ShantaIntermediate

नज़र-नवाज़ नज़ारा बदल न जाए कहीं

Nazar-Nawaz Nazara Badal Na Jaaye Kahin

Dushyant Kumar

1 min read 7 verses

7 verses · ~1 min

नज़र-नवाज़ नज़ारा बदल न जाए कहीं जरा-सी बात है मुँह से निकल न जाए कहीं

वो देखते है तो लगता है नींव हिलती है मेरे बयान को बंदिश निगल न जाए कहीं

यों मुझको ख़ुद पे बहुत ऐतबार है लेकिन ये बर्फ आंच के आगे पिघल न जाए कहीं

चले हवा तो किवाड़ों को बंद कर लेना ये गरम राख़ शरारों में ढल न जाए कहीं

तमाम रात तेरे मैकदे में मय पी है तमाम उम्र नशे में निकल न जाए कहीं

कभी मचान पे चढ़ने की आरज़ू उभरी कभी ये डर कि ये सीढ़ी फिसल न जाए कहीं

ये लोग होमो-हवन में यकीन रखते है चलो यहां से चलें, हाथ जल न जाए कहीं

इति

Rasa: Shanta
Stanzas: 7
Lines: 14
Reading time: ~1 min
Form: Ghazal
Metre: ghazal
Rhyme: AABAACA

The poem evokes a profound mood of quiet apprehension and fragile serenity, rooted in the shanta rasa where a deep, contemplative stillness is constantly threatened by an underlying anxiety of loss and transformation. A painting capturing this scene would depict a solitary figure sitting hesitantly near a flickering hearth or a tightly shuttered window, surrounded by glowing embers, melting ice, and the hazy aftermath of a winehouse night, torn between looking out at a mesmerizing vista and pulling back to safety. The imagery heavily features physical thresholds and volatile elements—melting snow, blowing winds, glowing ash turning into sudden sparks, and slippery ladders—which symbolize the precariousness of emotional intoxication, suppressed truths, and the danger of ideological clashes symbolized by ritual fires. The artistic tone is delicately tense, blending the romantic hangover of worldly indulgence with a sober, melancholic realization that perfection is fleeting and the surrounding environment is dangerously volatile.

नज़र-नवाज़ नज़ारा बदल न जाए कहीं (Nazar-Nawaz Nazara Badal Na Jaaye Kahin), by Dushyant Kumar runs to 14 lines across 7 stanzas, set as Couplets (Sher). Its governing rasa is Shanta, shaded by Bhayanaka. 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 जीवन की अनिश्चितता और आंतरिक भय and सामाजिक और राजनैतिक व्यवस्था पर सूक्ष्म कटाक्ष. 4 words in it carry older or regional senses, so the poem rewards a second pass.

The verse is hung beside And We Are Laboring: The painting evokes a profound mood of transcendent stillness, capturing the quiet endurance of human devotion against the overwhelming majesty of the high Himalayas. A Tibetan monastery and sacred stupa cling…

Words worth pausing on

नज़र-नवाज़: आँखों को भला लगने वाला, दृष्टि को प्रिय
ऐतबार: भरोसा, विश्वास
मैकदा: मदिरालय, शराबखाना
आरज़ू: इच्छा, कामना

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.