ShringaraIntermediate

अफ़वाह है या सच है ये कोई नही बोला

Afwaah Hai Ya Sach Hai Ye Koi Nahi Bola

Dushyant Kumar

1 min read 5 versesSeparation Pain Silence

5 verses · ~1 min

अफ़वाह है या सच है ये कोई नही बोला मैंने भी सुना है अब जाएगा तेरा डोला

इन राहों के पत्थर भी मानूस थे पाँवों से पर मैंने पुकारा तो कोई भी नहीं बोला

लगता है ख़ुदाई में कुछ तेरा दख़ल भी है इस बार फ़िज़ाओं ने वो रंग नहीं घोला

आख़िर तो अँधेरे की जागीर नहीं हूँ मैं इस राख में पिन्हा है अब भी वही शोला

सोचा कि तू सोचेगी, तूने किसी शायर की दस्तक तो सुनी थी पर दरवाज़ा नहीं खोला

इति

Rasa: Shringara
Stanzas: 5
Lines: 10
Reading time: ~1 min
Form: Ghazal
Metre: ghazal
Rhyme: AABAACA

The poem radiates a melancholic and yearning shringara, capturing the heavy, stagnant atmosphere of a lover awaiting a union that is instead being severed by departure. A visual depiction would center on a solitary figure standing amidst desolate, sun-bleached pathways scattered with stones that seem to hold the memory of past footsteps, while the faint, spectral outline of a departing bridal palanquin lingers in the distance against a muted, graying horizon. The imagery of glowing embers buried deep within cold, dormant ash symbolizes the resilient, smoldering ache of unrequited devotion, suggesting a narrative of a rejected suitor whose impassioned call remains unanswered by a closed door. The tone is deeply reflective and bruised, blending the sharp sting of separation with a lingering, philosophical protest against the silent, indifferent architecture of fate.

अफ़वाह है या सच है ये कोई नही बोला (Afwaah Hai Ya Sach Hai Ye Koi Nahi Bola), by Dushyant Kumar runs to 10 lines across 5 stanzas, set as Couplets (Sher). Its governing rasa is Shringara, shaded by Karuna. The metre is ghazal. Rhyme falls as AABAACA.

It belongs to the 1933 · 1975 span of Dushyant Kumar's working life, and keeps the plain, spoken register that period is known for.

Read it for प्रेम में विरह और मौन की पीड़ा and अंधकार के बीच भी आशा की चिनगारी बनाए रखना. 3 words in it carry older or regional senses, so the poem rewards a second pass.

The verse is hung beside Urvashi Abandons Pururavas: Bathed in a warm, dramatic interplay of deep crimson and dusky shadow, the scene evokes a heavy, melancholic atmosphere of irreversible loss and divine longing. The portrait depicts the celestial nymph Urvashi ascending…

Words worth pausing on

मानूस: परिचित, अभ्यस्त
फ़िज़ाओं: वातावरण, हवाओं
पिन्हा: छिपा हुआ, गुप्त

Threads

Separation Pain Silence

The Poet

दुष्यंत कुमार

Dushyant Kumar

1933 · 1975

Dushyant Kumar did something that required a radical courage most artists never summon. He took a form synonymous with moonlit nights and the ache of unfulfilled romance and dragged it into the burning lanes where injustice stank and the ordinary man had no language for his helplessness. Born in 1931 in Uttar Pradesh, he dismantled the ornamental tradition of the Urdu ghazal and rebuilt it in Hindi as a weapon of the dispossessed. His singular collection Saaye Mein Dhoop became one of the most quietly devastating documents in the entire tradition of modern Hindi literature. The Emergency of 1975 gave his verses a context that proved them prophetic. Unlike mere political poetry, his words outlasted their moment to become permanent fixtures in the vocabulary of Indian dissent. He wrote not with a scholar's distance but with the shaking hands of someone who had looked injustice in the face and refused to flinch. He died at forty four, leaving behind a body of work so concentrated and incandescent that its light has not dimmed in half a century. To read Dushyant Kumar is to understand that poetry's highest function is not consolation but confrontation.