I like Urdu and Punjabi poetry a fair bit, as well as the music that is often paired with it in. Below are some diverse pieces of poetry my siblings and cousins discussed with our aunts and uncles.
ishq aap vi awalla
Ishq Aap Vi Awalla, as sung by the Chakwal Group in Coke Studio Season 5. 'Ishq aap vi awalla' is a Punjabi folk-like song about the strangeness of love. It takes the perspective of a young girl getting water from the village well. The boy she has feelings for is helping her fill her clay pot with water. Despite the fact that this poetry is not as deep as that written by the most famous Punjabi poets, it authentically presents a part of Punjabi culture to modern listeners.
Poet: Unknown
Performed By: Chakwal Group
`Ishq aap vi awalla' is a Punjabi folk-like song about the strangeness of love. It takes the perspective of a young girl getting water from the village well. The boy she has feelings for is helping her fill her clay pot with water.
Despite the fact that this poetry is not as deep as that written by the most famous Punjabi poets, it authentically presents a part of Punjabi culture to modern listeners.
Discussion
A very fascinating point that is unfamiliar to modern people is that the village well was one of the primary social places. All kinds of people would meet there. In particular, boys and girls could not simply meet one another, the well was one of the only places where this could happen. And typically boys might help girls lift up their heavy pots of water onto their heads, as occurs in this poem.
Yet this is a cultural element that is much older and common to all kinds of cultures. While I'm not Hindu, Krishna was apparently known to go around breaking girls' pots. For the Abrahamic religions, Musa, or Moses, also regularly helped some girls at a well. Their father didn't have any sons, so it was hard for the daughters to handle it all by themselves. Musa would help them at the well and walked them home. In fact, he began working for their father, and after roughly 10 years he wound up marrying one of the girls!
Jewelry is also mentioned in this poetry, but it's worth keeping in mind as well that jewelry was a rare thing back then. A girl might only have a couple of pieces, so losing or damaging one was typically a big deal. And given that the well is the only regular place that a girl might meet a boy she liked, it's clear why she would wear her jewelry there, even though she's doing a routine task like getting water.
The repeated chorus: `nee main jhol jhol ke ghara phareindiyan' is also interesting to interpret. `Jhol jhol ke' brings many things to mind. On the one hand, it refers to the rhythmic left to right motion as the hands alternate pulling the rope to bring up the water bucket from the well. But `jhol jhol ke' also suggests that, because she is excited that the boy she likes is there, she sways with a dance-like quality as she pulls up the water. The Urdu term `jhoomna' is a close translation for this expression.
Finally, a comment on a common practice in Punjabi poetry. Sometimes, there are lines whose sole purpose is to set the stage, so to speak, so that other lines of poetry have this context. They themselves do not convey the specific sentiment that the poet wants to express, but the subsequent lines do. This occurs here in the line `ghara phareindiyan diggi gal di gaani ve'. Her dropping her necklace into the pot is not itself expressing much about her feelings, and in fact might seem like an odd interjection. But the following line, `naan tere lai dhola charhdi jawani ve' stands in contrast to it. In particular, her dropping the otherwise valuable necklace is a trivial thing because, now that she has declared her dedication to him, he means incomparably more to her. Note that this is not stated directly, but it is implied in the poetic tradition that this is the interpretation. And because of this practice, the second line expresses its sentiment somewhat more powerfully because of the background provided by the first line.
Romanization
ishq aap vi awalla udde kam vi awalle
jide pesh pae jawe kakh chaDda nain palley
aes ishq'ch yaron kuj keyha vi nain jaanda
raula paya vi nain jaanda chup reya vi nain jaanda
nee main jhol jhol ke ghara phareindiya
ghara chawawein haan sir te rakhawein haan
ghara chaweenda naiyon dhol ve
nee main jhol jhol ke ghara phareindiya
ghara phareindiyan diggi gal di gaani ve
naan tere lai dhola charhdi jawani ve
charhdi jawani na tu rol ve
nee main jhol jhol ke ghara phareindiya
ghara phareindiyan digga matthe da tikka ve
dil di kitab utte naan tera likhiya ve
jeda vi varka khol ve
nee main jhol jhol ke ghara phareindiya
Translation
love itself is strange, and its works are strange
whoever it goes after, it leaves nothing whatsoever
in this love, friends, you are speechless
you cannot shout out but you cannot keep quiet either
I sway as I fill my pot
pick up the pot and put it on my head
I cannot lift the pot, oh beloved
I sway as I fill my pot
while filling my pot, my pendant necklace fell in
I've dedicated by blossoming youth to you
don't waste my blossoming youth
I sway as I fill my pot
while filling my pot, my forehead jewelry-piece fell in
I've written your name in my heart's book
on any page you open
I sway as I fill my pot
Vocabulary
ishq
ishq means love, the greater than pyar or mohabbat. Note that it has a taboo or forbidden cultural connotation associated with it as this was not a feeling that the society allowed to express itself in an unchecked way.
awalla
strange or peculiar, anokha, unusually unusual. nirala is similarly peculiar but has a positive connotation, whereas this has a negative connotation.
jide
jiske, whoever's
pesh
Farsi origin word meaning: in front. saamne in Urdu. pesh pae jaana as a phrase would be equivalent in usage to the Urdu phrase peeche parhna, even though the former means to come in front of someone, and the urdu phrase means to come behind someone.
kakh
small piece of grass, or animal feed. Is used here to suggest that even this piece of feed is not even left by love. A farmer may refer to a large amount of feed as kakh as well, but the context of the usage shows what meaning is being employed. Zarra in punjabi and Urdu word meaning some tiny piece of something.
palley
The front part of a Pakistani shalwar. It's longer than an Indian shalwar, and that extra fabric is often used as a makeshift bag to hold things. The same thing as daman in Urdu. Another Punjabi phrase is mere palle nai peya, and it means I didn't understand.
raula
loud noise, shor in Urdu
jhol
Can refer to the swaying people do when they pull a bucket of water out of a well. This has many meanings, but here it's more like a rhythmic swaying in happiness, similar to jhoom in Urdu.
ghara
clay pot. maTka in Urdu. used for water in this context.
phareindiyan
jhang dialect. phartiyan in our dialect. bharti hoon in Urdu. meaning I fill.
chawawein
East Punjabi. ChakayiN in West Punjabi. Lift this.
rakhawein
East Punjabi. rakhayiN in West Punjabi. Put this.
chaweenda
East Punjabi. chakeya in West Punjabi. Lift.
dhol
Male beloved. dhola is used when addressing dhol. By the way, it's spelled and pronounced exactly the same way as the Punjabi dhol drum.
diggi
fell
gaani
a necklace that is a pendant and held together with a rope-type material
rol
waste
charhdi jawani
the blooming of youth. Extremely common concept.
tikka
jewelry that hangs over the forehead, bindiya or teeka in Urdu
varka
page of a book