Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Inglourious Basterds

In some senses Inglourious Basterds is a typical Quentin Tarantino movie with "Chapter" - based narrative, cinematic nods of acknowledgement to past movies from the same genre and comic relief blended into seemingly ultra-violent settings: (Col Hans Landa's sherlock-holmes-on-hormones calabash pipe compared to the Frenchman monsieur La Padite's rustic little briar-aspirant pipe did break the tension for the entire audience in my hall during the opening scene of Jew search visit). Everything from the title itself to the minor details is inspired but Inglourious Basterdsis definitely worth a watch.

What I liked about Inglourious Basterds is that it gives enough screen time to all the major characters. Though Brad Pitt features most prominently on the posters, to me his character appeared as just one of the many key characters in the movie. Lt. Aldo Raine, the Jew-Red-Indian heritage leader of the Basterds played by Brad Pitt, provides a lot of comic relief and sense of purpose. His southern Tennessee drawl, never ending search for Nazi scalps and matter-of-fact engraving of the Swastika on the foreheads of captured Nazis all help make him the most loved of all the characters with the audience. 

Sample this dialogue between Lt. Aldo Raines and Lt. Archie Hicox

Lt. Aldo Raine: You didn't say the goddamn rendezvous was in a fuckin' basement.
Lt. Archie Hicox: I didn't know.
Lt. Aldo Raine: You said it was in a tavern.
Lt. Archie Hicox: It is a tavern.
Lt. Aldo Raine: Yeah, in a basement. You know, fightin' in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you're fightin' in a basement!

However my personal favourites in Inglourious Basterds are Lt. Archie Hicox, the British German movie industry doctorate holder, played by Michael Fassbender, Bridget Von Hammersmark, the German movie diva played by Diane Kruger and Col Hans Landa, the "Jew Hunter" SS colonel, played by Christoph Waltz. I also liked the acting of the Frenchman Denis Menochet as the French dairy farmer Monsieur La Padite, hiding his Jewish neighbours in his cellar. In fact all the actors in Inglourious Basterds have done really well.

The English subtitles of the many German and French dialogues have been handled extremely well. There are many fast paced dialogues in German which have been executed superbly. Of course most of the cast involved in these is German anyway but it still needs an intelligent director to convert it into great reel time and Quentin Tarantino is more than up to the task here. My two favourite scenes from Inglourious Basterds are: the first opening scene where Col Hans Landa visits Monsieur La Padite and his three very beautiful daughters and the tavern scene involving the three basterds, Bridget Von Hammersmark and the SS Major Hellstrom. In both the scenes a lot about the characters is revealed, the tension slowly builds up, wooden tables are involved (ok that was stupid) and the outcome in each has great impact soon after. Both the scenes have German, French and English. The subtitles have been done well and more importantly the transition from German English and French English and back and forth is amazingly smooth. 

As a film, Inglourious Basterds is acutely aware of its audience being far removed in terms of time from the events of World War 2. Take for instance when the narrator explains the highly combustible nature of the 35mm films of the era of World War 2 and he starts with the words "In those days...". Even the need for the narrator to provide an explanation on this says a lot.Another example of this self-awareness is the pointing out on screen the key Nazi officials using animated arrows. These are not necessarily bad things to do, in fact these help to cut through the chase so to speak and highlight the significance of events immediately. Quentin Tarantino certainly knows how to endear his movies to his audiences. In some sense I would do the same if I was to make such a movie for today's audience...okay now entering the realm of day dreaming.

Films on World War 2 will not go out of style any time soon, they started soon after the outbreak of the Nazi Blitzkrieg in 1939 and haven't run out of steam yet. Apart from Inglourious Basterds, there are at least two Hollywood films on this theme set to be released within the next year (a remake of the 1955 Dambusters and the other being Little Iron Men). Inglourious Basterds will never be in the top rung of great World War 2 films and perhaps if a poll of such great films was to be held a decade from now, Inglourious Basterdsmay not make it into the top 20 but the current popularity of this movie can not be denied.

Where this movie really scores is that it seems to appeal a lot to a newer generation of movie-goers who have never heard of Patton or Tora Tora or The Longest Day or Dirty Dozen or The Eagle Has Landed et al and who couldn't care less about last year's bomb Valkyrie but who can easily sit through a Quentin Tarantino style rendition of almost anything be it a movie on World War 2 or on how a bride extracts sword-blade revenge or on the nuances of selling salted butter in Namibia or whatever. And in this sense Inglourious Basterdsnot only keeps the tradition of World War 2 movies alive but it will perhaps help re-introduce at least some of the above mentioned movies to a newer generation of film buffs. 

And then of course it has the legend of the Bear Jew.........."NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN"

Post Script: - The black and white Nazi propoganda movie of Joseph Goebbels called the "Nation's Pride", which plays in Shosanna's cinema, was directed by Eli Roth, the character who plays the baseball bat wielding Bear Jew.


Another anachronism I noticed was when Col Hans Landa talks of precluding any chances of being tried by a Jewish court. In 1944 there was no Jewish state and the real possibility of such a state was quite remote. Further the question of a German colonel ending up in a Jewish court would also seems quite remote or non-existent at the time. Hence Landa's comment is anachronistic. However after the formation of Israel some Nazis were tried in "Jewish" courts the most famous such case being the trial of SS Lt.Col. Adolf Eichmann in the 1960s.

Brigadier and Brigadier General + John Nicholson

Brigadier General - Transient Throne

John Nicholson

and General Custer as a footnote

I have always been interested in the history of military and it was not entirely unnatural for me to ponder a bit on the sudden promotion of a Captain John Nicholson to the rank of Brigadier in 1857. This jump in ranks ultimately led me to understand a bit more of military ranks and of John Nicholson. Here's what happened.

While reading an account of the Siege of Delhi of 1857 I often came across the name John Nicholson. This is no surprise since to most of the British present at the siege and thereafter Nicholson was the first among equals in the line of heroes of the siege. He was one of Henry Lawrence's Young Men, each of whom was in the words of Philip Mason "Moses and Napoleon" - tax collector, magistrate, army commander, political officer, division officer all rolled into one; usually the only white face for hundreds and hundreds miles around his jurisdiction in the Punjab province or the North East Frontier Province.

Upon the outbreak of the Mutiny, Nicholson was a captain serving under John Lawrence (younger brother of Henry Lawrence), the governor of the recently conquered Punjab province. The Delhi Field Force was assembled on the ridge overlooking Shahjahanabad in May - June 1857; the Moving Column from Punjab joined up with the force to lay siege to Delhi in mid August and Capt. John Nicholson came in with the column. He fought alongside the rest of the British officers against the Sepoys and Mughals of Delhi who fought back with just as much ferocity. The next month was spent in an internecine impasse and finally the majority of the British officers voted for frontal assault on the walls of Delhi on the 14th of September with none other than Brigadier General John Nicholson to lead them.

"Eh?" me sputters in surprise,
"Brigadier General? But he was a captain wasn't he?"
me scans the last few pages skipping words and lines searching for the name John Nicholson and, yes indeed, he had been a captain till now. "So? Then? What just happened is the space of the last two lines to pole-vault him from Captain to Brigadier General?"

Turns out it's not such a big deal after all. I mean it is and yet it isn't. Let me explain.After years of conducting PhD. quality research, back breaking investigations and talking to retired and surviving army officers I have come to discover the following.

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There were at least four types of ranks in the British Army in India -
Substantive
Acting
Temporary and
Brevet.
A substantive rank is a permanent rank which governs the pay and allowances due to an officer. An acting rank is a rank awarded for a time which may or may not be converted into a permanent  rank; holding an acting rank allows for the higher pay associated with the higher acting rank to be given to a holder of a lower substantive rank. Thus a substantive Captain, Acting Major would be paid as per the pay scale of a Major. A temporary rank is exactly what is says - temporary, more on this below. Each of these three is a commissioned rank which means that the ranks is conferred on the officer by the ruling monarch or by the Board of Representatives (of the East India Company) or a similar such authority. A brevet rank however is not a commissioned rank. Other than by the usual channel above, it can also be awarded by the commander of the army for exemplary bravery and is ceremonial (though years of service as a brevet rank holder do go towards the calculation of seniority); it is however permanent and one can not be 'demoted' from a brevet rank just as the in case of a permanent rank.

The rank of Brigadier or Brigadier General was almost always a temporary rank. Brigadier was a rank awarded for a specific purpose (or mission) such as taking command of all the forces in a battle ie commanding the full brigade, commanding a section of a wartime activity (like arranging for troop recruitments or logistics) or acting as the commanding officer of group formed for a special task such as the Army Of Retribution formed to avenge the massacre of the Kabul Residency in the 1870s. Brigadier or Birgadier General was usually an emergency rank awarded for a task to be accomplished in the near future. This temporary rank was always withdrawn as soon as the task was accomplished. Hence, for example, any Colonel promoted to the rank of a Brigadier for a battle was always 'demoted' back to the rank of a Colonel after the battle.

As a useful digression I present here the military ranks in ascending order of hierarchy for the British Army in India and for the Army of the East India Company at the time of the Mutiny of 1857:

Subaltern - Ensign in Infantry and Cornet in Cavalry - equivalent to a modern day Lieutenant

Captain

Major

Lt. Colonel

Colonel

Brigadier - Brigadier General

Major General

Lt. General

General

The difference between the terms Brigadier and Brigadier General was due to the source of the temporary appointment. If the appointment was made by the monarch or his or her representative (Governor General or Viceroy for example) then the term used was Brigadier General. If appointment was awarded in the field on the authority of a senior General then the term used was Brigadier. Ultimately though this made little difference as the term was often used inter-changeably.

There could be no brevet-Brigadier since a temporary rank could not be awarded for bravery shown in past actions. The temporary rank was always awarded for some future intended outcome and not as a reward. Also brevet ranks were permanent, temporary ranks were, well, temporary.

Brigadier and Brigadier Generals are ranks still retained by the British and most Commonwealth armies though now these ranks are mostly permanent and substantive (not temporary) and no demotions can be made from this rank under normal circumstances.

Till now this is not such a big deal.

The Brigadier was usually the senior most Colonel from among all the Colonels present during the emergency. As can be seen in the hierarchy given above this rank was always somewhere in between that of a full Colonel and a Major General. As a matter of fact the Brigadier was and is still referred to as Colonel-General is certain armies. And this is where John Nicholson's advance from Captain to Brigadier is so unique. The man jumped at least 3 ranks and close to 15 years of service to become a Brigadier overnight. Brigadier John Nicholson superseded scores of other higher ranking Majors, Lt. Colonels and Colonel to become the commander of the assault party. He was made the supreme authority for the charge on the walls of Delhi and all officers (senior and junior) in the attack gladly accepted to follow his lead. The overall Commander of the Delhi Field Force was still Brigadier Wilson, senior to Nicholson in age and years of experience by many a decades, who supervised the attach from atop the Ridge.  Had Brigadier General Nicholson survived the assault he would had to go back to the rank of Captain after the completion of the assault. Incidentally the tombstone of John Nicholson gives the rank of the John Nicholson as Brigadier General (temporary) and not as Captain (substantiative). It is set in a cemetery named after him, located in an erstwhile Mughal garden situated just outside the Kashmiri Gate. It was this very bastion of the wall of Delhi which Nicholson attacked on the 14th of Sept 1857 and this is where he fell. Nicholson was fatally wounded at the beginning of  the road which connects Kashmiri Gate with Mori Gate, running along the arch of the wall which is in between these two gates. This road was named Nicholson Road.

I do not wish to spin off this post as an essay on the life of John Nicholson or on reputation and respect John Nicholson enjoyed amongst his British brethren and the Sikhs as well (check out the fanatical Sikh sect 'Nikel Sanis' loyal only to John Nicholson). And nor do I wish to dwell too much on his cruelty in dispensing punishment on the rebellious Sepoys.  I point the reader towards the rich encomiums showered in the thoroughly enjoyable memoirs of Lord Roberts of Kandhar and to other such memoirs written by the contemporaries of Brigadier General John Nicholson. It is also significant that the usually highly acerbic character of writer George MacDonald Fraser, Col Harry Flashman, who usually lashes away with his vitriolic tongue to decimate the reputation of all from Queen Victoria down to the lowest clerk in the far reaches of the Raj, doesn't sully the name of John Nicholson one bit when he recounts his encounter with the towering-heavily bearded frame of John Nicholson (in the Flashman series novel - The Great Game). Such is the stature of John Nicholson.

Another star on Nicholson's chest - a 150 years and one independence on, the cemetery is still called Nicholson Cemetery and the road is still called Nicholson Road. 


Interested reader (hint for detractors and other such folk) should also however lookout for (quite irrelevant and how-does-it-matter) charges of homosexual relations between John Nicholson and, another of Henry Lawrence's young men, Herbert Edwardes.


Walking along Nicholson road at dusk, the sky rife with hues of orange and rust lethargically blotting into one another merged further by the muezzins evening call, the wall of Delhi (still) stoutly standing on one side and an unending row of hardware shops with bored-to-death-owners-who-spend-their-whole-lives-staring-at-the-wall,siting inside on the other side with only about 15 feet separating the two, I could only think of how these shop keepers and the Kashmiri Gate wall are inextricably intertwined with the rank of Brigadier in my mind.

Another (not very useful but highly interesting) digression.

The famous American military personality General Custer was a  Lieutenant Cadet (Subaltern) at the start of the American Civil War in 1861 and was temporarily made a Brigadier General at the age of 23 years in 1863 just 3 days before Gettysburg. He also became a brevet Major General in the mid 1860s and his substantive rank at the time of the death in 1874 at Little Bighorn was Lt. Colonel. Now, finally these ranks make some sense, phew!

I suppose this also the right place to mention another place Brigadier General of the Indian Army (Imperial) - General Reginald Dyer of the Amritsar masacare of 1919. Brigadier GeneralDyer retired with the substantive rank of Colonel.

This post is very unstructured (can't help it; the rank of Brigadier and John Nicholson go hand in hand in my mind). Perhaps this post leaves no one in the world any wiser and nor does it do much to reverse global warming but it's just something I discovered and which led me further onto a never ending and superb journey into the world of the Raj and that is why I decided to commit it to paper, er, screen...yeah commit it to screen and to space of blogger's server.

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To know more:

1.  British Army in India and the rank of Brigadier General

Wikipedia on British Army

Wikipedia on British Army in India

Sahibs by Richard Holmes

Redcoat by Richard Holmes

A Matter of Honour by Philip Mason


2. John Nicholson


Soldier Sahib by Charles Allen


Wikipedia

Memoirs of Lord Roberts - download for free from gutenberg

Life of John Nicholson by J. Trotter

Encyclopedia Britannica on John Nicholson from 1911

Mumbai Attacks - 26/11 - Nov 2008

A lot has been said about the Mumbai attacks. I agree with somethings and disagree with some other things. Here are some things I feel the need to say to those who wish to know:

1. Save the money which would be spent on the candle and / or flowers and / or text messages to each other asking to burn candles. Let's say Rs5 are saved per person.

2. Donate these saving to Army Wives Association http://awwa-india.org/ or other such organisations. Assure the armed forces that we as a nation will continue on our own to support their families withouth passing the buck onto the government or to the army. The families of those who sacrifice their lives for the nation should be the priority of the nation. When they did not pass on the buck onto the government after being called to take charge how can we pass on the buck now?

Simple maths:

If each person above the poverty line living in just Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras was to donate Rs5 then the corpus would excees millions of Rupees.

Donate to anybody you want to or help otherwise (PM's fund, local gurudrawara, orphanage, school take your pic); all such actions help. But remember do not make them one-off-I've-done-my-bit actions. Small but continuous steps are better.

It does not matter how and where we help but we must. Our armed forces have our respect and rightly so. Even if they do not give up their lives just their presence is important. I can enjoy my life, go to the movies, do what I want, eat, drink, sleep, shop do whatever because there is somebody donning a uniform in my stead. He or she is there on my behalf, not on the government's behalf. Armed forces people risk their own lives for their comrades around them and for us, not for the government, not for the notion of India but for the people who are with them in conflicts (their teams, their group, their subordinates and colleagues) and for the people back home.

3. Ignore the glamour-affected-latest-hero-worship-fish-market-hollier-than-thou media houses which want to tell us how we should show solidarity with the armed forces of India and which news to focus on. Media houses (TV Channels esp) have a huge amounts of costs to recover; they are in an industry where the competition is extremely stiff.They have to make every second of air time count. Working the way they work is the only business model they know of and the only one that helps them to make money. They have to show returns on investments. It is foolish for the citizens of India to expect news TV channels to improve the quality of news reporting and analysis. Let the media be. We all get angry at them but they are to be pitied. They have no credibility and nor do they enjoy the respect of most of us. And of course this applies not just to the news channels but to the highly visible faces of these news channels, the so called news heads and to the content editors as well.

4. Do not forgive the politicians and the bureaucrats. Do whatever it takes to shake the fetid political foliage of our nation. Our politicians play with our lives our parents' lives our children's lives, destroy our youth, get the most courageous from amongst us killed for no reason (often facing terrorists without adequate equipment), dilly dally with reforms, cause the deaths of lakhs of Indian every year due to avarice, negligence and plain apathy and then the corruption...

One way is to invoke Sec 49-O of the Conduct of Election Rules Act 1961. Possibly the only weapon we the citizens have againt the politicians. It is our constitutional right as well as our duty.

Sec 49-O, under the Indian Constitution, essentially empowers each citizen of India to vote for "nobody". A voter can choose not to vote for anybody.

As of now this power can not be used by voters as the electronic voting machines do not have a nobody option but the Hon. Supreme Court of India is reviewing cases to get this option included. The Election Commission of India has also made similar recommendations. Although the Returning Officer at each booth can be informed of a "I vote for nobody" decision this would constitute a violation of the law which states that the decision of a voter can not be disclosed to anybody else.

With some changes this can become a possibility and in that case if the number of people in a constituency who exercise this option were to exceed the victory margin of the winner from that constituency then the election results would stand canceled. Re-election would have to be called for and none of the contenders from the initial election would be allowed to contest again.

Text of Sec 49-O

"49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his

electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters

in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as

required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his

vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in

Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb

impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark."

Source - Law Ministry Website

http://lawmin.nic.in/ld/subord/cer1.htm

To know more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/49-O

There are other ways also, Checking the affidavits filed by the contenders in your area for criminal cases, and assets declaration among other things , using RTI Act for example.

5. Be good to each other as much as we can be. You love me I love you, to hell with the government, cause it just loves its own self (and even that can be disputed). The government is not the cure for all evil in our country, I have come across many in the government who are hard and honest workers and administrators. It becomes unjust to blame the entire government for everything.

All of us are busy, all of have problems and we can go on doing whatever we do, we can live our lives happily, we just need to make small efforts and do good.

There is some good news. I am happy to know that the Centre has decided to immediately setup new NSG bases in all the metros of India to reduce the reaction time in Mumbai-like situations (as of now the NSG is based out of Manesar near Delhi and it took them more than 3 hours to get to Mumbai).

Further,the states are also being advised to establish their own state-level NSG units which will be the first ones to reach the location of the crisis and act in concert with the Centre-Level NSG units (based out to Delhi and soon out of the other metros as well). The state-level NSG units will be of the same calibre as the Centre-level NSG units. Karnataka has already requested the Centre to help it establish and train a Karnataka NSG. I hope this plan works.

Just remember that more than 4/5th (40 odd) of the Mumbai Attack terrorists have escaped. They are now inside India and waiting for the right time. Better for all of us to be prepared and do our small bits.

Related post

http://azhdaha.blogspot.com/2008/12/symbolic-gesticulation-belongs-to-age.html

http://indianmilitarybenefits.blogspot.com/2008/12/rule-49-o-right-to-negative-vote-not.html

http://indianmilitarybenefits.blogspot.com/2008/11/heartfelt-condolences-irrespective-of.html

sometimes

Sometimes…
I say cheese when I want to say salt,
Or ask you to run when I want you to halt,
I wave goodbye when I want you to talk,
Or push you away when I want you a lot

To forget I write

To forget I write,
The more I write the more images become sharp,
The more images become sharp the more they cut through my heart,
The more my heart bleeds the more alive I be,
The more alive I feel the more I want thee,
The more I want thee the more it pains to not have you near me,
The more it pains the more I want to forget,
To forget I write

and maybe one day

and maybe one day

you will  just talk
and i will just watch


you will tell me of life
and i will live what you describe



you will use your words to help me rest to massage me
and i will roll in them to remove my burden from me


you will speak with happiness gesturing from your eyes sitting on the bed
and i will sleep listening to you with your lap under my head


you will touch my cheek and run your fingers through my hair
and i will slip deeper into slumber knowing you are there


you will unflurl your memories and take me to your childhood
and i will lie in them and dream of enjoying all that you could


you will ask if i am to go to be somewhere else to do something
and i will reply that just lying with you when you speak  is the only thing
 

and maybe one day

you will  just talk
and i will just watch

Umrao Jaan - 1981 - Yeh Kya Jageh Hai Doston - Urdu + English LYRICS

Umrao Jaan - Yeh Kya Jageh Hai Doston Lyrics

Lyrics - Akhlaq Muhammad Khan "Shahryar"

Music - Muhammad Zahur Hashmi "Khayyam"
Singer - Asha Bhonsle

امراو جان ادا - یہ کیا جگہ ہے دوستوں

یہ کیا جگہ ہے دوستوں

یہ کیا جگہ ہے دوستوں

یہ کون سا دیار ہے ، یہ کون سا دیار ہے

حدّ نگاہ تک جہاں،

حدَّ نگاہ تک جہاں، غبار ہی غبار ہے

غبار ہی غبار ہے

یہ کیا جگہ ہے دوستوں

یہ کس مقام پر حیاّت

یہ کس مقام پر حیاّت ،

مجھ کو لے کے آ گیٔ

مجھ کو لے کے آ گیٔ

نا بس خوشی پے ہے جہاں

نا بس خوشی پے ہے جہاں ،

نا غم پے اختیار ہے

نا غم پے اختیار ہے

یہ کیا جگہ ہے دوستوں

یہ کون سا دیار ہے ، یہ کون سا دیار ہے

تمام عمر کا حساب

تمام عمر کا حساب،

مانگتی ہے زندگی

مانگتی ہے زندگی

یہ میرا دل کہے تو کیا

یہ میرا دل کہے تو کیا،

کہ خد سے شرمسار ہے

کہ خد سے شرمسار ہے

یہ کیا جگہ ہے دوستوں

یہ کون سا دیار ہے ،

یہ کون سا دیار ہے

بلا رہا ہے کون

بلا رہا ہے کون مجھ کو چلمنو کے اس طرف

میرے لۓ بھی کیا کیٔ

میرے لۓ بھی کیا کی اداس بقرار ہے

اداس بےقرار ہے

یہ کیا جگہ ہے دوستوں

یہ کون سا دیار ہے

حدَّ نگاہ تک جہاں، غبار ہی غبار ہے

غبار ہی غبار ہے

یہ کیا جگہ ہے دوستوں

Transliteration and Translation of Lyrics of Umrao Jaan - Yeh Kya Jageh Hai Doston in English

Yeh kya jageh hai doston - What place is this my friends?

Yeh kaun sa dyaar hai - Which realm is this?

Yeh kaun sa dyaar hai -

Hadd-e-nigaah tak jahan - For as far as the eyes can see

Hadd-e-nigaah tak jahan -

Ghubaar hi ghubaar hai - there are only dust storms for me

Ghubaar hi ghubaar hai -

Yeh kya jageh hai doston - What place is this my friends?

Yeh kis maqaam par hayaat - Which is this stage?

Yeh kis maqaam par hayaat -

Mujh ko le ke aagayee - where has life brought me?

Mujh ko le ke aagayee -

Naa bas khushee pe hai jahan - Where I have no control over my happiness

Naa bas khushee pe hai jahan -

Naa gham pe ikhtiyaar hai - and nor can I command my despair

Naa gham pe ikhtiyaar hai -

Yeh kya jageh hai doston - What place is this my friends?

Yeh kaun sa dyaar hai - Which realm is this?

Yeh kaun sa dyaar hai -

Tamaam umar ka hisaab - An account of each step

Tamaam umar ka hisaab -

Mangati hai zindagee - is demanded by life

Mangati hai zindagee -

Yeh mera dil kahe to kya - How can my poor heart explain my deeds?

Yeh mera dil kahe to kya -

Ke khud se sharmsaar hai - it is engulfed in its own shame

Ke khud se sharmsaar hai -

Yeh kya jageh hai doston - What place is this my friends?

Yeh kaun sa dyaar hai - Which realm is this?

Yeh kaun sa dyaar hai -

Bulaa rahaa hai kaun - Who is calling out to me?

Bulaa rahaa hai kaun mujh ko -

chilmano ke us taraf - from behind the curtains?

Mere liye bhi kya koi - Is there one assigned to me?

Mere liye bhi kya koi -

Udaas bey qaraar hai - to miss me, to impatiently await me?

Udaas bey qaraar hai -

Yeh kya jageh hai doston - What place is this my friends?

Yeh kaun sa dyaar hai - Which realm is this?

Hadd-e-nigaah tak jahan - For as far as the eyes can see

Ghubaar hi ghubaar hai - there are only dust storms for me

Ghubaar hi ghubaar hai -

Yeh kya jageh hai doston - What place is this my friends?

This song is just so perfect.