Mainu tera shabaab lai baitha….
Lyricis: Shiv Kumar Batalvi
Singer: Asa Singh Mastana
Second song of the new series that we started day before yesterday. This too has lyrics by Shiv Kumar Batalvi. Thank you very much for the enthusiastic response to the first post.
Coincidentally, my first post in the series also had his poetry: ‘My Favourite Punjabi Songs – Song #1 – Ik Meri Akh Kashni‘ sung by the Nightingale of Punjab: Surinder Kaur.
Shiv Kumar Batalvi‘s life and poetry can be compared with Lily of May, short-lived but providing immense joys to all those who came in touch with either or both. He lived between 23 Jul 1938 and 06 May 1973. As I said in the first post, he and Lord Byron died before their 37th birthday.
Whereas, Lord Byron had a number of affairs including scandalous and licentious ones, Shiv Kumar’s poetry was driven by just two of them: Maina, a young girl that he met in Baijnath and Uma, Gurbakhsh Singh Preetlari’s daughter. Maina died and Shiv penned his elegy Maina for her. Uma left for the US and married someone else. Later Shiv Kumar too married Aruna and they have two children: Meharban and Puja.
When Uma Gurbakhsh gave birth to her first child, Shiv Kumar Batalvi penned his most poignant poem: ‘Main ek shikra yaar banaya’, which is rated as his most famous.
Mainu tera shabaab lai baitha is equally popular.
On the 14th of April, this year, we had the third annual meet of our music group ‘Yaad Kiya Dil Ne’ (Please read: ‘YKDN Live Fest In Kandaghat On Waltzing Numbers’). We had a ghazal and Sufi singer Pammi Hanspal with us. At the end of our Live Fest, he sang this song and we were all floored. That’s as much for Pammi’s singing skills as for the effect of the extraordinary lyrics penned by Shiv Kumar Batalvi. Here are all of us joining in for the rendition of this extraordinary Ghazal by Shiv Kumar Batalvi:
Of course, these are amateurish efforts. The ghazal is so popular even after 45 years of Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s demise that one can hear it at various gatherings. Everyone seems to know the lyrics.
Of course, my nostalgia goes back to hearing it from a great son of Punjab: Asa Singh Mastana though there are various versions of this ghazal including by one of the greatest ghazal singers: Jagjit Singh.
Asa Singh Mastana lived between 22 Aug 1927 and 23 May 1999. He made a name for himself on the All India Radio from 1940s onwards by singing Punjabi folk songs either by himself or in concert with Surinder Kaur and Kuldeep Manak. Some of his songs became so popular that these are hummed even today. One of my all time favourites is the tear-jerker: Jadon meri arthi uthha ke chalange. I shall be giving that to you as I go along. Another is: Mutiyare jaana door pya, which has flavour of a typical Punjabi wedding.
Another two favourites are the Heer and Jugni that he sang for the Hindi movie Heer. Yet another is Sarke sarke jaandiye mutiyare ni.
In 1985, he was honoured by the government of India by the award of Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award.
Now lets look at the beauty of the lyrics (Please do remember that this ghazal has been sung by many different singers and each has chosen some stanza or the other and his own sequence):
First in Punjabi transliterated:
Mainu tera shabab lai baitha,
Rang gora gulab lai baitha,
Mainu tera shabab lai baitha
Dil daa darr si kite naa lai baithe
Lai hee baitha janab lai baitha
Mainu tera shabab lai baitha
Kini beeti te kini baaki eh,
Mainu eho hisaab lai baitha,
Mainu tera shabab lai baitha
Shiv nu ikk gham te hee bharosa si
Gham toh kora jawaab lai baitha
Mainu tera shabab lai baitha
Wel jad vi mili hai farza taun,
Tere mukh di kitaab lai baitha,
Mainu tera shabab lai baitha
Mainu jad vi tusi ho yaad aye,
Din dihaade sharab lai baitha,
Mainu tera shabab lai baitha
Changa hunda je sawaal na poochda,
Mainu tera jawaab lai baitha,
Mainu tera shabab lai baitha
And now the translation by me:
Your young beauty has seized my senses
(Your) fair-rosy colour has seized me
Your young beauty has seized my senses
I feared for my heart that it shouldn’t be seized,
(But) It was seized, my dear Sir, it was,
(Your) young beauty has seized my senses
How much life is spent and how much remains
This calculation has seized me
Your young beauty has seized my senses
Shiv relied on just one sorrow
(That) Grief too has abandoned me
Your young beauty has seized my senses
Whenever I had free time from my duties,
I was seized by the book of your face,
Your young beauty has seized my senses
Whenever I have thought of you,
I took to drinking even during daytime,
Your young beauty has seized my senses
It would have been good if I hadn’t asked the question,
I was seized by your answer.
Your young beauty has seized my senses
Please enjoy Asa Singh Mastana sing the most popular ghazal of Shiv Singh Batalvi: Mainu tera shabab lai baitha:
https://youtu.be/SAUh28WCvpY
Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s love poems had all the melancholy about them that he faced in his life with unrequited love.
This one is very important since it talks about drinking in her gham (sorrow). All of us know that finally this gham and consequent drinking heavily into the wee hours of mornings that killed him.
He was the youngest recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award and he died young.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Please await the next song in this series.
