❝From the grapes of tender feelings I have brought today this wine, beloved, with my own hands I shall pour you the cup today, let me first offer it to you, then the world shall receive its blessing, before all others, my tavern of wine welcomes you first.❞
Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Indian poet of the Nayi Kavita literary movement. He is best known for his famous work 'Madhushala'. He was the father of film actor Amitabh Bachchan. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award and India's highest civilian honor, Padma Vibhushan.
Nazm is a Hindi-Urdu poetic form that tells a single, continuous story or idea from start to finish — unlike the ghazal's independent couplets. Drawing on Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Allama Iqbal, Gulzar, and Sahir Ludhianvi, this collection rewards a slower, more attentive read.
❝The drinker sets out from home toward the tavern he knows, Which path shall I take — the innocent man in confusion goes. Everyone points out different paths, but this is what I say to all — Grab one path and keep walking — you'll find the tavern at the end of the hall.❞
❝What has passed, let it be gone and done, In life there was a star — yes, that one so dearly won, If it sank, then it sank — what's to be done. Look at the face of the sky — how many of its stars have broken apart, How many of its dear ones left — where do those gone ones restart?❞
❝You are not tired, you have not stopped in your race, You are walking — keep moving ahead and keep pace. The destination is ahead, halting is behind, Let no direction stop you or bind your mind.❞
❝Leaves fall in the autumn's letting go, But the tree does not abandon hope below. Spring will come and it will bloom once more, This is nature's promise at its core.❞
❝Many friends you meet throughout your life's way, But one such friend you truly need today. Who walks beside you on every road you take, Who holds your hand at every turn you make.❞
❝My longing rises to my lips as a prayer, O God, may my life be like a candle's flame, may the world's darkness be dispelled by my breath, may my glow bring light to every place.❞
❝Better than the whole world is our Hindustan, we are its nightingales, this is our garden, if we are in foreign lands, our heart stays in the homeland, know us to be there too, wherever our heart is.❞
❝We shall see, certainly we too shall see, that promised day, which is written on eternity's tablet, when these towering mountains of tyranny and cruelty will blow away like tufts of cotton.❞
❝This leprous daybreak, this dawn mauled by night, this is not that dawn for which we had waited, this is not that dawn with the longing for which, friends had set out, believing we'd find it somewhere.❞
❝Beyond the stars there are yet more worlds, there are yet more trials of love to face, these skies are not empty of life, here there are hundreds more caravans still to come.❞
❝Some of my belongings still lie with you, some rain-soaked days of the monsoon are kept there, and a night wrapped inside one of my letters lies there too, extinguish that night, return to me my things.❞
❝Sometimes a thought crosses my mind, that had my life passed in the soft shade of your tresses, it might have flourished, might have bloomed green, rather than this darkness that is my life's destiny.❞
❝I offer myself for your streets, O homeland, where the custom now is that none may walk with head held high, and any lover who steps out to circle you must walk with eyes averted, guarding body and soul.❞