Should we get apart now (Ab ke ham bichhḌe to)

Sung by the maestro: Mehdi Hassan sb.

Ab ke ham bichhḌe to shāyad kabhī ḳhvāboñ meñ mileñ
jis tarah sūkhe hue phuul kitāboñ meñ mileñ

Should we get apart now,
then perhaps only in dreams
we come across…
Quite like the dried flowers
stuck in books read
sparsely come across…

DhūñDh ujḌe hue logoñ meñ vafā ke motī
ye ḳhazāne tujhe mumkin hai ḳharāboñ meñ mileñ

You search for
the pearls of commitment with-in
the perpetually abandoned.
It’s perhaps only the wilderness,
where such rare gems, you may
possibly come across.

ġham-e-duniyā bhī ġham-e-yār meñ shāmil kar lo
nashsha baḌhtā hai sharābeñ jo sharāboñ meñ mileñ

Mix all that
misery of love, with
the pangs of the world.
More these venoms blend,
tastier an intoxication
we come across.

tū ḳhudā hai na mirā ishq farishtoñ jaisā
donoñ insāñ haiñ to kyuuñ itne hijāboñ meñ mileñ

Neither are you a God
nor my love is
akin to the Angels.
When both are mere humans
then why so remotely
we come across?

aaj ham daar pe khīñche ga.e jin bātoñ par
kyā ajab kal vo zamāne ko nisāboñ meñ mileñ

These arguments on which
we simply – get hanged today
on ropes.
No wonder, if as time passes
in texts of curricula they
glibly come across.

ab na vo maiñ na vo tū hai na vo maazī hai ‘farāz’
jaise do shaḳhs tamannā ke sarāboñ meñ mileñ

Neither it’s same you now, nor the same am I,
nor anything is as same
as our past, “Faraz”.
It’s almost as if two strangers
swimming in a lake of expectations,
coincidentally come across.

— Dedicated to the lovers separated physically but yet united in thoughts.