KarunaIntermediate

कहाँ तो तय था चराग़ाँ हर एक घर के लिये

Kahan To Tay Tha Charaghan Har Ek Ghar Ke Liye

Dushyant Kumar

1 min read 6 versesPolitics Despair

6 verses · ~1 min

कहाँ तो तय था चराग़ाँ हर एक घर के लिये कहाँ चराग़ मयस्सर नहीं शहर के लिये

यहाँ दरख़्तों के साये में धूप लगती है चलो यहाँ से चले और उम्र भर के लिये

न हो क़मीज़ तो घुटनों से पेट ढक लेंगे ये लोग कितने मुनासिब हैं इस सफ़र के लिये

ख़ुदा नहीं न सही आदमी का ख़्वाब सही कोई हसीन नज़ारा तो है नज़र के लिये

वो मुतमइन हैं कि पत्थर पिघल नहीं सकता मैं बेक़रार हूँ आवाज़ में असर के लिये

जियें तो अपने बग़ीचे में गुलमोहर के तले मरें तो ग़ैर की गलियों में गुलमोहर के लिये.

इति

Rasa: Karuna
Stanzas: 6
Lines: 12
Reading time: ~1 min
Form: Ghazal
Metre: ghazal
Rhyme: AABAACA

The emotional atmosphere of the poem is one of profound disillusionment and sorrow, driven by the stark betrayal of political promises and systemic neglect. A painting capturing this scene would depict a sprawling, shadowed cityscape at dusk where streets lack even a single flickering lamp, while in the foreground, impoverished citizens huddle together in tattered clothes beneath sparse trees that offer no refuge from the beating sun. Subtle symbolic elements—such as a distant, withered gulmohar tree dropping barren red petals onto dusty ground—underscore the tragic loss of hope and the quiet dignity of endurance amidst poverty. The overall artistic tone is stark, melancholic, and bitterly ironic, blending a devotional yearning for a better life with the bleak reality of perpetual suffering.

कहाँ तो तय था चराग़ाँ हर एक घर के लिये (Kahan To Tay Tha Charaghan Har Ek Ghar Ke Liye), by Dushyant Kumar runs to 12 lines across 6 stanzas, set as Couplets (Sher). Its governing rasa is Karuna, shaded by Veera. The metre is ghazal. Rhyme falls as AABAACA.

यह दुष्यंत कुमार की सबसे प्रसिद्ध राजनैतिक ग़ज़लों में से एक है, जो आज भी भारतीय राजनीति में वादों के खोखलेपन को दर्शाने के लिए उद्धृत की जाती है।

Read it for राजनैतिक वादों और यथार्थ के बीच की खाई and शोषित वर्ग की लाचारी और उनके भीतर सुलगती आवाज़. 3 words in it carry older or regional senses, so the poem rewards a second pass.

The verse is hung beside Sita in Ashoka Vatika: The painting evokes a heavy, atmospheric tension imbued with quiet sorrow and profound spiritual resilience, capturing the quiet dignity of a noble woman trapped in hostile surroundings. Seated beneath the boughs of the…

Words worth pausing on

चराग़ाँ: रोशनी, दीपमाला
मयस्सर: उपलब्ध, प्राप्त
मुतमइन: आश्वस्त, संतुष्ट

Threads

Politics Despair

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.