Tag: Waris Shah

Heer Waris Shah – PaRchol te Visthaar

If you are familiar with Heer Waris Shah you would know that in an attempt to make it the “biggest” Heer, many publishers got new verses written in the name of Waris Shah and completely spoiled the original text. This continued for decades till the research work dedicated to cleaning the text of this garbage was undertaken in both Punjabs and an authentic version was published. To give you an example, a very famous band, sung by many singers ਡੋਲੀ ਚੜ੍ਹਦਿਆਂ ਮਾਰੀਆਂ ਹੀਰ ਚੀਕਾਂ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਲੈ ਚਲੇ ਬਾਬਲਾ ਲੈ ਚਲੇ ਵੇ isn’t written by Waris Shah. Even Gulzar fell for it when he included it in the album called “Heer by Abida” he did with Abida Parveen

Now coming to why I am posting this, I got this book by Bakhshish Singh Nijjar a decade ago but never really got a chance to read it. This is a book of 500 pages and that was the reason I got it as I wanted to understand Heer Waris Shah in detail.

Finally, now, for a week or so, it was on my desk and I spent some time reading some random pages and it seems to be based on one such “sab ton waddi” edition of Heer. It contains such surprisingly vahiyaat stuff. See, for example this band supposedly about a dialogue between Ranjha turned Jogi and Sehti:

Same author has also published Heer Waris Shah text in a separate book and here is a look at the first band:

We all know that first band in original text is just this much:

ਅੱਵਲ ਹਮਦ ਖ਼ੁਦਾਇ ਦਾ ਵਿਰਦ ਕੀਜੇ, ਇਸ਼ਕ ਕੀਤਾ ਸੂ ਜੱਗ ਦਾ ਮੂਲ ਮੀਆਂ ।
ਪਹਿਲੇ ਆਪ ਹੈ ਰਬ ਨੇ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਕੀਤਾ, ਮਾਸ਼ੂਕ ਹੈ ਨਬੀ ਰਸੂਲ ਮੀਆਂ ।
ਇਸ਼ਕ ਪੀਰ ਫ਼ਕੀਰ ਦਾ ਮਰਤਬਾ ਹੈ, ਮਰਦ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਦਾ ਭਲਾ ਰੰਜੂਲ ਮੀਆਂ ।
ਖਿਲੇ ਤਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਦੇ ਬਾਗ਼ ਕਲੂਬ ਅੰਦਰ, ਜਿਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਕੀਤਾ ਹੈ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਕਬੂਲ ਮੀਆਂ ।

Now this book “PaRchol te Visthaar” does explain in detail about a lot of aspects of Heer Waris Shah but since it is based on a text that isn’t authentic, I don’t know how much sense it makes to rely on those explanations. If you want to read an authentic text in Gurmukhi, pls get the one edited by Dr Jeet Singh Seetal. He was the one who lead the work on finding the original text of Heer. It is available on Amazon. If you want to read it online, you can read on punjabi-kavita.com.

naqsh faryaadi hai…

Have just been trying to understand the opening verse of Diwan-e-Ghalib. Finally after looking at few of the books and translations, it is making some sense to me. So here is what I understood of it.

Poets generally start their work by remembering the God and praising him for creating this world. Waris Shah opens his epic qissa Heer with:

awal hamd khuda da vird keeje,
ishq kita su jag da mool miyan

First of all let us acknowledge God, who has made love the worth of the world, Sir – Translation from Wiki

Ghalib also does the same but bit differently. He does acknowledge that this universe was created by God but doesn’t praise him for this. He rather takes a shot at God and complaints about the pain and sufferings humans go through in this world. The complete verse is:

naqsh faryaadi hai kis ki shokhi-e-tahreer ka,
kaagzi hai pairahan har paikar-e-tasveer ka

First few word meanings:

naqsh – a painting or portrait
faryaad – complaint or plea so faryaadi – the one who is complaining
shokhi – mischief
tahreer – handwriting
kaagzi – made of paper
pairahan – clothes
paikar – face, form, appearance

Before we get in to the explanation it is important to understand the importance of kaagzi pairahan (clothes made of paper). It has its roots in old Persian tradition where the complainants would go to their kings wearing clothes made of paper. It was considered a symbol of humility.

In the first line Ghalib says “who did the mischief of creating this universe ? You ! right ?” So he does acknowlge that everything has been created by God. But he sees everyone (all humans) as faryaadi and to who we are complaining ? of course God. So he relates the condition of humans to someone who is there in a king’s court with his faryaad. Here we are the complainants and God is the king. He questions the very creation of such world where there is so much of suffering and everyone seems to be doing a faryaad in the king’s (God) court. What was the need to create such a world ?

Here and here are some links discussing it in much more detail.