Friday, March 10

I know not who I am...

I know not who I am…
I know not who I am…

Nor am I the believer in the mosque
Nor am I in the rituals of the infidel
Nor am I the pure in the impure
Nor am I inherent in the Vedas
Nor am I present in intoxicants

Nor am I the lost, nor the corrupt
Nor am I union, nor grief
Nor am I intrinsic in the pure/impure
Nor am I of the water, nor of the land
Nor am I fire, nor air

I know not who I am…
I know not who I am…

Nor am I from Arabia, nor Lahore
Nor am I from the Indian city of nagaur
Nor a hindu, nor a turk

Nor did I create the difference of faith
Nor did I create adam and eve
Nor did I name myself

Beginning or the end, I know just the self
Do not acknowledge duality
There’s none wiser than I…

I know not who I am…
I know not who I am…

I am not moses or the pharaoh
I am not sleep or wakefulness
I am not fire or the wind
I do not stay in Nether
I am not inertia or travel


Who is this Bullah shah?

I know not who I am…
I know not who I am.



The sufi poet Bulleh shah was a resident of Kasur, Pakistan in the 17th-18th century. He wrote mainly in Punjabi


This is a translation of one of his works, which was given music by Rabbi Shergill, a newly successful singer
The translation was taken (pai
nstakingly) from the music video.

12 comments:

Psycho McCrazy said...

Bulla ni jaana main kaun!!!

awesomo work :D

sandeep said...

hmm...nice work...

a little point of clarification...

"bulla ki jana main kaun"...

would it translate to "i don't know who i am"

or "bulla doesn't know who i am"...in the second case you are leaving an option that the speaker might be God Himself...

but then again i guess the meaning does come through anyways....

Anonymous said...

Now taste Ghalib:
http://www.geocities.com/deewan_e_ghalib/hazaron_e.html

Babska said...

i thought this must've been one of ur 'painstaking searches' from google...
but not anymore.

:)

Aditi said...

deadly...*bows*...u had the patience to translate all this!!
abt the template...not meaning to be finicky..but..we'll talk

Sudarshan. A. G. said...

@ psycho: thanks!

@sandeep: Bulla reffering to himself is just a way of talking in third person, very popular amongst sufi saints of his period.

@C-125: eejj gawdly!

@babushka: Ha! not everything is just googling... :0

@aditi: well, i didn't translate it per se... it comes in the video... just paused the video a hundred times :).
As for the template... sure... just add me on gtalk!

Aditi said...

hey, check out my blog...uploaded a pic of someone you might know:)

PS: hope you don't have any copyright issues...?

Mayank said...

wah wah!! kya poem thi? neways, you've just been tagged. Check out the rules on my last post. Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

Oh Thanx! i was looking for them, but couldn't catch them soon enough off the video! Really painstaking work..

Dewdrop said...

great words there...ending up in a great song...and a great post :)

sandeep said...

thou art tagged...check out my latest post

Anonymous said...

and i thought i was the onlyone doing such painstaking but useless to other ppl's eyes work:P
my question
Y bhaiya..Y?