Tere Hawaale : a hymn of surrender 

Tere Hawaale : a hymn of surrender 

I am a believer, but not religious. I am spiritual in every way. I believe I am a sufi at heart, not the Imtiaz Ali kind, but maybe a Rumi kind. 

My love for the film, Laal Singh Chaddha, and especially the song, ‘Tere Hawaale’ is not a secret. This song stayed with me even weeks after watching the film. I vividly remember when this song played in the theatre, I felt like I was surrounded in a daze. I cried. I cried profusely, with every part of my body. 

It was after ages that I was listening to a romantic song that had lyrics of such selfless, sufi love. Why do I call it sufi love? I call it sufi because there are some songs, some lyrics that make you experience a connection with something greater than mortality. For instance, when we heard Nusrat Saaheb’s tere hundeya sundeya mehbooba, tera mujrim haan je main hovaan, we understood that he is being absolutely selfless in love, he is surrendering in love. Be it a mortal lover (but are our lovers ever mortal?), or the murshid, ustaad knows that love comes with surrendering oneself, by getting over the main (I, me, myself).  

Laal loved Rupa, so much so that she became a part of him. In spirituality, we believe that we all are a part of a greater being. We all have a god within us, an omnipresent, omnipotent, formless, celestial-supreme being. 

मैनू चढ़ेया, इश्क़ में रंग तेरा

इक हो गया, अंग मेरा अंग तेरा

How do we love and remain apart from each other? Can we really love without getting painted by the same colour? Without merging our souls into one?

रब्ब मिलेया, जद मिलेया

माहि मैनु, संग तेरा

Will there ever be any desire unfulfilled when we have rabb? To love with every ounce of body that when you finally find yourself in the embrace of them, you know, you have everything. You have unlocked the last lock of contentment.

जो भी है सब मेरा

तेरे हवाले कर दिया

जिस्म का हर रुआं

तेरे हवाले कर दिया

Whatever I have, it is all yours. There is no ‘me’. There is no ‘mine’. Whatever that belongs to me is yours. Each and every cell of my body, it is yours.

Does it not remind you of Nusrat Saaheb’s songs? Or Baba Bulleh Shah’s Kalaams?

देखा ज़माना सारा भरम है

इश्क़ इबादत इश्क़ करम है

मेरा ठिकाना तेरी ही देहलीज़ है

The whole world is a mirage. It’s a labyrinth of unfulfilled desires, greed, and selfish motives. We roam aimlessly all our lives in futility, trying to make a meaning, or find a meaning. But what is the meaning of anything when a new desire springs up everytime we attain one? 

But when one understands the simple concept that we all are but a part of something big, something celestial, and its all just a cycle, we might understand that the races we are running are fatuous.

Love is worship, love is accomplishment. Our final journey is when we take it towards love. Love is salvation!

ज़रा कभी मेरी नज़र से

खुद को देख भी

है चाँद में भी दाग

पर ना तुझमे एक भी

The righteous, virtuous, innocent Laal never found a single folly in Rupa (not saying that she had faults to begin with). Laal is that one person who knows how to love someone. The khota Laal understood consent. He understood women’s agency, he understood mutual respect. Was he really a khota? Or the wise one!

An underlying concept of spirituality is that we all are the same, we all are one, and we all are supposed to be merged in the one. When we all are one, how can one have a blemish, and one can be impeccable?

When we love someone, don’t we love them how they really are? Is there any other way to love someone? Love comes with acceptance. The rational me might stop the spiritual me, but don’t we love on the lines of, ‘Ishq Haqeeqi ka bas yehi usool hai, tu qubool hai, tera sab qubool hai.’

खुद पे हक़ मेरा

तेरे हवाले कर दिया

On the lines of, 

तेरा तुझको सौंप दे क्या लागत है मोर्

मेरा मुझमें कुछ नहीं जो होवत सो तोर

What is love where we don’t love with tan-man-dhan ? Can we really love without surrendering ourselves? What is love without surrender? What is love with conditions? Love happens when we acknowledge the fact that we become a part of each other in love, that we lose our rights to ourselves, that in love we just become a puppet in the hand of our murshid. That, jad yaar kissi da russ jaave, nach nach ke manaana painda hai. And, we do not mind because we are in love. 

I hope more people understand the basic concept of love. I hope people learn to love like Laal. I hope people love selflessly. I hope people become kind in love. And, I hope people get over the ‘i’ in love.