What the heck. Here is the full ghazal by Zafar. Feel the agony of a dying man in exile. For those who don't know who the hell Bagadur Shah Zafar is, here is a brief introduction and the link for more. - http://www.shayaranamusic.com/adab/Bahadurshahzafar.htm The last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was a very ill fated man, both as a ruler and as a poet. He ascended the throne when the Mughal rule had been confined only to the precinct of the Red Fort. The East India Company was the de facto ruler. Moreover, in the aftermath of the First War of Indian Independence, [Mutiny in the words of the British historians], the hapless Zafar had to go through terrible humiliation and torture at the hands of the British and their Indian cohorts. His sons were beheaded and their amputated heads were brought before him as trophies won by his adversaries. Ultimately, he was exiled to Rangoon, from where he could never return to his motherland. In the domain of poetry he was never taken seriously by the critics and scholars as many of them believe that his poetic output [four voluminous collections comprising more than thirty thousand couplets] is not his own but of his mentors, major share coming from the quill-pen of Zauq. An unprejudiced study of his poetry, however, may reveal that he was a poet in his own right and his mentors, the great poets of their times, could only make marginal alterations in his poetry. -------------------------------- Now the ghazal and my poor translation of it. Zafar wrote this ghazal when he was in exile in Burma. As I said, feel his agony and don't be surprised to find yourself identifying with them- whether you are living in Burma, working in Iraq or studying in the US.