Artist: August Piepenhagen
A Moonlit Night
19th century

Artist: Caspar David Friedrich
Gazebo in Greifswald
1818

Artist: Max Ernst Pietschmann
(German, 1865–1952)
A Romantic Walk

Artist: Vartan Makhokhian
(Armenian, 1869–1937)
Coastal Landscape in the Moonlight

Artist: Leo Lerch
Bludička (Will o' the wisp)
1888

The first psychoanalysts, who wanted to think of themselves as scientists, considered psychoanalysis as kind of laboratory for the study of unbalanced views; it wasn't long before they began to believe that every­one, including themselves, hadn't merely lost their balance, they had never had it. And that everyone, by nature, as it were, was in disarray, was riven with conflict. (They also tended to believe that psy­choanalysis was unequivocally a good thing when, on balance, it is something about which we should always be divided. ) Like Mill, they began to realize that balance - or more specifically the idea of the bal­anced mind - was no longer a useful picture for mod­ern people. They asked us to ask why anyone would want to be a well-balanced person: what were the conditions -familial, political, economic -that might produce this as an ideal?

Adam Phillips, On Balance (2010)

Adam Phillips, On Balance (2010)

When Lacan suggests that we are only overwhelmed by other people's excesses because they are the same as our own he is not simply saying, for example, that our horror about drug addiction means that we are secretly tempted or prone to become drug addicts; but that drug addiction may be a picture, say, of how fearful we might be generally of our own dependence, how terrified we are of becoming enslaved to the people we need. And drug addiction can also be a picture of how tempted we are to try to become everything that the person we love needs; to become, in a way, their drug of choice. In other words, Lacan's point is that our reaction to other people's excesses is an important clue to something vital about ourselves; our reflex response to other people's excessive behaviour--the thrill of righteous indignation, the moral superiority of our life when I do need them. I don't want to be a suicide bomber, but I may want to have something in my life that is so important to me that I would risk my life for it; or I may simply want to be aggressive enough to be able to protect the people I love. Or I may even want to have the courage of my despair. The excesses of other people, and of ourselves, can make us think, rather than merely react. Indeed, something as pow­erful as excess might--if we can suspend our fear --allow us to have thoughts we have never had before. After all, inspiration, falling in love, conversion expe­riences, a sense of injustice--the most radical trans­formations that can occur in a life--are traditionally overwhelming, excessive experiences.

Adam Phillips, On Balance (2010)

Adam Phillips, On Balance (2010)

What we learn, then, from the road of excess, is about our frustration, and about how difficult it can be for us to locate what it is that we do need; and consumer capitalism has taught us to be phobic of frustration. Whenever we have too much, it is because there is too little of what we need; whenever we have too little it is because there is too much of what we don't need. We are what we think of as excessively hungry when we have waited too long to eat, or when what we have eaten hasn't satisfied us. Excess, in other words, is always linked to some kind of deprivation.

Adam Phillips, On Balance (2010)

taaj tere liye ik maz.har-e-ulfat hī sahī
tujh ko is vādi-e-rañgīñ se aqīdat hī sahī

To you, my love, the Taj is a symbol of love. That’s all right.
All right too that you venerate this, the valley where it sets.

merī mahbūb kahīñ aur milā kar mujh se
bazm-e-shāhī meñ ġharīboñ kā guzar kyā ma.anī

But meet me somewhere else.
The poor visiting the royal assembly? Absurd.

sabt jis raah meñ hoñ satvat-e-shāhī ke nishāñ
us pe ulfat bharī rūhoñ kā safar kyā ma.anī

What’s the sense of lovers journeying on 
That road which bears the prints of royalty’s contempt?

merī mahbūb pas-e-parda-e-tash.hīr-e-vafā
tū ne satvat ke nishānoñ ko to dekhā hotā

Look at the emblems of arrogant majesty, my love, 
The backgrounds to this sign of love.

murda-shāhoñ ke maqābir se bahalne vaalī
apne tārīk makānoñ ko to dekhā hotā

Do dead kings’ tombs delight you? 
If so, look into your own dark home.

an-ginat logoñ ne duniyā meñ mohabbat kī hai
kaun kahtā hai ki sādiq na the jazbe un ke

In this world countless people have loved.
Who says their passions weren’t true?

lekin un ke liye tash.hīr kā sāmān nahīñ
kyūñki vo log bhī apnī hī tarah muflis the

They just couldn’t afford a public display like this
Because they were paupers—like us.

ye imārāt o maqābir ye fasīleñ ye hisār
mutlaq-ul-hukm shahanshāhoñ kī azmat ke sutūñ

These buildings and tombs, these abutments and forts 
Are a despot’s pillars of majesty,

sīna-e-dahr ke nāsūr haiñ kohna nāsūr
jazb hai un meñ tire aur mire ajdād kā ḳhuuñ

Embroidery on the hem of Time in that color 
Which is mingled with the blood of your ancestors and mine

merī mahbūb unheñ bhī to mohabbat hogī
jin kī sannā.ī ne baḳhshī hai use shakl-e-jamīl

Who, my love, must have loved, too.
It was their art that shaped this exquisite form.

un ke pyāroñ ke maqābir rahe benām-o-numūd
aaj tak un pe jalā.ī na kisī ne qindīl

But their beloveds’ tombs stand without name or fame; 
Until today, no one even lit a candle for them.

ye chaman-zār ye jamunā kā kināra ye mahal
ye munaqqash dar o dīvār ye mehrāb ye taaq

This garden, this place on the river’s bank,
These carved doors and walls, this arch, this vault—what are they?

ik shahanshāh ne daulat kā sahārā le kar
ham ġharīboñ kī mohabbat kā uḌāyā hai mazāq

The mocking of the love of our poor 
By an emperor propped upon his wealth.

merī mahbūb kahīñ aur milā kar mujh se

My love, meet me somewhere else. 

Sahir Ludhianvi, Taj Mahal (tr. Carlo Coppola)

The Taj, mayhap, to you may seem, a mark of love supreme
You may hold this beauteous vale in great esteem;
Yet, my love, meet me hence at some other place!
How odd for the poor folk to frequent royal resorts;
‘Tis strange that the amorous souls should tread the regal paths
Trodden once by mighty kings and their proud consorts.
Behind the facade of love my dear, you had better seen,
The marks of imperial might that herein lie screen
You who take delight in tombs of kings deceased,
Should have seen the hutments dark where you and I did wean.
Countless men in this world must have loved and gone,
Who would say their loves weren’t truthful or strong?
But in the name of their loves, no memorial is raised
For they too, like you and me, belonged to the common throng.
These structures and sepulchres, these ramparts and forts,
These relics of the mighty dead are, in fact, no more
Than the cancerous tumours on the face of earth,
Fattened on our ancestor’s very blood and bones.
They too must have loved, my love, whose hands had made,
This marble monument, nicely chiselled and shaped
But their dear ones lived and died, unhonoured, unknown,
None burnt even a taper on their lowly graves.
This bank of Jamuna, this edifice, these groves and lawns,
These carved walls and doors, arches and alcoves,
An emperor on the strength of wealth, Has played with us a cruel joke.
Meet me hence, my love, at some other place.

Sahir Ludhianvi, Taj Mahal (tr. K.C Kanda)

Laazim hai ki hum bhi dekhenge
Woh din jiskaa ke waada hai,
Jo lau-e-azl mein likha hai

Inevitably, we shall also see the day
that was promised to us, decreed
on the tablet of eternity.

Jab zulm-o-sitam ke koh-e-garaan
Rooi ki tarah udd jaayenge,

When dark peaks of torment and tyranny
will be blown away like cotton fluff;

Hum mehkoomon ke paaon tale
jab dharti dhad dhad dhadkegi,

When the earth’s beating, beating heart
will pulsate beneath our broken feet;

Aur ahl-e-hukam ke sar oopar
Jab bijli kad kad kadkegi,

When crackling, crashing lightning
will smite the heads of our tormentors;

Jab arz-e-khudaa ke kaabe se
Sab but uthwaaey jaayenge,

When, from the seat of the Almighty
every pedestal will lie displaced;

Hum ahl-e-safaa mardood-e-haram
Masnad pe bithaaey jaayenge.

Then, the dispossessed we; we,
who kept the faith will be installed
to our inalienable legacy.

Sab taaj uchaaley jaayenge.
Sab takht giraaey jayyenge.

Every crown will be flung.
Each throne brought down.

Bas naam rahega Allah kaa,
Jo ghaayab bhi hai, haazir bhi,
Jo manzar bhi hai, naazir bhi.

Only His name will remain; He,
who is both unseen, and ubiquitous; He,
who is both the vision and the beholder.

Utthegaa ‘An-al-haq’ kaa naara
Jo main bhi hoon, aur tum bhi ho,

When the clarion call of ‘I am Truth’
(the truth that is me and the truth that is you)

Aur raaj karegi Khalq-e-Khuda
Jo mai bhi hoon, aur tum bhi ho.

will ring out, all God’s creatures will rule,
those like me and those like you.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz, "Hum Dekhenge" (We Shall See) [tr. Mustansir Dalvi]

One must take a closer look into the usage of this phrase by Faiz and the stanzas following it. This is a famous phrase from the Sufi mystic Mansūr al-Hallāj (858-922 BC) who like other Sufis was heavily towards a personal relationship to God, to the extent of arguing that there is an element of the divine in all beings. Mansur was executed for having proclaimed such a statement. While even amongst Sufis there were several (mostly the early Sufis) who disagreed with this stance, but eventually the late Sufis were able to acknowledge his prominence. Mansur was also part of the Zanj Rebellion.

This is to reinstate that when Faiz quotes this phrase and other instances of him mentioning Allah/God, he is not reinstating the same theocratic tyranny which this nazm is against, but he is using the device of Sufism--which we have to remember is a radical outcast in the Islamic world--to reach those who were being oppressed under ul-Haq.

Among other things, what Sufism achieves is that it shatters the hierarchical structure that sometimes appears in Islam by elevating the mundane, the dirty, the outcast to a divine status, not by virtue of them "achieving" anything but by simply existing as a human being. It is not a surprise that those who wish to protect the tyrannical structure of hierarchy, dogmatism and idolatry will feel threatened by the likes of al-Hallaj.

I am not a Sufi--even though I try to read a bunch of Sufis--neither was Faiz a Sufi. He lived as an agnostic atheist for all his life. Yet, Faiz was at his deepest a romantic--something I cherish in him--and it is this romantic disposition that allows him to speak using various linguistic and other voices to render the terror of oppression, the anger towards the oppressor, feeling of solidarity, and the cracks of hope one seeks to redeem themselves.

In my opinion, the device of Sufism in this nazm helps in reverberating the rebellious spirit of overthrowing crowns and thrones with a pinch of spirituality to redeem the oppressed as worthy of divinity equally as everyone else ("the truth that is me, and the truth that is you").

Seikilos epitaph, the Greek translates to:

while you live, shine
have no grief at all
life exists only for a short while
and Time demands its toll.

The Cathedral of the Not-Made-by-Hand Image of Our Saviour in the Winter Palace, by Eduard Hau (1866)