Dilli

Rabbi captures my ‘Dilli’ so beautifully in this song!

I think the bottom line of this song is the poet’s desire to figure the philosophy of ‘Dilli’. To quote him “Par kahan hai is shahar ka falsafa”. A cities philosophy is the defined by its people but Dilli’s people are as varied as its different & extreme seasons, it’s almost impossible to figure out one common denominator. Here at one extreme you find people who dream exorbitant dreams and where as others live their lives in indolence. Arrogance of people is apparent “Aur sarhkein theen sab mere baap ki”. He captures the laziness of dilli waala’s with humor talking about the party whose name is “Avaara: Bhatakana jiska vidhan hai, Fursat hai kaam ,Kuchh dhundhla sa jiska nishan hai” Got a smile on my face! How true for so many dilli waala’s.
A very moving line: “Dekhe jazbey kai yahan patthar bante huey” examples flashed in front of me: from “Mandal commission” to “Jessica Lal's murder” case.

Guess what - I could never figure out why I love Dilli either!
“Aur main hun, Tu hai aur hai Dilli bas”

"AJ" ki jana "Main" kaun?

If I exactly put the meaning of the above in my language it will sound rubbish.

Bulla ki jana mein kaun - is spoken by Bulle Shah. What he talks there are two people and not one. Bulla cannot know anything about "mein" at all, unless Bulla dies or finishes. If Mein is there, then Bulla cannot be there and vice-versa.

Why?

Plain, Bulla is somebody who is governed by the society, race, creed, sex etc. but there is someone deep inside who is the actual being, who is lost somewhere. That is the actual person, a human being who does not belong to any of those groups. But Bulla cannot know it, Bulla cannot fathom it.

After all Bulla ki Jana mein kaun; AJ ki jana mein kaun.

Source: Somewhere deep within me (and not AJ), a need to write on this beautiful song.

The subject of Rabbi's affection?

It first occured to me when listening to Tere Bin (lyrics) for the nth time while trying to code a custom-made HTTP Proxy at work. It's a love song all right, beautifully and melodiously composed with a hint of Tabla; the words are quite touching if you pay attention to them. I wasn't feeling too good; Delhi is my home and Bengaluru, for all its green glory; doesn't match up to the relief of killing the Delhi heat with Mom's chocolate shake.

Mom! That's it! It's Mom!

I felt like I had cracked the Matrix. Tere Bin was written for a mother. I was sure as hell. Then I heard this...

ve main sare ghumm ke vekhia / i have gone and seen it all
amrika , roos, malaysia / America, Russia, Malaysia
kittey vi koi fark si / there wasn't any difference
har kise di koi shart si / they all had some condition
koi mangda mera si sama / some asked for my time
koi hunda surat te fida / some were fascinated with my face
koi mangda meri si vafa / some demanded my fidelity
na koi mangda merian bala / none wanted my demons

Mom! That is so Mom! I mean, frankly, who'd want your demons?

milia si ajj mainu / i found today
tera ik patra / a note of yours
likhia si jis 'te / on which you had scribbeled
tun shayr varey shah da / a varis shah couplet
park ke si osnu / upon reading which
hanjnu ik duliya / a teardrop fell
akhan 'ch band si / what was locked in the eye
seh raaz ajj khulia / was revealed today
ki tere bin / that other than you
eh mere hanjnu / these tears of mine
kise hor / won't be kissed by
nahio chumna / none else

And that was it for me. Sealed. Nothing more touching than a mother's letter.

Amazingly, someone somewhere else had the same thought. I received an email yesterday from a reader, Sahil:

... I just wanted to know the history behind ' Tere bin'. I've heard its written for his mother. I've even heard its not written by Rabbi but by Varis shah himself(whose name features in the song...just like Kabir writes bout himself in his dohas and bulla too mentions his name in his composition).

The song is definitely not for some girlfriend. It may be for a guy as well. Maybe for a best friend. But somehow i have this inkling that it is for his mother.

Could you please enlighten me?

Well, I don't know if he wrote it for his mother. But I know that Rabbi composed it. Maybe he didn't compose it for anyone in person, maybe he did it for more than one person. But my inkling goes with Sahil; I think it's a subtle suggestion, the 'undercurrent' that is more common in the world of bigger literary compositions; the Arrow in the FedEx logo. Some see it, some don't.

Drop in your comments.

UPDATE (29 OCT 07): Well, I change my stance. After reading the scores of comments on the original post, I think its one of those things from which everyone takes what they want. It reminds people of their father, mother, close friend, sibling, and others. In short, it reminds them of the person they most want to be reminded of. 

Lets not try to restrict it to one person, because it probably was never meant to.

Welcome to Rabbism

This should ideally have been the first post on this blog. However, let's stick to our adages (aka better late than never) and define the reason of this blog and our personal fascination with Rabbi Shergill.

The Purpose is pretty clear: We wanted to have one place where we could keep everything related to Rabbi - his lyrics, downloads, interview et all. Why? Because all of us, like quite a few other people around the globe, truly loved the brand of music that Rabbi has forged for himself in one album.

We're not connoisseurs of good music, and we're not true blue music partisans either (Although amongst us we manage 200+ hours of music a week, and we have KD, an iron filing of the Rock magnet.) So anyways, the point is, we're normal people who found something special in Rabbi's music. Something that was eternal, that never got old as we scratched our hard disks' shergill segment for its 20,000th round.

We can't define what we found, but it was something profound, and something that connected us to it. And we just knew that there would be others around the world who found it too. And maybe one of them would define it for us.

And hence, this blog. Welcome to Rabbism.

Here we go...