Khudqalaami

I have been reading Dr. Rahi Masoom Raza’s Urdu Poetry these days. Was lucky to find a book of his at a book fare at Delhi while I was in India. He’s mostly thought of as a Novelist/scriptwriter (mostly renowned as the scrip-writer of the famous TV show Mahabharata) and few know now that he was a Shayar of a very high level. There was revolution in his poetry, but the underlying theme in most of his works is Pain. Pain about the partition of India and pain that grows out of helplessness. He strikes me as a Shayar who was romantic in his own right. Here is an outstanding Nazm by Rahi Sahab, which is not that easy to understand, but I included meanings to some tougher words.

It was interesting, but I felt he was speaking to me in the fourth para.