When I was growing up in India, like everyone around me, I was fortunate to experience some great music from Bollywood. Wonderful voices of Rafi Sahib, Asha Ji, Kishore Da, Lata Di, Hemant Da and many other great singers, combined with poetry of many talented writers, provided a deep aesthetic experience for our growing minds. Radio used to be always on in my childhood home.
In particular, Sahir Ludhianvi’s poetry stood out. I remember two songs “sansaar ki har shay ka” and “aage bhi jaane na tu” which made me wonder as there seemed to be a jewel hidden in the songs.
As a kid, like everyone else, I believed that time is flowing universally in an objective independent manner at a constant rate and we are experiencing its present moment. Later I learned how physicists are grappling with the nature of time and how the common sense assumptions about time fall apart on closer examination. Whether it is Arthur Eddington’s Arrow of Time, or The Wheeler-DeWitt equation of a timeless universe, or emergent space-time in quantum theory, time remains a fundamental mystery. Even the notion of the present moment and how we perceive it, is amazingly not absolute as shown by Einstein in relativity of time and in relativity of simultaneity. Thanks to my daughter who keeps me updated with all this wonderful science. 🙂
In “sansaar ki har shay ka”, here is the translation of one of the stanzas:
where is this path from, where is it leading to,
nobody knows the secret of this mystery.
on the Eyelid of this moment, rests the cosmos,
till the closing of the Eye, all this is a beautiful game
and, here is from “aage bhi jaane na tu”:
you don’t know what is ahead, you don’t know what is behind you,
whatever is, is this moment alone
Sahir is expressing his awe and sense of mystery, and how our subjective experience of the present moment creates the magic of universe and brings it to life to us. What science has taught us even Sahir’s present moment is not absolute but depends on the perceiver. Every person has their own present moment. No two persons’ present moments are identical. In real life, we don’t notice these subtle differences because they are so nuanced giving the false impression that there is one and only one present moment. And, the passage of time contracts and expands like waves around each of us due to gravitational cosmic phenomena.
A poet’s expression and a theoretical physicist’s equation. Two sides of a great effort to understand.
I wish all the bright minds, and students in sciences, and new generations, very best to unravel this deep mystery.
Simant Dube 