Eco-friendly couplet

This is not exactly a bhajan. It is what might be called a nazm, I think.

Anyways, coming back to the topic ...


This is from the collector's item of a musical album called Sajda. Sajda is one of its kind because it brought together the Nightingale, Lata, and the person who gave a new meaning to Ghazals, Jagjit Singh.

In the album Sajda, the first song - sung by Lata, the first has a wonderful couplet. And it goes something like this ...

Ya dharti kay zakhmon par marham rakh day,

Ya mera dil pathar kar day, ya allah

Either apply ointment to earth's wound,

or turn my heart into a stone, Allah.

(because, I can no longer tolerate earth's wound)

Urdu couplets have this wonderful habit of not stating the obvious; I know what I have typed out in the parenthesis above destroys the beauty of the couplet; in fact the mere act of translation has already destroyed the pain the couplet carries.

Have you come across any such song? Then enlighten me. Only those songs that have not been written to celebrate Earth Day and the like, please.

By the way the lyricist of dard say mera daaman bhar day (from which I extracted the 'ecological' couplet) is Qateel Shifai. You would be hard pressed to find a more soulful number. The first strains of the song, when Lata Mangeshkar calls out the name of Allah is absolutely ethereal. I would recommend the album, Sajda, unhesitatingly.