Chandigarh, Nov 3: The Urdu ghazal “Tum Ne Jab Zulf-e-Pareshan Ko Sanwara Hoga” by poet Danish Aligarhi remains one of those rare verses where beauty and sorrow intertwine seamlessly — a reminder that every strand of love carries both allure and ache.
Written in the classical tradition of longing and loss, the ghazal imagines a lover speaking to his beloved through memory and distance. The poem’s recurring image — the beloved’s dishevelled hair — becomes a metaphor for emotional turmoil, an emblem of chaos that beauty itself cannot contain.
“When you combed your restless tresses,” the poet suggests, “the clouds of beauty must have offered themselves in sacrifice.”
That single line captures the heart of Urdu romanticism: reverence, surrender, and the divine quiet of pain.
The ghazal’s rhythm flows like a lament, yet each couplet carries tenderness rather than complaint. Even the “stone-hearted beloved” — often a stock figure in classical poetry — is imagined here as softening, shedding unseen tears when the drowning lover calls out her name.
Critics note that Aligarhi’s strength lies in how he reclaims the ghazal’s old imagery — zulf, nazar, dil — and gives them an inward dimension. The poem isn’t about an encounter, but an echo; not about presence, but about what absence leaves behind.
Decades later, the verses continue to find life on social media and mushairas, recited by young poets who feel their resonance in modern heartbreak. “It’s not about the beloved anymore,” says an Urdu literature professor at Aligarh Muslim University. “It’s about anyone you’ve ever loved and lost, and the strange peace that follows pain.”
In “Tum Ne Jab Zulf-e-Pareshan Ko Sanwara Hoga,” love does not heal — it deepens. Between beauty and sorrow, the poet builds a bridge that time has yet to cross.
