Also here with the title "ha'ey kambakhth thoo nay pee hee nahee! !حاءے كمبخت تو نے پي هى نهين".There are moments when one just wants to let go; to be lost in something. Something deep. When that happens, I often find myself gravitating to Qawwali, the Muslim mystic musical art form of "Sama" in its South Asian incarnation.
Strong Disclaimer: This post is written purely "for myself". I know some will be touched by it--in whatever way--but if you're put off by either metaphysics, tasawwuf (Sufism), abstractions, or weird, personal transliteration schemes, PLEASE, PLEASE, do not read on. I really don't want to get into detailed discussions of any kind.
There's one piece, in particular, that I have been promising myself I will translate, render, if you will, into English and post, but just haven't had the energy and bandwidth to sit down and apply myself to the task.
So I just got home about 11 pm tonight (technically yesterday at this point) after attending, I guess, what you'd call a political meeting. After the meeting, I got into a rather refreshingly intelligent conversation with a relatively new friend. By the time I got home, and had checked in on the kids, and sat down to dinner, like I said, I was in a mood that was definitely leaning towards mu'arfa, irfan, tasawwuf, the metaphysical, or whatever you want to call it. So I turned to one of the only two bookmarks I have in the Real Player on my Mac at home.
And the first through, I just got lost listening to this piece. By the end of it, I was definitely close to a "haal", the Sufi version of what our US brothers and sisters would call "being in the zone", "the flow", and so on. And I am not even a formal Sufi. For a traditional "desi" like me (a South Asian), that is a title reserved for some attainment in the metaphysical realm. I am just someone who, I will admit, has an inclination in that direction and, frankly, have been too chicken to formally step on the "tareeq", or Way.
The piece just captures the mood I am in perfectly; the frustration with Naseh, The Preachy Folks, and their obsession with preaching and obsessing with enjoining moral conduct; the reference to the Wine of Truth's greatest bartenders (others use the word "cup bearers", but let's get with the 21st of Our Lord, The Prophet of Divine Love, shall we?) being exactly in Karbala, Najaf, and Samarra; and, of course, the frustration with folks who interpret the references to Wine, and Love in "our" language as moonshine (how else do I translate "t-harra"?) and carnal lust...
So then I looped back and transcribed the parts of it that I think really should be brought to the Rumi- and Hafiz- and Khayyam-in-English-reading public. I am going to try and do the translation some time later. But if you care to, and understand Urdu and/or the languages around it in the linguistic geography (like Hindi and Dakkani and Awadhi and...), do take a read to the following...and/or just watch this space for a translation.
The piece is almost universally referred to as "ha'ey kambakhth thoo nay pee hee nahee!" (Oh! You Unfortunate Wretch! You have not Imbibed!) Here are my selected excerpts. First the prologue, itself one the most deliciously intense tongue twisters in the Urdu language:
samajh samajhna samajh kay samjhoeand then the Qawwali itself, sung at the link above by the person who people who connect with the art on a very unvarnished, unapologetic level, as about the greatest proponent of that form in the 20th Century; Aziz Mian:
samajh samajhna bhee aik samajh hai
samajh samajh kay bhee joe na samjhai
mairee samajh main woe na samajh hai
lutf-e-mai tujh say kya kahoon, nadaaNI should put that last couplet in my email signature...once I have a translation, I guess...
(aray) ha'ey kambakhth thoo nay pee hee nahee!
x x
bathla'ey dhatha hoon thujhay maikhaanon ka patha
batha-o-kazmain, khurasan, saamara
khurshid mudha'a maira burj-e-sharaf main hai
aik saaqi karbala main maira, aik najaf main hai
x x
mairay shairon kay haqeeqath main na maanee samjha
badha-e-haq koe thoo angoor ka paanee samjha
thoo nahee jaantha arbab-e-thariqath kay usool
thayray bayhoodha sawaalaath sar-a-sar hain fizool
thoo nahee jaantha paymana kisay kehthay hain
thoo nahee jaantha maykhana kisay kehthay hain
isthaylaahaath-e-thasawwuf kee nahee thujh koe khabar
fakar kee raah main jahaan miltha hai jahaan kaif-e-nazar
kot-chashmi say thujhai k-hotee k-haree lagthee hai
mai-e-irfan bhee thujhay laal paree lagthee hai
ha'ey kambakhth thoo nay pee hee nahee!
x x
ahl-e-daanish nay thairay zehen ko kaisa samj-ha
baadha-e-shair koe jis dhum thoonay t-harra samjha
mai-e-tauheed kee main thoe wazahath kee th-hee
thoo na samj-hay aray nadaan yay qismath thairee
rumi-o-hafiz-o-khayyam ka dhaik-ha hai kalaam
jaam-o-meena kay libadha main thareeqath th-hee thamaam
naseha thuj-hai naseehath kay siwaa kaam nahee
jaam main gharq na kardhoon thoe maira naam nahee!
x x
(yay) Allah ki inayath hai kay main saif zubaaan hoon
Aur naasay, thairay liyay main koh-e-garaan hoon
Technorati tags applicable to this post: Tasawwuf - Sufi - Sufism - Aziz Mian - Sufi - Rumi - Hafez - Hafiz - Khayyam - Divine Love - Moderate Muslims - Progressive Muslims
5 comments:
Salams!
Ran accross this through the list serve.
I was just asking someone on another site to provide translation to some sufi illahis. Now, I await yours as well. Adding you to my blogroll!
Salaam Alaikum:
Came to your blog through the fuqura list on Yahoo, and really enjoyed your personal story. I too await the translation :)
Ya Haqq!
Wonderful writeup to a excellent poem sung by one of the greatest of the qawwals.
While you were getting the haal, I was wraping up our television show on "God Theory" a conversation with an astrophysicist and author of the book by the same name. We discussed the essense of Allah and the purpose of creation through the language of modern science and ancient wisdom. You will find the video of this show on our website http://www.wbt-tv.com/tv.php in couple of weeks.
Your transliteration of this qawwali gave me a very strong desire to find my Aziz Mian's audio tape and put it in my car's cassette player (I am glad that I did not upgrade to a modern car) and listen to it in URDU on my way home .
All the positive feedback is very gratifying.
Readers might also want to read this.
It is my desire to bring the poets and qawwals of South Asia to as wide an audience as "Rumi-o-Hafiz-o-Khayyam". We all read these these elders, and we all need to. But especially in this day and age we (all of us; Muslims and not, Sufi-leaning or not, Westerners and not) need to reconnect with the living tradition they represent--especially in South Asia. We need to connect with the zawiya, or angle, facet, of Islam that was, and still is, rooted so deep in the lands from where all we here nowadays is "Deobandi", "Taliban", "Maududi", "Terrorism", and so on.
And I want to read them in English, even though likely to botch the heart of the message. I love what you said: living tradition.
I can't tell you how great it is to discover your site and your worldview. You do a lovely job of sharing them. I see connections to how Catholics see their faith tradition, amazingly.
I'll await your translation. :)
Julie
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