Mohsin Naqvi's Awaragi - An Interface With Solitude

The music lovers who follow the ghazal singer Ghulam Ali know that ‘Awaragi’ is one of the best and most popular ghazals sung by the maestro. This ghazal owes its popularity primarily to the singer and probably people recognize it more as Ghulam Ali’s ghazal than Mohsin Naqvi’s. The poet’s name, however, finds a mention in most of the albums where the singer, before singing, tells that he would be singing a ghazal by Mohsin Naqvi. Besides, the maqta (the last couplet) too has the poet’s name. Mohsin Naqvi (1955-1996) was an immensely popular Pakistani poet, who made a mark in spite of a relatively short span of life during which he got around a dozen collections published.

Mohsin Naqvi has personified awaragi and the gzazal has been set in the tone of a monologue addressed to awaragi. The literal meaning of 'awaragi' would be 'wandering' or 'vagabondage' i.e. an aimless movement, a journey without a destination. However, here the term 'awaragi' appears to be inclusive of both loneliness and aimless wandering. Besides, this wandering is not consciously self-driven; it is a product of an oblivious state of mind, the ignorance or oblivion being inherent in the ‘nature’ of the wanderer. The poet seems to be likening the awaragi, the lonely wandering, to the perennial journey in solitude of the human soul in an unknown quest. I am reminded of the following from FitzGerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam:

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

Here is the ghazal (in Roman script) with paraphrase (as best as I can) and explanatory notes, based on an un-aided interpretation, as best as I could understand the ghazal. I cannot claim that it is the interpretation and, I am sure, people can have differing views on every word, every phrase, and every verse. But that is the beauty of literature. Is there one, only or the interpretation of Shakespeare?

ye dil ye pagal dil mera kyon bujha gaya awaragi
is dasht main ik shahar tha wo kya hua awaragi

Tell me, my lonely wanderings, why the heart’s glitter is gone;

A brimming city once, is an uninhabited jungle anon. 

The poets asks his solitude why the heart is filled with melancholy; the heart that was once like a city full of inhabitants is now like a jungle, desolate and void. The matla (the opening couplet) sets the tone for the ghazal, telling that the journey of human life is akin to an aimless wandering, devoid of hope.

kal shab mujhe be-shakl si awaz ne chaunka diya
main ne kaha tu kaun hai us ne kaha awaragi

Startled by a voice unknown yester-night, I asked its identity;

Your wandering loneliness, did the faceless voice reply.

The loneliness becomes so pervasive that it echoes and startles the individual, who soon realizes that his state of aimless wandering is a lonely journey.  

ik tu ki sadiyon se mere hamrah bhi hamraz bhi
ik main ke tere nam se na-ashna awaragi

For ages, thou have been my shadowing companion, my friend;

Here I am, unaware, I could not thy being comprehend. 

Here the poet makes it clear, and the use of the term ‘sadiyon’ (centuries) leaves no doubt, that the ‘awaragi’ is not the lonely wandering of an individual, but the universal loneliness of the human soul. It is a surprise, though, that the individual is not aware (na-ashna) of the loneliness.

ye dard ki tanhaiyan ye dasht ka viran safar
ham log to ukta gaye apni suna awaragi

Amidst the haunting loneliness, this journey through pain

Has drained our endurance, can you your vigor retain?

Here we observe a transition to the plural first person – ham log – from the individual main. The poets says that the life is like suffering in solitude (dard ki tanhaiyan), a stressful journey through a desolate terrain, which tests the ability to endure. The ‘awaragi’ though continues unfazed.

 

ik ajnabi jhonke ne jab pucha mere gam ka sabab
sahara ki bhigi ret par main ne likha awaragi

The cause of my agony, asked a breeze unknown;

My lonely wandering, on the wet sand I wrote.

The use of oxymoron is puzzling. How can there be sahara ki bhigi ret (the wet sand of the desert)? Is it a mirage? Or, does the poet want to convey that the awaragi keeps the mind so fettered and vision so blurred that they fail to recognise the symbols of hope and happiness, like the wetness of the sand? This interpretation seems to fit into the overall texture of the ghazal.

le ab to dasht-e-shab ki sari vus-atein sone lagin
ab jagna hoga hamain kab tak bata awaragi

The tired vacuum of the long night did evaporate;

Till when shall I be wakeful, my wanderings, narrate?

The poet points towards the imminent end of a sleepless night, a night which brought no comfort to the restlessness. The night, without the comforting sleep, is like a jungle (dasht) with enormous expansion (vus-atein). Then there a question: how long will the agony continue? It is more like a rhetorical question.

kal rat tanha chand ko dekha tha main ne khwab main
'Mohsin' mujhe ras ayegi shayad sada awaragi

Even the moon in my dreams, last night, was sad and lonely;

The lonely wanderings, it seems, is Mohsin’s destiny.

The awaragi has entrenched itself in the psyche in such a way that the restless wanderer cannot see beyond it. The use of the image of the lonely moon (tanha chand) is very fascinating. There can be a sky with stars without the moon, but the moon without the stars? Only a mind conditioned to solitude can imagine a tanha chand.