ہزاروں سال نرگس اپنی بے نوری پہ روتی ہے
بڑی مشکل سے ہوتا ہے چمن میں دیدہ ور پیدا
علامہ اقبال –
HazaaroN saal nargis apni be noori pe roti hai
badi mushkil se hota hai chaman mein deedawar paida
– Allama Iqbal
हज़ारों साल नरगिस अपनी बेनूरी पे रोती है
बड़ी मुश्किल से होता है चमन में दीदावर पैदा
-अल्लामा इक़बाल
Photo credit: why 137 via Foter.com / CC BY
For a thousand years, the narcissus laments its lack of sight
with great difficulty, the garden is graced by someone erudite
Just splitting a sentence into every word and explaining the meaning of that word is transliteration – not translation. Where’s the true deep inner meaning of this lovely Allama Iqbal shayari?
Someone had this lovely translation …………
“Nargis, I am given to understand, is a rare beautiful flower that blooms once in many, many years. And even that flower has to mourn its woeful fate for thousands of years before an appreciator of its beauty is born.
It’s a deep sher with multiple layers in its meaning and obviously multiple ways to interpret it.
I take it that a thing of beauty created by the creator is without value unless there is someone there to appreciate it and admire it for what it really is. In my view there is a moral here to be nice to those who love us and admire us instead of being too proud of our beauty, our status or our accomplishments.”
I think it is about the inability of most of us to appreciate the real value, latent or hidden qualities of a a person..like humility,courage, compromise, willingness not to take credit…… in this age of “self projection”…the apparent qualities are well appreciated and the person usually gets rewarded for it.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder . Beauty by herself is blind.She laments ( cries ) for thousands of years till she finds “Her Eyes”—in the form of a Conoisseur ( Deedawar ) who appreciates her worth & makes her aware of her bewitching beauty .
Beautiful ❤️
The most beautiful explanation of the meaning and message it entails of this thought provoking verse.
Very nice expression “She laments for many years till she finds her eyes” an appreciator
Excellent and well explained.
That’s true, I agree, and such people suffer a lot in real life
So true! If she could sense her own worth, she wouldn’t cry for what is missing instead celebrate her beauty! She wouldn’t have to wait for someone else to tell her!! This could also be pointing to our blindness towards what is good in our lives!
Beautifully narrated.
Good explanation.
Well said
Narcissis (nargis) based on a mythological story Narcissus, in Greek mythology, the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He was distinguished for his beauty. According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book III, Narcissus’s mother was told by the blind seer Tiresias that he would have a long life, provided he never recognized himself. However, his rejection of the love of the nymph Echo or (in an earlier version) of the young man Ameinias drew upon him the vengeance of the gods. He fell in love with his own reflection in the waters of a spring and pined away (or killed himself); the flower that bears his name sprang up where he died. The Greek traveler and geographer Pausanias, in Description of Greece, Book IX, said it was more likely that Narcissus, to console himself for the death of his beloved twin sister, his exact counterpart, sat gazing into the spring to recall her features.
The story may have derived from the ancient Greek superstition that it was unlucky or even fatal to see one’s own reflection. Narcissus was a very popular subject in Roman art. In Freudian psychiatry and psychoanalysis, the term narcissism denotes an excessive degree of self-esteem or self-involvement, a condition that is usually a form of emotional immaturity.
Respect your in-depth knowledge of Greek mythology and apt interpretation in this Urdu couplet.
this is the correct translation….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XCY_EZGLCc
Nargis is a flower shaped like an eye. of course that eye cant see and therefore nargis cries upon her such inability to see.
indeed, it is extremely rare that a man with vision is born in the garden (chaman) where nargis actually is.
Hope this is helpful.
Sir Thank you for the accurate translation of this beautiful shair.Only the exact meaning can make the reader aware of its actual beauty.
Absolutely correct, thanks to make the meaning reachable in easy words…..
But still confusion is thete…nargis crying and how man born in chaman…man & flower both are different race…
Actually poet compares nargis with eye
Quite logical to the context of verse
It’s looking nice & right.
Stay blessed, please.
A social connotation of it is far deeper and sublime.
It’s very difficult to find a person to appreciate another beautiful, yet so natural and yet so befitting. So guys , fall in line with this order of nature and select your partner to reproduce off springs alike to repay your first debt to this life cycle.
Very thoughtful
Quite often a noble cause and a good deed go un noticed….
This is the correct meaning…
Perfect explanation..This is God’s own voice.
Good job explaining its deep seated meaning. It is not a layman job to feel that rhythms of poets thoughts.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever!
I thought the meaning was to keep patience in life like the flower nargis. It takes time to attain achievements in life… so be steady.
Please clarify… Thanks
This has a spiritual connotation also. It refers to the flower blooming in the garden of our hearts which is not noticed by anyone. Nargis cries at its ordinaryness, till finally a person who can appreciate its beauty – a real Saint – is born. Such a person is born so rarely… Hence the word “badi mushkil se…”
yes 🙂
Nargis ka phool ankhon ki shakal ka hota hai ,agar who apni binyaai ke liye lakho saal bhi rooye to use kuch dikhai nahi denga.
Isi tarha is duniya ki jo ek chaman ki taraha hai,haqeeqate dekhne wali ankhen bhi badi mushkil se paida hoti hai.
The way I understand this couplet is:
The flower Narjis (narcissus) is an eye shaped flower. The term “roatee hai” is crying relating to the dew in the garden.
Iqbal is saying that a group if people (Muslims) are crying for thousands of years for their lack of recognition, and it’s very rare (badi mushkil se) that someone breaks this cycle and emerges to be of some importance (deedawar — badi mushkil hota hai chaman meiñ deedawar paida)
Legend/myth has it that the flower Nargis is blind and it has bemoaned this fate for thousands of years. But the truth is that even those who have eyes cannot ‘see’ and the ones who can, are very rare to come by.
I think the actual she’r is like:
Badi muddat mein hota hai chaman mein deedavar paida.
T J Singh ji, I am afraid you are wrong. The actual line by the poet, Allama Iqbal is “badi mushkil se hota hai chaman mein deedavar paida”. If you find a copy of Baang-e-Dara you can confirm it too.
An spiritual soul like Dr BhimRao Ambedkar incarnate once in thousand years ….ajay singh Dohare
A beautiful fower but blind , is more concerned being blind than beautiful — even if someone appreciates the beauty and ignores the blindness —
Beautiful ❤️
Remember the movie Taare Zameen par.. Ishaan Avasthi was a rare talent but everyone thought he is a waste and at one point even he himself thinks he is a failure. It takes a temporary art teacher, Ram Kumar Nikumb to un cover the real talent of Ishan Avasthi ..
Nargis is Ishan and that deedawar is Aamir Khan.
It’s not just about beauty and beholder of beauty..
Beautiful ❤️
Nargis is a flower which takes extremely long to bloom. The meaning I draw is that it thinks of itself as incapable of flowering as the other plants bloom in the spring, each of the days of the spring are painful like thousands of years since it feels useless. Only to bloom later into such a pretty and fragrant flower.
It is a metaphor to how most of us do not see our own beauty when we keep comparing ourselves to other’s success, beauty, accomplishments. Though in truth God has created everyone wonderful & purposeful to be here. It is very late in our own lives we re
Slide that we are all created in the image of God as all our religious texts say. We are born perfect, only the eyes to see the perfection usually take a very long time to bloom.
Beautiful ❤️
Can any please tell me ..in which poem and book this poetry is….???
this sher fits on our great leader subhash chandra bose, who was born after a long struggle of independence, to lead our great nation to freedom
I agree with Jace. His interpretation is very close. We have come in to this world for some specific reason I.e to know who am I?where have come from?where shall i go? The soul wanders aimlessly in the cycles of birth and death until it meets a perfect saint who has solved the riddle of birth and death. The master is hard to find and only with grace of God he enters our lives. He opens our third eye or nukta a safeeda in urdu to take us to heavens and eventually merge with God.
A thousand years the flowers of nargis weeps for having eyes
With lots of difficulty is born someone who has eyes.. As well sight !
Background:
Unlike most flowers, the daffodil (the scientific genus to which the nargis plant belongs) bud typically blooms into a flower during the spring and spends the other three seasons as a deflowered stem. In the winter months, dew gathers around the daffodil bud during the night, and as the temperature rises during the morning sunrise, the water droplets roll off the bud as the night dew melts. Such physicochemical phenomenon imparts the illusion of a weeping plant that has eyes with which it can see not for around nine months of the year (which could be envisioned as a relatively long time or a millennium) as its bud (shaped like a closed eye) only blooms (or opens its eye) during the spring.
Original form:
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Hazaaron saal nargis apni be noori pe roti hai
Badi mushkil se hota hai chaman main deedavar paida
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A thousand years the daffodil weeps for being without a sight
So rare it is indeed that one who can see is born in a garden
Translation:
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Bahut harse tak bechaari nargis roti hai ke meri aankh main nahi nazar
Waqiyaeeh iss andhi dunya main badi mushkil se kisi ko milti hai nazar
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The daffodil weeps forever for having eyes but being unable to see
So rare it is indeed that someone is born with eyes with which they can see!
Moral lesson:
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Good things are rare! Few have eyes with which they can see truth and distill it from heaps of lies! Even fewer possess talent!
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To my best understanding ,
Nargis is eye shape flower ( English name daffodil), which cries for thousands of years , over its lack of vision/Baseerat .
It takes very Hard and long, When a Nargis Flower is Born , with Vision/Seeing Quality .
This Philosophical ANOLGY is used to compare, Garden of Humans .
Only Over Centuries and One out of Millions is Born , A Man With VISION .
For Example :
Ghalib, Mahtama Gandhee, Mohammad Ali Jinah, ALLAMA IQBAL HIMSELF IS ONE OF MILLIONS , THESE ARE RARE CHARACTERS IN HISTORY WITH TOTALLY DIFFERENT LEVEL OF VISION. Same way Albert Einstein and Modern Day Ellon Musk present Great Examples to Understand
ALLAMA Iqbal Poetry piece on NARGIS
Same
A flower is crying for being aware that it cannot see the beautiful garden around. It keeps crying for thousands of years. Finally this species of flower gets sight to see the real space around. (This happens once in thousand years, only).
Visionaries are rare to find.
The beauty itself cannot appreciate because it does not know what beauty means. Only, when some else appreciates , it knows its worth.
Must add that beauty means different to different entities. There is no definition of beauty unless someone else defines its attributes. In other words a thing is neither ugly nor beautiful unless defined and appreciated by another individual. Again,it depends what the other individual defines beauty in his mind.