Few people have an idea about the first line. The couplet reads as:
1.
dil ke phaphole jal uThe siine ke daaGh se
is ghar ko aag lag gaii ghar ke chiraaGh se
In most of the collections and articles, this sher is not attributed to any poet. I have learnt that the poet was Pandit Mehtab Rai Tabaan. Does anybody think otherwise?
The problem is that with every passing year we are losing Urdu litterateurs who could settle such debates. The generation of poets, writers and literature-loving readers, who had thousands of 'ashaar' on the tip of their tongue, is nearly extinct now.
2. There is another line: lamhoN ne Khataa kii hai, sadiyoN ne sazaa paaee hai
I have been told the shaaer was Muzaffar Razmi and the full couplet is:
yeh jabr bhi dekha hai tariiKh ki aaNkhoN ne
lamhoN ne Khataa kii thii sadiyoN ne sazaa paaii
3. Regarding the lines, 'zamiin khaa gaii aasmaan kaise kaise'
It is Amir Minai's sher:
hue naamvar be-nishaan kaise kaise
zamiiN kha gaii aasmaaN kaise kaise
And I have seen people getting confused when referring this couplet as they often recall Aatish's sher and end up mixing them both to churn out a third version. Aatish's sher is here:
4.
zamiin-e-chaman gul khilaati hai kya kya
badalta hai rang aasmaaN kaise kaise
5. A person quotes a couplet and writes the name of poet as 'Shaad'. One person who uses the book feels it is Naresh Kumar Shaad and the other feels it is Shaad Azeemabadi. That's how mistakes crop up. I was going through KC Kanda's book. He has done great translation but the mistakes are aplenty. The couplet:
waqt kii sa'ii musalsal kaargar hotii gaii
zindagii lahza-ba-lahza mukhtasar hotii gaii
It is Asrar-ul-Haq Majaz' couplet and in the book it is attributed to someone else.
6. Like the following couplet:
nairangii-e-siaasat-e-dauraaN to dekhiye
manzil unheN milii jo shariik-e-safar na the
It is commonly known that the above mentioned sher belongs to Pakistan's famous poet Mohsin Bhopali. Anyway. That's all for those who are obsessed with Sher-o-Shairi. I have earlier written posts on Well-known Couplets, Little-known poets and plan to continue this series after a long gap. The earlier posts are here, here and here.
