Tum Naihi Gham Nahi Sharaab Nahi English Translation

Tum naihi gham nahi sharaab nahi, translates to English as, there is no you, no sorrow, and no alcohol... The best version I heard was in the 1979 record LP Come Alive, which was a live concert by Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh. It is a wonderful set of lyrics written by Saeed Rahi, with Iqbal Ahmed on the sarangi, Narayan Sarfaraz on the tabla, Surender Sharma on the santoor, C. Peterson Gagan Kishore Dey on Guitar, and Bhanver Lal on the violin. The lyrics are basically a generalised set of truths or axioms that could apply to almost everyone on the planet.

Kitaab means books in general. For example, kitaab-daar is a librarian, as in amiir-ul-maktab. These books are usually stored in a library (daar-ul-kutub).

Gaahe-gaahe, best translates to recitation, as in singing out continually. Padha, means to commit to memory parrot fashion without understanding. Although the third and fourth lines mentions book (kitab), in ghazals, words often have a bigger hidden meaning. Therefore, those lines could mean; one could read all the love stories in the world, but there is nothing more beautiful than the love story already in your heart (dil). That is assuming you have love in your heart in the first place of course! Alternatively, he could be saying, your heart is a library of knowledge, if only you visited it more often.

The last two lines are my favourite in particular, and they definitely refer to God. He counts (ginte) your deeds (karam) on fingers, yet his cruelty has no end, which is expressed by saying that it has no final total as it is ever going. Another way to look at it is that your deeds (whether good or bad) are finite, but his cruelty is infinite because it has no end.

Meaning and Context

Rukh (Urdu), face, as in rukhsaar, shakl, hae’iyat

Naqaab, mask

Hissab, account, final total

Jawab (Hindi), reply

Jawaab (Urdu), face as in facade or front

Oongliyon, fingers

Zulm, cruelty

Ginte, count

Afsaanah, Short Story

English Translation

Tum naihi, gham nahi, sharaab nahi

If there was no you, no sorrow, and no alcohol,

aisi tanhayee ka, jawaab nahi.

then that type of loneliness would also have no face.

Gaahe-gaahe ise padha kije,

Recite it over and over into your mind, but,

dil se behtar koi kitab nahi.

there is no book more beautiful than your heart.

Jaane kis-kis ki maut, aaye hai,

It understands, whose and whose death, has to come,

aaj, rukh pe, koi naqaab nahi.

yet, on its face, there are no kind of masks.

Wo karam oongliyon pe ginte hain,

It counts deeds on fingers,

zulm ka jinke kuch hisaab nahi...

whose cruelty has no final total...