Night- A Metaphor to a Hundred Colours

Occasionally, a symbol of the beloved’s raven tresses. At times, the ink that writes the tale of the lover’s painful separation and once in a while, the page that affirms the memories of a treasured union, Night, has been an inseparable companion to poet’s sentience since time immemorable.

Although it is dark, obscure and bleak in appearance in Urdu poetry you’ll get to see innumerable colours of this otherwise colourless canvas. Faiz has painted his starry hopes on it, Firaq has kissed goodbye to his solitude in its embrace, Shahryar has dabbed off his tears of parting with its ebony tissue and many others, likewise, have found solace in this nocturnal bliss.

Here is how some of the poets have versified the different moods of the night in their couplets,

Firaq Gorakhpuri

About the springtide, Oh, Firaaq! Don’t even ask
There is night, there is sleep, there is saga!

The night is when Firaaq is in his element, it’s a symbol of being alone but, alone with oneself! The reverie-lamps burn all night and tell the story of life’s springtime- love, the beloved and what not- extremely personal to the poet.

In this very ruin, are some injured lamps here and there
Anyhow turn to them, for the night is acutely grief-struck

In this verse, Firaq’s dearest night symbolizes an entire epoch. One has to persevere with whatever they’ve got, no matter what- much required motivation for the current times, agree?

Mirza Ghalib

The sleep, the peace, the nights are all his blesses
Whose shoulders bear your scattered tresses

Ghalib, unconventionally amorous in this verse, portrays night as the darkness in which the beloved shines. Perhaps it’s only the bewitching scattered tresses which deceive the lover into thinking that he alone enjoys sleep, peace and the night!

Whom shall I say, what is the wistful night- a cold hell?
Death would have been harmless if I were to die once!

Contrary to the former couplet, Ghalib, in his sneering tone makes little of the sad night, while covertly expressing that the such was the pain that it had even surpassed death!

Adil Mansuri

From the curls of darkness, the stars rolled along
Silence was in the embrace of shadows, all night long

The charm of night, loneliness and stillness, Adil Mansuri has drawn all of it in this scintillating sketch, just turn off the lights and live this couplet!

Hasan Naim

To the waning mornings and the restless evenings, someone has sent
A night-full of intoxication, in the glass of Ghazal

Such is the allure of night that it is offering some of its quiddity to other hours of the day and thanks to Hasan Naim, in the glass of Ghazal! Perhaps only a poet can help you gulp the nectar of Night!

Shahryar

Can one dare to tell the travellers of the night?
How long one has traversed, how long they are to?

The night is also a metaphor for existence and life, and this verse masterfully depicts our uncertain and unknown existential state. Although Shahryar has considerably used night in his poetry, the present couplet, with its rhetorical questioning, is perhaps the best.

Shakeb Jalaali

Having appeared, the boat of reverie drowned somewhere
This moon is a vortex, moonlight, an ocean.

Here, night is the lover’s mind, filled with the moonlit ocean, at the heart is the vortex-like spinning moon- the beloved herself! Every boat of the lover’s thought is destined to be drawn into her moony aperture. It is more of a portrait than a verse, if you can visualize, you can experience.

Night helps poets convey thoughts that daylight might hinder at discerning after all stars are only manifested in darkness!