Lyrics & Meaning
💡 Meaning & story
Composed by Mohammad Farooq
Written by Anwar Shaoor 1943
In this ghazal, the poet has revealed how relationships, promises, and thoughts transform when circumstances and time change. How vast is the distance between imagination and reality, and what is the destiny of man. This ghazal essentially presents the bitter and realistic aspects of life with great simplicity.
Couplet by Couplet Explanation
Before I became worse than angels, they were infinitely pleased with me before our bond turned bitter.
Meaning: The poet says that as long as I had not made any mistakes and my relations with my beloved (or friend) had not deteriorated, they considered me more virtuous and good than angels themselves. In other words, the world's custom is that as long as you live up to their standards, you are an angel, and at one mistake, all your goodness is forgotten.
We spoke of spending a lifetime together, yet this courage existed in us only before separation came.
Meaning: In love, people make grand promises and vows of staying together forever. The poet says we too made such speeches, but these promises and courage lasted only until the time of parting had not arrived. When separation truly came, all those vows remained unfulfilled.
Imagination is better than reality, dreams better than waking; how different was she from my vision before I truly saw her.
Meaning: When a person has not met someone, they create a beautiful portrait of them in their imagination and thoughts. The poet says that dreams are better than waking and imagination better than reality. As long as I had not truly encountered this person, they were in my mind utterly beautiful and flawless. Reality is often more bitter than imagination.
If there is doubt in calling the non-existent existent, then what was everything here before it came to be?
Meaning: This is a philosophical couplet. 'Non-existent' means something that does not exist. The poet says that if you cannot believe how something that doesn't exist can be, then consider what all this was before the universe came into being? Everything emerged from nothingness into existence.
It is impossible for the departed to return; I too held this belief before experience taught me.
Meaning: People generally believe that whoever leaves once never returns. The poet says I too once held this misunderstanding, but when reality opened to me and life gave me experience, I learned that the departed never return, and separation is an irrevocable truth.
O friend, why should we worry what will happen after the end? At most, it will be what existed before the beginning.
Meaning: This is the most powerful and profound couplet of the ghazal. The poet says: O friend! Why must we fear or worry about what will happen after death (after the end)? At most, it will be nothing more than what was before our beginning. That is, we came from dust and nothingness, and after our end we shall return to that same dust and silence. Therefore, fear of the end is meaningless.
This ghazal teaches us that relationships and circumstances in life are temporary. Therefore, we should neither despair too much when someone leaves us nor fear the end of life, for the end is truly a return to our original state or a new beginning.