Creativity, Philosophy & Enlightenment

Love, Passion and Longing

Loneliness, Solitude & Grief

Shaayar Mir seems to talk of not just loneliness. It’s the ache of being surrounded and still unseen.&nbsp; The speaker’s heart is brimming with a dastaan — a tale aching to be told — but it stays trapped.&nbsp; Not for lack of courage. Not even for lack of words. It stays hidden because the people around him? They don’t listen. They hear, maybe — but they sure don’t get a word of what he says.&nbsp; He’s in a land, a dayaar, suffused with noise but empty of understanding.&nbsp; The people there are tone-deaf, insensitive. Not perhaps because they hate him. Likely they don’t even notice him deeply enough to dislike him.&nbsp; It’s not, maybe, cruelty. It’s perhaps something worse: indifference?

Voice, Expression & Language

Friends, Family & Community

It is remarkable that shaayar Mir wrote this poem of heresy in the 18th century, thumbing his nose at religion. He mocks all the trappings of religion, including God himself/herself, saying from the kooche he has bid farewell to all of them.&nbsp;In Urdu poetry koo-e-yaar or koocha-e-mahboob (lane of the beloved) has a deep and mystical connotation, referring to a place of freedom, authenticity, and true love, away from the suffocating restrictions of religion and society. To be in the presence of yaar (beloved...whatever or whoever it may be), to be in her street, is considered to be a place of perpetual bliss and eternal longing.

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Ashaar (couplets) on other themes

Ashaar (couplets) by others