My Favourites: Songs of Heartbreak

Love is beautiful - coloured as it is by rainbows and sparkles, where everything brings a smile to your lips and there might even be unicorns flying about for all I know. (Note to self: Do unicorns fly? Find out.) Love can hurt, though. A twist of fate, circumstances, distance, an impulsive decision, can all lead to the dark side of love - heartbreak.

Rainbows fade, sparkles die and the unicorns fly away. Then come long days plagued by memories of happier times and endless nights soaked in tears; and one wonders that a decision made to prevent being hurt brings so much anguish in its train. There is only pain and darkness, and the ache of knowing one is bereft. 

There are thousands of songs that celebrate falling in love. There are as many songs that are infused with the essence of misery, that talk of failed relationships, of unrequited love, of feeling rejected, songs that offer some solace because somewhere, someone understands our pain. Someone has written words and set down to music that which we feel but cannot say. And we listen to the echoes of our own heartbeats and drown ourselves in mourning a love that can never be. 

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.

Edna St.Vincent Millay (Ebb)

So, for everyone who has ever searched and found someone to love, only to find their love unrequited; for everyone who has taken a decision to armour themselves against the pain of loving only to learn that hearts break, nevertheless; for everyone who has ever loved someone and known the ache of breaking up; for everyone who has discovered that there is no cure for heartache, no, not even time, and that tears are an infinite supply; for everyone who has sat down with a box of tissues and a pint of icecream and found that that does not heal the ache; for every torn and bleeding hope and every cry of despair - here's a list of my favourite songs of broken hearts and crumpled dreams. 

1. Tera jaana (Anadi / 1959 / Shankar-Jaikishen / Shailendra)

 The sorrow of myriad hopes and dreams that have crashed and burnt. He's leaving and she cannot stop him. She watches, sorrowfully, as all her hopes lie in shambles around her, as all her dreams of a future (with him) fade into darkness. Hanskar humne tha kaha, jeevan bhar ka saath hai, yeh kal hi ke baat hai (We laughed and said we would be together forever, wasn't that just yesterday?) How soon things change. She knows that as long as the moon rises, she will be beset with memories of him -  dil jab zid par aayegaa dil ko kaun manaayegaa... (who will steer her heart away from this madness?) 

2. Mohe bhool gaye saanwariya (Baiju Bawra /  / Naushad / Shakeel Badayuni)

The pain of separation. He's left and she has no news of him. She knows she shouldn't have loved him. If she had known that love would bring such sadness in its wake, she would have told everyone not  to fall in love. But she did, and now, he's forgotten her. Dil ko diye kyun dukh birhaa ke, tod diye kyun mahal banake... she weeps. There's no answer. She's left to mourn a lover who has not bothered to return to find out how she fares. 

3. Muhobbat ke jhooti kahani pe roye  (Mughal-e-Azam / Naushad / Shakeel Badayuni)

 The disillusionment of love. Teri aarzoo ne humein maar daala (your desires will be the death of me)  she sings and then continues, jiye to magar zindagani pe roye (I live to mourn life).  This is the consequence of falling in love without thinking. Now she has to choose - her love or her life. If she chooses the latter, then keeping her mouth shut is the price she will pay.

The tragic love story of a courtesan for her Prince; of barriers of class and caste sending one to the dungeons and inciting the  other to rebellion.

4. Hum ko tumhare ishq ne kya kya bana diya (Ek Musafir Ek Haseena / 1962 / OP Nayyar / Shewan Rizwi)

... he asks, and answers his own question: Jab kuch na ban sake to tamasha bana diya (What has your love made of  me? If nothing else, it made a joke of me). Yet, what can one crazed lover do? Kuch ban padi na hum se to deewaane ho gaye deewaangee ne phir tera rastaa dikhaa diyaa (when I could be nothing else, I became crazed in love, this madness brings me back to the paths you travel). 

When will the craziness stop? How do you forget your love when every path, every turn reminds you of one who is gone?

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss you in the weeping of the rain;
I want you at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with your memory they brim
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell your foot or shone your face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering you!

(Edna St.Vincent Millay - Sonnets)

5. Socha tha kya, kya ho gaya (Anmol Ghadi / 1946 / Naushad / Tanvir Naqvi)

She has just realised that he had never been hers. Now, she has the sad task of convincing her heart not to weep. 

Ae dil naa ro, hairan na ho
hona tha jo vo ho gaya
rone se ab kya faayda 

Well, the heart does not know what it can gain by crying, but how does it stop? Well, she says, think of it all as a dream, and forget it ever happened. Jo kuchh bhi dekha khwab tha is khwab ko ab bhool ja... Only, that is not easy either.   Apna jise samjhe the hum afsos woh apna na tha... It’s all very well to be practical, but the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

6. Aisi muhabbat se hum baaz aaye (Nirala / 1950 / C Ramachandra / PL Santoshi)

 

What happens when loving someone has brought you only grief? When do you give up fighting? 

Banakar tumhe apna kya humne paaya
Khushi lut gayi chain dil ka ganwaaya
bade gham sahe aur bahut dukh uthaaye
aisi muhabbat se hum baaz aaye 

She claims she’s tired of such a love, but is she  really? If she is, then why is she still weeping? Whom is she trying to convince - him? Or herself? Can she convince either? 

Guzaari bahut jaag kar humne raatein
Kabhi humne chhup chhup ke aansoo bahaaye 

7. Humein kaash tumse muhobbat na hota ( Mughal-e-Azam / 1960 / Naushad / Shakeel Badayuni)

The ache of regret. If only...  
Humein kaash tumse muhobbat na hota 
(If only I hadn't fallen in love with you)... 
but she also acknowledges her part  
- Humeen badh gaye ishq mein hadh se aage 
(I crossed all boundaries in my love for you) ;  

and gently queries  

Tumhi phoonk dete nasheman hamaara, 
Mohobbat pe ehsaan hota tumhara 
(If only you had snuffed out the flicker of my love, 
that would have been the greatest kindness you could have done unto me). 

If only you had stopped me before I stepped on to this path, if only I had woken up from my dreams, if only...  haven't you heard the drumbeats echoing these fateful words? If only...

8. Tum mujhe bhool bhi jao (Didi / 1959 / Sudha Malhotra / Sahir Ludhianvi)

The anguish of unrequited love. What can be worse than knowing that the person you love does not love you in return? That you enter into a relationship knowing that he doesn't love you, but think your love is enough for both? And then learn that no, it isn't. Especially when that someone doesn't even believe in love?  What price your love then? 

Mere dil ki, mere jazbaat ki keemat kya hai? 
Uljhe-uljhe se khayaalat ki keemat kya hai?   

He has the right to remain silent, for he has never loved her.  
Tum jo yeh bhi na batao yeh haq hai tumko, 
Meri baat aur hai maine to muhobbat kee hai.  
(It's different for me since I loved you.) 

There is also the pain of knowing that one cannot stop loving on command.  
Tum meri hoke raho ye meri kismet na sahi -  she remains his, even if her fates have decreed he will never be hers. And what can she do even if he forgets her? 

Tum mujhe bhool bhi jao to yeh haq hai tumko... 
How do you stop loving someone? 

9. Bujha diye hai khud apni haathon (Shagoon /1964/Khayyam/Sahir Ludhianvi)

Bujha diye hai khud apni haathon muhobbaton ke diye jalake 

She has destroyed her own relationship. Now what? She convinced herself that she would forget him; avert her face when she meets him next; remain quietly, eyes downcast when she hears his name. Little did she realise what an impossible task she has set for herself: 
 Na dil ko maloom hai na hum ko,
Jiyenge kaise tujhe bhula ke 

How will she live, forgetting him?

10. O jaanewaale mudke zara dekhte jaana  (Shri 420 / 1955 / Shankar-Jaikishen / Hasrat Jaipuri)

She takes a decision to protect herself from hurt, only to be hurt more by his absence from her life. She is now standing mute, her anguish deeper than tears. He is angry and upset at what she said, what she wrote. How dare she? Can she not understand his compulsions? If that's the way she wants it, then as she is, he will have nothing to do with her. 

Only her heart knows the depth of her love - if only he would turn back - just once - if only he would take her in his arms, soothe her fears, reassure her, if only... she would melt. She loves him still, and never mind what decisions her mind makes. Her heart knows differently, but how can it let him know? 
O jaanevaale mudke zara dekhte jaana, zara dekhte jaana... can they have a second chance? 

And if he will not understand, then… Chalo ik baar phir se, ajnabi ban jaaye hum dono...