Na kisi ki aankh ka nuur huun



Na Kisi Ki Aankh Ka Noor Hoon
Na Kisi Ke Dil Ka Qarar Hoon
Jo Kisi Ke Kaam Na Aa Sake
Main Woh Ek Mushth-E-Ghubaar Hoon
Na Kisi Ki Aankh Ka Noor Hoon

I am not the light of anyone’s eyes,

Not a harbinger of peace to someone’s heart,

Not of any use to any one,

But just a handful of dust.
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Na To Main Kisi Ka Habeeb Hoon
Na To Main Kisi Ka Raqeeb Hoon
Jo Bigad Chala Gaya Woh Naseeb Hoon Jo Ujad Gaya Woh Dayaar Hoon

I am lover of no one,

I am rival of no one,

I am the fate of my ruins,

I am the river of a wilderness.

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Mera Rang Roop Bigad Gaya
Mera Yaar Muhjse Bichad Gaya
Jo Chaman Khizaan Mein Ujad Gaya
Main Usi Ki Fasl-e-Bahar Hoon

My colors of self-image are now gone,

My beloved from me is now stranded away.

The garden which the spring turned into wilderness,

I am the spring harvest of that garden now.
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Pae- Faatiha Koyi Aaye Kyon
Koyi Chaar Phool Chadaye Kyon
Koyi Aake Shama Jalaye Kyon
Main Woh Be-Kasi Ka Mazaar Hoon

Why should anyone sing a requiem?

Why should anyone place four flowers on my tomb?

Zafar asks: why should anyone shed tears,

As I’m buried helplessly in a vault underground.
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Not translated and not in these poems
nahin huun naghma-e-jaaN fizaa; koi sun ke mujh ko karega kya?
main baRe biruug ki huun sada, kisi dil jale ki pukaar huun.

I am not a life-giving verse,

No use to someone who listens to me.

I am a cry in the wilderness,

A call of a heart gone on flames.


Mein kaha rahoon mein kaha basoon
na ye mujhse kush na wo mujhse kush
Mein jameen ki peeth ka bhoj huun
Mein palak ke dil ka ghubaar huun

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Abu Zafar Sirajuddin Muhammad Bahadur Shah Zafar also known as Bahadur Shah or Bahadur Shah II was the last of the Mughal emperors in India, as well as the last ruler of the Timurid Dynasty . He was the son of Akbar Shah II by his Hindu wife Lalbai

Because Zafar's court was the court of Zauq and Ghalib;was the greatest love poet in Urdu, and arguably the greatest modern Indian poet in any language. Along with Zauq, Zafar's court is responsible for some of the greatest poetry written in modern India.This last moment of Mughal Delhi is one of the most culturally and intellectually exciting of any of the periods of Mughal rule. And Zafar is at the centre of this

Zafar himself is a remarkable calligrapher; in Zafar's poetic notebooks, even if you can't read the Urdu, you can see the impression of inspiration pouring onto the page, of this man filling couplet after couplet, line after line, in every available corner of space.

It was Zafar's fate to live to see the extraordinary reversal of fortunes between his dynasty and the East India Company.But by the time that Zafar was born, and certainly by the time of 1832, that vast empire has shrunk down to the walls of the Red Fort. Zafar is born in 1775 when the East India Company was still really only a coastal power, with factories and forts in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, but within this one man's life he lives to see his own dynasty shrink down to the Red Fort, while the East India Company transforms itself from a trading organisation into an aggressively expansionist military force.
And poor old Zafar, by the time he comes to throne aged 63 already an old man, a grey-bearded man, who inherits virtually nothing, an empty treasury, no army, no empire, and only the prestige of the name of the Mughals to differentiate him in any way from a small prince in Rajasthan or something, Zafar none the less it is his huge achievement to provoke and act as a catalyst for a really remarkable last renaissance in Delhi: a last great flickering of the Mughal lamp before it's extinguished.

And if Zafar had died in 1856 he would be remembered as one of the most remarkable men of his great dynasty. It was his fate however to live to be on the throne during this great catastrophic uprising. And exactly the same qualities which made him such a remarkable ruler for the period before the uprising and such a cultural catalyst were the very qualities that made him a quite spectactularly unsuitable leader during a time of military revolt. Mystic poets rarely make great generals, particularly when they're 82 years old! And this was certainly the case with poor old Zafar.

And he had that terrible fate of living not only to see most his sons killed before he himself dies, but to see this entire city that he has nourished and beautified with gardens, the poetry and the culture which he has exemplified, completely destroyed.

Bahadur Shah Zafar dies in exile, banished to a prison in Rangoon, and his body is tipped into an anonymous grave, and the turf carefully replaced so that within a month or two no mark will remain to indicate the place of burial.

The following famous poem was written by Bahadur Shah Zafar as his epitaph; this is an English translation.
English Translation


EPITAPH


My heart is not happy in this despoiled land
Who has ever felt fulfilled in this transient world

The nightingale laments neither to the gardener nor to the hunter
Imprisonment was written in fate in the season of spring

Tell these emotions to go dwell elsewhere
Where is there space for them in this besmirched (bloodied) heart?

I had requested for a long life a life of four days
Two passed by in pining, and two in waiting.

He pathetically concluded his poems with this couplet:

Hai kitna badnaseeb Zafar, dafan ke liye
Do gaz zameenj bhi na milee kooi yar main


How unlucky is Zafar! For burial
Even two yards of land were not to be had, in the land (of the) beloved.