Mere Ham-Nafas Mere Ham-Nawa — Faiz Ahmad Faiz
Table of Contents
mere ham-nafas mere ham-nawa
mujhe dost ban ke dagha na de
main hun dard-e-ishq se jaan-ba-lab
mujhe zindagi ki dua na de
mere daagh-e-dil se hai roshni
issi roshni se hai zindagi
mujhe darr hai ae mere chaaragar
yeh chiraagh tu hi bujha na de
mujhe chhorh de mere haal par
tera kya bharosa hai chaaragar
yeh teri nawazish-e-mukhtasar
mera dard aur barha na de
On this nazm: Mere Ham-Nafas is from Faiz’s first collection Naqsh-e-Faryadi (1941). It takes the form of a sustained address to a single intimate listener — the ham-nafas, the fellow-breather, the one who shares your breath. The argument is a refusal of comfort: don’t heal me, don’t pray for my survival, don’t offer your brief kindness — the wound is my light, and your intervention will only put it out or make the pain worse. The poem is structured as a mukhda (the opening refrain) followed by two verses, in the manner of a thumri or classical song — which is how it has most often been heard, through Mehdi Hassan’s recording.
Mukhda — Refrain #
मुझे दोस्त बन के दग़ा न दे
मैं हूँ दर्द-ए-इश्क़ से जाँ-ब-लब
मुझे ज़िंदगी की दुआ न दे
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| हम-नफ़स | ham-nafas | fellow-breather, one who shares your breath — the most intimate form of companion: someone so close they breathe with you |
| हम-नवा | ham-nawa | fellow-voiced, one who shares your song — nawa = voice, melody; someone attuned to the same feeling |
| दग़ा | dagha | betrayal, treachery |
| दोस्त बन के | dost ban ke | by becoming a friend — the betrayal is specifically the betrayal that comes dressed as friendship |
| दर्द-ए-इश्क़ | dard-e-ishq | the pain of love — ezafa construction |
| जाँ-ब-लब | jaan-ba-lab | with the soul at the lips — on the verge of death; jaan = soul/life; lab = lip; the last breath about to leave |
| दुआ | dua | prayer, a blessing — here: a prayer for life, a wish for survival |
What Faiz is saying: My fellow-breather, my fellow-voiced one — don’t betray me by becoming my friend. I am on the verge of death from the pain of love — don’t offer me a prayer for life.
The mukhda announces the poem’s central refusal in two precise moves. The first line names the listener with the two most intimate possible terms — ham-nafas (shared breath) and ham-nawa (shared voice) — and then immediately asks them not to betray by the very act of being a friend. The betrayal is friendship itself, specifically the kind that tries to help: the friend who sees you suffering and wants to relieve it. Don’t do that, Faiz says. The second couplet gives the reason: jaan-ba-lab — the soul at the lips, on the edge of leaving — and yet: don’t pray for my life. The pain of love has brought him to the threshold of death and he is asking not to be pulled back.
Band 1 #
इसी रोशनी से है ज़िंदगी
मुझे डर है ऐ मेरे चारागर
यह चिराग़ तू ही बुझा न दे
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| दाग़-ए-दिल | daagh-e-dil | the wound of the heart, the scar of the heart — daagh = wound, scar, also: a burn mark, a stain |
| रोशनी | roshni | light |
| चारागर | chaaragar | healer, physician — chara = remedy, cure; gar = one who does; the one who brings remedies |
| डर है | darr hai | there is fear, I am afraid |
| चिराग़ | chiraagh | lamp, a flame |
| बुझा न दे | bujha na de | don’t extinguish, don’t put out |
What Faiz is saying: From the wound of my heart comes light — and from that light comes life itself. I am afraid, O my healer, that you yourself will extinguish this lamp.
This is the poem’s central argument, made precise. The daagh-e-dil — the wound, the scar, the burn — is not a source of suffering to be cured but a source of light. And it is from this light that life itself proceeds: issi roshni se hai zindagi. The causality runs backwards from what the healer assumes: the healer sees a wound and moves to close it, not knowing that closing it will put out the lamp that the wound has become.
Chaaragar — the healer — is addressed directly and with the intimate ae, and then addressed again with tera — your fear is your remedy-bringing. The irony is that the healer’s intention is good. The healer wants to cure. But Faiz’s fear — mujhe darr hai — is that the cure will be the extinguishing. The image of the chiraagh — the lamp — ties together the wound’s light and the life it sustains: one flame, one source, and the healer’s hand is near it.
Band 2 — Final Verse #
तेरा क्या भरोसा है चारागर
यह तेरी नवाज़िश-ए-मुख़्तसर
मेरा दर्द और बढ़ा न दे
| Word | Roman | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| छोड़ दे | chhorh de | leave me, let me be — an instruction to release, to stop intervening |
| मेरे हाल पर | mere haal par | to my own condition, to my own state |
| भरोसा | bharosa | trust, reliability — tera kya bharosa = how reliable are you, what trust can be placed in you |
| नवाज़िश | nawazish | kindness, favour, gracious attention — the condescension of someone who bestows care |
| मुख़्तसर | mukhtasar | brief, short, limited |
| नवाज़िश-ए-मुख़्तसर | nawazish-e-mukhtasar | your brief kindness — the ezafa construction gives it a slightly formal quality, as if naming a known and limited thing |
| दर्द और बढ़ा न दे | dard aur barha na de | don’t let the pain increase further, don’t add to the pain |
What Faiz is saying: Leave me to my own condition. How trustworthy are you, healer? This brief kindness of yours — don’t let it increase my pain further.
The second verse deepens the refusal into something more complex: not just don’t heal me but I don’t trust you to heal me. Tera kya bharosa hai chaaragar — what reliability do you have, what trust can be placed in you — is a challenge to the healer’s competence, but it is a gentle one. The healer is not malicious; the healer simply cannot be relied upon to do the right thing, because the right thing in this case is counterintuitive.
Nawazish-e-mukhtasar — brief kindness — is the most precise phrase in the poem. The healer’s attention is real but limited: it is a kindness, but it is mukhtasar, short, a glancing intervention. And this kind of partial, well-meaning attention is what Faiz fears most: not indifference, not cruelty, but the brief kindness that touches the wound without understanding it and leaves the pain larger than before. Mera dard aur barha na de — don’t let my pain increase further — is the closing request, the final form of the refusal: I am not asking you to heal me, I am only asking you not to make it worse.