Surgically Extracted Poetry

Three years ago, we bought this tiny poster at a bookstore in New Delhi:

Which transliterates to

ham jīte-jī masrūf rahe
kuchh ishq kiyā kuchh kaam kiyā

Roughly meaning

I stayed busy in my life,
did some work and found some love.

I formed an interpretation of these lines that has stayed with me over these years. It’s along the lines of Victor Frankl’s Man Search for Meaning, specifically the notion that the pursuit of love and work are necessary and enough for a meaningful life.

I’ve come to really enjoy these lines over time. What a beautifully compressed answer to the hard question - a book in 10 words!

Except of course I’ve been completely wrong. A couple weeks back I realized that I never actually read the entire poem. Here it is (source):

vo log bahut ḳhush-qismat the
jo ishq ko kaam samajhte the
yā kaam se āshiqī karte the

ham jīte-jī masrūf rahe
kuchh ishq kiyā kuchh kaam kiyā
kaam ishq ke aaḌe aatā rahā
aur ishq se kaam ulajhtā rahā

phir āḳhir tañg aa kar ham ne
donoñ ko adhūrā chhoḌ diyā

And here’s my translation to english, with apology to Faiz sa’ab

Those were fortunate people,
who thought of love as their work
or loved their work.

I stayed busy in my life,
did some work and found some love.
Work kept coming in the way of love,
and love kept complicating work.

At the end, tired, I left both undone.

More complex, more tragic, so much more beautiful.