Song lyrics

Kal Choudhvin Ki Raat

📜 Lyrics

Last night, the fourteenth moon, your mention filled the air all through the dark Some said you were the moon itself, some swore it was your face so stark We too were present in that place, and everyone asked us as well We laughed, we stayed silent—your mystery was a veil we could not part In this city, who will receive us? Small gatherings scatter us away Everyone speaks your name with longing, everyone is mad for you, your art We might renounce this world and wander as ascetics, leave your street behind Yet the jungle calls you, the mountain calls you, the wasteland is your heart We and the custom of servitude, this turmoil and ruin that befalls us here What gifts have you not given? O beauty, careless and without regard Two tears—for what reason did they come and linger on my eyelashes so? Your mercy falls like rain, your grace flows like a river, unbarred O you without measure or mercy, I have never raised a cry of complaint I have borne your haunting absence, I have endured your bargain, your scar You cast upon me such hardship—I remain a beggar on the wayside still Your path, you never blocked it; your hem, you never truly held or barred Yes, yes, your beautiful countenance—yet you are not entirely as they say Your fame, your renown spread far and wide through one person's verse so starred If you wish to hear something without pain, then listen—what fine ghazal is this? Your lover shamed, your poet undone, your Insha broken and marred

💡 Meaning & story

Ibn Insha's Ghazal: A Comprehensive Meaning This celebrated and enchanting ghazal is the creation of Urdu's illustrious poet Ibn Insha. Its central idea is an acknowledgment of the beloved's eternal beauty, the lover's selfless devotion, and an exquisitely delicate expression of the madness found in love. The Renown of Beauty and the Lover's Silence: The lover tells how everywhere the beloved's moon-like face is spoken of, yet he remains silent in gathering, fulfilling love's demands and guarding the beloved's dignity and modesty so that she may not be brought to shame. The Beloved's Command Over the Universe: Such is the beloved's indifference that she heeds not the lover's devotion. The lover wishes to renounce the world and become an ascetic, yet in forest, mountain, desert and settlement alike, he sees only the beloved's dominion and splendor everywhere, and so there is no path of escape. The Lover's Humility and the Beloved's Cruelty: The lover appeals by his honor, saying that even as a wandering fakir, he never blocked her path or clutched at her garment, yet still he is regarded with a harsh gaze. The Beautiful Irony of the Closing Couplet: Finally, the poet delivers an utterly charming and witty rebuke: O beloved! You are surely beautiful, but this universal renown and permanence of your beauty is truly bestowed upon you by nothing other than the eternal poetry of this very besotted poet, Ibn Insha himself.