Duniya Jise Kahte Hain — Nida Fazli

Table of Contents

duniya jise kahte hain jadu ka khilauna hai
mil jae to miTTi hai kho jae to sona hai

achchha sa koi mausam tanha sa koi aalam
har waqt ka rona to be-kar ka rona hai

barsat ka baadal to diwana hai kya jaane
kis rah se bachna hai kis chhat ko bhigona hai

ye waqt jo tera hai ye waqt jo mera hai
har gam pe pahra hai phir bhi ise khona hai

gham ho ki KHushi donon kuchh dur ke sathi hain
phir rasta hi rasta hai hansna hai na rona hai

aawara-mizaji ne phaila diya aangan ko
aakash ki chadar hai dharti ka bichhauna hai

Sher 1 — Matla #

दुनिया जिसे कहते हैं जादू का खिलौना है
मिल जाए तो मिट्टी है खो जाए तो सोना है

Word	Roman	Meaning
दुनिया	duniya	the world
जिसे कहते हैं	jise kahte hain	what we call, what is known as
जादू	jadu	magic, enchantment
खिलौना	khilauna	toy, plaything
मिल जाए	mil jae	if obtained, if you get it
मिट्टी	miTTi	mud, earth, dust — something worthless
खो जाए	kho jae	if lost, if it slips away
सोना	sona	gold — something precious

What Nida Fazli is saying: The world that everyone calls a magical toy — when you have it, it is just dirt; when it is gone, it becomes gold.

This is the ghazal’s central insight, delivered in the opening couplet with the directness Nida Fazli was known for. Desire works by reversal: possession drains the object of its enchantment, and loss restores it. What we hold feels ordinary; what we have lost acquires the glow of gold. The word khilauna — toy — is deliberately diminishing: the world is not a profound mystery but a child’s plaything, and we are the children who cry when it is taken away and ignore it when we have it.

Sher 2 #

अच्छा सा कोई मौसम तन्हा सा कोई आलम
हर वक़्त का रोना तो बे-कार का रोना है

Word	Roman	Meaning
अच्छा सा	achchha sa	something like pleasant, a decent kind of
मौसम	mausam	season, weather, a time of life
तन्हा सा	tanha sa	something like solitude, a lone sort of
आलम	aalam	state, condition, the world one inhabits
हर वक़्त का	har waqt ka	at every moment, constant
रोना	rona	weeping, crying, lamenting
बे-कार	be-kar	useless, pointless, without purpose

What Nida Fazli is saying: A decent season, a solitary state — constant weeping over everything is just pointless weeping.

The sa suffix in Urdu — achchha sa, tanha sa — softens and approximates: not a perfect season but something like a decent one, not pure solitude but something like it. Nida Fazli is describing the ordinary texture of life: neither ecstatic nor ruined, just middling and alone. His counsel is gentle but firm — har waqt ka rona is not grief, it is habit. To weep constantly is to weep for nothing in particular, and that is be-kar: without use, without yield.

Sher 3 #

बरसात का बादल तो दीवाना है क्या जाने
किस राह से बचना है किस छत को भिगोना है

Word	Roman	Meaning
बरसात	barsat	rain, the rainy season
बादल	baadal	cloud
दीवाना	diwana	mad, crazed, one who does not know what he does
क्या जाने	kya jaane	what does it know, how would it know
किस राह से	kis rah se	which path to avoid
बचना	bachna	to save, to spare, to avoid
किस छत को	kis chhat ko	which roof
भिगोना	bhigona	to soak, to drench

What Nida Fazli is saying: The rain cloud is mad — it doesn’t know which path to spare, which roof to drench.

The cloud is a figure for fate, or perhaps for love, or for the indiscriminate force of emotion: it falls where it falls, it soaks what it soaks, with no knowledge and no intent. Diwana in Urdu is not just mad but specifically the madness of one who is consumed — the word carries a kind of helpless energy. The couplet is also a gentle observation on the randomness of suffering: why this roof and not that one, why this life and not another. The cloud does not know. Neither does anyone else.

Sher 4 #

ये वक़्त जो तेरा है ये वक़्त जो मेरा है
हर ग़म पे पहरा है फिर भी इसे खोना है

Word	Roman	Meaning
वक़्त	waqt	time
तेरा	tera	yours
मेरा	mera	mine
हर ग़म पे	har gam pe	at every sorrow, guarding every grief
पहरा	pahra	a watch, a guard, a sentinel
फिर भी	phir bhi	even so, nevertheless
खोना	khona	to lose, the losing of it

What Nida Fazli is saying: This time that is yours, this time that is mine — every sorrow stands guard over it, and yet we must lose it.

Pahra — the guard, the sentinel — is a striking image. Our sorrows do not let time pass easily; they stand watch, they slow things down, they make each moment heavy. And yet time passes anyway. The guarding is useless. What is yours and mine will be lost regardless of how carefully grief keeps watch over it. There is a very Nida Fazli quality to this: the observation is almost philosophical, the tone is not despairing but simply clear.

Sher 5 #

ग़म हो कि ख़ुशी दोनों कुछ दूर के साथी हैं
फिर रास्ता ही रास्ता है हँसना है न रोना है

Word	Roman	Meaning
ग़म	gham	sorrow, grief
ख़ुशी	KHushi	happiness, joy
दूर के साथी	dur ke sathi	companions from a distance, fellow-travellers who don’t stay close
फिर	phir	then, after that
रास्ता ही रास्ता	rasta hi rasta	only road, nothing but road, road stretching on
हँसना	hansna	to laugh
रोना	rona	to weep

What Nida Fazli is saying: Whether sorrow or joy — both are distant companions. After them, there is only road: neither laughing nor weeping.

Dur ke sathi — companions from a distance — is a perfect description of how both happiness and grief actually behave: they travel with us for a while and then fall back. They are not constant; they are visitors. And when they leave, what remains is simply the continuing journey — rasta hi rasta, nothing but road. The couplet does not advocate for cheerfulness or resignation. It simply describes the traveller’s condition: keep walking. The road does not require you to feel anything in particular.

Sher 6 — Maqta #

आवारा-मिज़ाजी ने फैला दिया आँगन को
आकाश की चादर है धरती का बिछौना है

Word	Roman	Meaning
आवारा-मिज़ाजी	aawara-mizaji	the wandering temperament, the nature of a rover
फैला दिया	phaila diya	has spread out, has expanded
आँगन	aangan	courtyard, the enclosed home-space
आकाश की चादर	aakash ki chadar	the sky as a sheet, the canopy of heaven
धरती	dharti	the earth
बिछौना	bichhauna	a bed spread on the floor, a sleeping mat

What Nida Fazli is saying: A wandering nature has expanded the courtyard into everything — the sky is the sheet, the earth is the bed.

The maqta brings the ghazal to its most expansive image. Aangan — the courtyard — is in Urdu and Hindi poetry the space of home, of enclosure, of belonging. The wanderer has no aangan in the ordinary sense. But Nida Fazli reverses this: the wandering temperament has not lost the courtyard; it has expanded it until it contains everything. The sky overhead is the sheet. The earth underfoot is the bed. The homeless person is, in another reading, the most housed of all — sheltered by the whole sky, bedded on the whole earth.

The ghazal moves from the opening image of the world as a toy we misvalue to this final image of a life so wide it needs no walls. The sadness is still there — the wanderer did not choose this expanse — but it has become something liveable, even beautiful. That quiet turn at the end, from loss to a kind of accidental grandeur, is characteristic of Nida Fazli at his best.