surrendering of one’s life, offering one’s soul |
The beloved's radiance presents itself again in all its coquettish display, and every day there is a marketplace where souls are surrendered. *Jaan-sipari* — the handing over of life — is treated here as a daily commercial transaction. You come to the market, you hand over your soul, you go home. Tomorrow you come again. The beloved's beauty is so constant in its effect that the surrender of self has become routine.
Sher 8 #
پھر اسی بے وفا پے مرتے ہیں
پھر وہی زندگی ہماری ہے
پھر وہی زندگی ہماری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| phir | phir | again |
| bewafa | bewafa | faithless, disloyal |
| marte hain | marte hain | we die, we are dying |
| wahi | wahi | the same, that very |
| zindagi | zindagi | life |
The most direct sher in the ghazal, and perhaps the most devastating. Again we are dying for that same faithless one. And again — this is our life. Dying for the faithless beloved is not an interruption of life but its definition. Ghalib does not ask why. He does not protest. The line lands with the quiet weight of something long accepted: this is simply what our life is.
Sher 9 #
پھر کھلا ہے درِ عدالتِ ناز
گرم بازارِ فوجداری ہے
گرم بازارِ فوجداری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| dar | dar | door, gate |
| adalat-e-naz | adalat-e-naz | the court of coquetry, the tribunal of the beloved’s airs |
| garm | garm | hot, bustling, in full swing |
| bazar | bazar | market, scene |
| faujdari | faujdari | criminal proceedings, a criminal case |
The beloved's coquetry is a court of law — and it is a criminal court, not civil. The doors have opened again, the criminal proceedings are in full swing. The lover stands accused, as always. The beloved presides. What is the crime? Loving. The verdict was never in question. Ghalib uses the legal vocabulary with sardonic precision: this is not a matter of sentiment but of formal proceedings, regularly convened.
Sher 10 #
ہو رہا ہے جہاں میں اندھیر
زلف کی پھر سرشتہ داری ہے
زلف کی پھر سرشتہ داری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| jahan | jahan | the world |
| andher | andher | darkness; also injustice, oppression |
| zulf | zulf | the beloved’s hair, tresses |
| sirishta-dari | sirishta-dari | administration, superintendence, court management (sirishta = court record office) |
Darkness and injustice are spreading through the world — and the cause is that the beloved's tresses are once again in charge of administration. *Sirishta-dari* is a bureaucratic term: the management of court records, the running of official business. Ghalib appoints the beloved's hair as the administrator of the world's darkness. The hair that obscures the face now obscures justice itself. It is a comic image with a serious undertone: beauty in power creates chaos.
Sher 11 #
پھر دیا پارہ جگر نے سوال
اک فریاد و آہ و زاری ہے
اک فریاد و آہ و زاری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| para-e-jigar | para-e-jigar | a fragment of the liver, a piece of the heart |
| sawal | sawal | question, petition, complaint |
| fariyaad | fariyaad | cry for justice, complaint, lamentation |
| aah | aah | sigh |
| zari | zari | weeping, wailing |
A fragment of the liver — itself already a broken, injured thing — has raised a complaint. And what is that complaint? A cry, a sigh, a wail. The complaint is not articulate; it is pure sound, pure grief. The fragment of the liver cannot find words, only the noise of suffering. Ghalib presents this without irony: the most injured part of the self has the most to say, and what it says is just *aah*.
Sher 12 #
پھر ہوئے ہیں گواہِ عشق طلب
اشک باری کا حکم جاری ہے
اشک باری کا حکم جاری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| gawah | gawah | witness |
| ishq talab | ishq talab | summoned by love, called as witnesses of love |
| ashk-bari | ashk-bari | a rain of tears |
| hukm-jari | hukm-jari | an order issued, a decree in force |
The witnesses of love have been summoned again — and the decree for a rain of tears has been issued. The courtroom metaphor from Sher 9 continues: witnesses called, orders given. The legal machinery of love is operating in full. The tears are not spontaneous; they are decreed, as if weeping were a formal sentence that must be carried out. Ghalib turns the most private grief into a matter of official record.
Sher 13 #
دل و مژگاں کا جو مقدمہ تھا
آج پھر اس کی رو بکاری ہے
آج پھر اس کی رو بکاری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| mizhgan | mizhgan | eyelashes |
| muqaddama | muqaddama | case, lawsuit, legal proceeding |
| ru-bakari | ru-bakari | the hearing of a case, a court session being convened |
The long-standing case between the heart and the eyelashes — today it has its hearing again. The eyelashes are the beloved's, and the heart is the plaintiff or defendant, depending on how you read it. This case has apparently been pending for some time; today it is being heard once more. The legal metaphor is now fully extended: court, decree, witnesses, and now a specific case being called. Love is litigation without resolution.
Maqta #
بے خودی بے سبب نہیں 'غالبؔ'
کچھ تو ہے جس کی پردہ داری ہے
کچھ تو ہے جس کی پردہ داری ہے
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| be-KHudi | be-KHudi | self-loss, ecstasy, being beside oneself |
| be-sabab | be-sabab | without cause, without reason |
| parda-dari | parda-dari | the keeping of a veil, concealment, covering |
The maqta signs with the takhallus *Ghalib* and delivers the ghazal's thesis in two lines. This self-loss — all of it, everything described across fourteen shers — is not without cause. There is something veiled, something kept behind a curtain, whose concealment is itself the cause. Ghalib does not name it. The cause of all this madness is something that keeps itself hidden — *kuchh to hai*, there is something. What it is, he will not say. The veil remains. The ghazal ends exactly where it began: with something hidden, something sought, something that will not show its face.