तेरे बिना ज़िंदगी से — गुलज़ार
Table of Contents
tere bina zindagi se koi
shikwa to nahin
shikwa nahin, shikwa nahin
tere bina zindagi bhi lekin
zindagi to nahin
zindagi to nahin, zindagi to nahin
बंद १ #
शिकवा तो नहीं
शिकवा नहीं, शिकवा नहीं
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| तेरे बिना | tere bina | without you |
| ज़िंदगी से | zindagi se | with life, from life |
| कोई | koi | any |
| शिकवा | shikwa | complaint, grievance (shikwa = the specific Urdu word for complaint to someone you love) |
| तो नहीं | to nahin | there isn’t, certainly not |
What Gulzar is saying: Without you, I have no complaint against life itself. No complaint, no complaint.
The first verse turns on the grammar of complaint. Shikwa in Urdu-Hindi is not an ordinary complaint — it is the complaint of a lover to a beloved, the grievance that presupposes relationship. Gulzar says: without you, I have no shikwa against life. The line sounds like equanimity — no hard feelings, life goes on. But the repetition (shikwa nahin, shikwa nahin) sounds like insistence, like convincing oneself. And the reason for the lack of complaint is quietly terrible: you cannot complain to something you have no relationship with anymore. Without you, life is no longer someone to address.
बंद २ #
ज़िंदगी तो नहीं
ज़िंदगी तो नहीं, ज़िंदगी तो नहीं
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| भी लेकिन | bhi lekin | but also, yet |
| ज़िंदगी तो नहीं | zindagi to nahin | it is not life, not really life — the to adds emphasis: “certainly not life” |
What Gulzar is saying: But without you, life — it is not life. Not life, not life.
The second verse completes the paradox. No complaint against life — but what continues is not life. The two lines together construct a logical trap: life has no grievance from him; but what he has isn’t life. The Urdu word to in zindagi to nahin is untranslatable — it adds a quality of emphasis and resignation, like: “but then again, it’s certainly not life either.” The repetition again (zindagi to nahin, zindagi to nahin) is not emphasis but a kind of helpless wondering, the mind returning to a thing it cannot resolve.
बंद ३ #
उम्र यूँ ही बीती जाती है
तेरे बिना तेरी याद आती है
ज़िंदगी गुज़र तो जाती है
पर ज़िंदगी गुज़रती नहीं
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| रोज़ शाम | roz shaam | every evening, daily evening |
| उम्र | umr | age, life’s duration |
| यूँ ही | yun hi | just like this, in this way without purpose |
| बीती जाती है | beeti jaati hai | keeps passing |
| याद आती है | yaad aati hai | the memory comes, I remember |
| गुज़र तो जाती है | guzar to jaati hai | it does pass, it passes all right |
| गुज़रती नहीं | guzarti nahin | does not pass through, is not truly traversed |
What Gulzar is saying: Every evening comes and goes. Age passes just like this. Without you, your memory comes. Life does pass — but it doesn’t really pass through.
The distinction in the final two lines is the poem’s most precise moment. Guzar to jaati hai — life does pass, technically, chronologically. Par zindagi guzarti nahin — but life doesn’t truly pass through. The difference between passing and passing through: the first is mere duration, the second is traversal, the sense of having inhabited the time. Without the beloved, the days accumulate without being truly lived — each evening comes and goes, age passes yun hi (just like this, for no particular reason), and the memory visits, but none of it constitutes the living of a life.