Khamosh Sa Afsana

Disclaimer –  I am musically illiterate and this is my interpretation of this great song. ☺ Gulzar had once said a good poem or ghazal is one that gives different meanings to different persons depending on their experiences and understanding. So, I take full liberty to express my views on this classic. Just ignore any mistakes that I make.

 

ख़ामोश-सा अफ़साना पानी से लिखा होता
न तुम ने कहा होता, न हम ने सुना होता

दिल की बात न पूछ, दिल तो आता रहेगा
दिल बहकता रहा है, दिल बहकता रहेगा
दिल को हम ने कुछ समझाया होता
ख़ामोश-सा अफ़साना …

सहमे से रहते हैं, जब ये दिन ढलता है
एक दिया बुझता है, एक दिया जल्ता है
तुम ने कोई तो दीप जलाया होता
ख़ामोश-सा अफ़साना …

इतने साहिल ढूँढे, कोई न सामने आया
जब मँझधार में डूबे, साहिल थामने आया
तुम ने साहिल को पहले बिछाया होता
ख़ामोश-सा अफ़साना …

The song can be heard here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB8giAIiAs0

 

The song "खामोश सा अफ़साना, पानी से लिखा होता" is from the unreleased film Libaas, directed and lyrics by Gulzar, with music by R. D. Burman and vocals by Lata Mangeshkar and Suresh Wadkar. (There are many rumors regarding why the film was never released, but that’s a topic for another time). The first time I had listened to this song was on Vividh Bharti in 1987 or 1988. When I went to market to buy the cassette, I was horrified to know that the music was not available. The music was on Weston cassettes and I was told that the company had closed down. But, thanks to a old connection, I was able to get the cassette. The movie Libaas has four songs- Phir Kisi Shaakh Ne Pheki Chhav (Lata), Kya Bhala Hai Kya Bura (RD and Lata), Seeli Hawa Chhoo Gayee (Lata) and Khamosh Sa Afsana (Lata, Suresh Wadkar). The cassette came with dialogues as well. The movie was never released. Years later I believe Polydor or Universal bought the music rights and marketed the songs. There was also a combo with Ijaazat released by HMV.

Libaas is one of RD-Gulzar teams best works… at the same level as Aandhi or Ijaazat. It’s a shame that the movie was never released and songs were not marketed. 1980’s was the decade when the media had written off RD Burman. But some of his best songs were from this decade. Ijaazat, Jeeva (Roz Roz Akhon Tale), Sagar, Shakti, Shaan, Basera, Kudrat, Sanam Teri Kasam, Masoom, the list goes on. It is travesty of fate that people with least understanding of music get the space in media and make sweeping statements to write off great composers.

Libaas and its songs occupy a peculiar place in Hindi cinema history: created by filmmakers and musicians at the height of their powers and yet kept away from the public, the work acquired a private, almost mythic status among cinephiles and poetry lovers. The lyricist’s voice and the musical framework both favour restraint over spectacle, making the song more like a private monologue set to sound than a conventional film ballad. 

Check the trailor of this movie at the end of this blog. 

This song is a study in absence — of words not spoken, acts not taken, and lights not lit. Each stanza enlarges a single moral complaint: that small, timely gestures of care would have altered fate. The underlying theme of the song is an elegy not for what happened but for what could have been preserved. The poet wants the song to end with the image unresolved, so the listener feels the incompleteness. This song brings about that hopeless expectation from the dear one that remains unfulfilled leading to the separation of the couple.

Going by the sounds, the song is probably picturised on a boat in the evening on Shabana Azmi and Raj Babbar.

The ephemerality of a story

खामोश सा अफ़साना, पानी से लिखा होता
ना तुम ने कहा होता, ना हम ने सुना होता

Dictionary meaning of ephemerality is “the state of lasting for a very short time.” Something like camphor that just vaporises after giving it’s fragrance or writing with water that just evaporates.

The opening lines say - in silence, we truly find each other. Beneath the glowing chambers of the heart, a quiet river flows — its surface inscribed with the tale of our love (Paani Se Likha Hota), the essence of our bond, and the radiance it holds. Khamosh Sa Afsana literally means “A Silent Tale”. And here is also an example of the Gulzar’s command over figures of speech. An Afsana (story) is told verbally or with words, but here he uses Oxymoron (two opposites) in the same sentence Afsana and Khamosh.

The first couplet sets a tone of fragile, transitory intimacy. Describing the tale (Afsana) as “written in water” signals that the story is inherently evanescent: it cannot be fixed, preserved, or transmitted with fidelity. Gulzar’s poetic impulse here is to make silence itself a medium and to suggest that the relationship’s defining moments dissolve as soon as they are formed. Gulzar may have intended this image to register both the beauty and futility of unsaid things; the act of writing in water (using water as a medium instead of ink) is both an attempt at expression and an acknowledgement of its likely erasure.

The protagonist is in retrospective disbelief and quiet regret. There is an ache born of contemplating what was almost said and what evaporated. This is the voice of someone who keeps replaying near-expressions and imagining a parallel life where those words had landed. In the movie her husband (Naseeruddin Shah) had said to her,”You always want to be somewhere else, not where you are!”

At this entry point the music behaves like breath. Sparse sustain of a solo string or a Flugel horn, English and Bamboo Flutes, Bass Guitar, Twelve String Guitar, Tabla, Harmony of Violin’s complementing Lata’s vocals underline the fragile metaphors, with silence used as punctuation between the musical phrases. Cello is used for deeper tones that accentuate the underlying sense of loneliness.

The stanza’s are more in Gulzar’s Triveni style of poetry. In Triveni, the poem is completed in two lines, but the addition of the third line gives a completely new meaning to the prior two lines. Sample the next two lines, anf then the third line that changes the meaning.

दिल की बात ना पूछो, दिल तो आता रहेगा
दिल बहकाता रहा है, दिल बहकाता रहेगा
दिल को तुमने कुछ समझाया होता

First, the heart is to err and wander despite reason; second, a reproach toward the beloved for not guiding or restraining it. There is an ethical tone — not simply sadness but a sense that a small corrective action from the beloved could have changed outcomes. The repetition of “दिल बहकाता रहा है” works as a lament and a kind of incantation against recurring weakness.

The protagonist oscillates between self-blame and reproach. While she accepts her own folly, she’s also hurt by the perceived absence of intervention from her partner. This is the voice of someone who alternately forgives and indicts themselves, who wants consolation but also wants the beloved to have tried.

Then comes Twilight and the economy of hope

सहमे से रहते हैं, जब ये दिन ढलता है
एक दिया बुझता है, एक दिया जलता है
तुम ने कोई दीप जलाया होता

Again, note the Triveni in the above lines. The metaphor of “evening” layers fear with the brittle persistence of hope. Twilight is the time when shadows gather and small lights are most meaningful. Gulzar had once said “Twilight is that orphan time which neither day owns nor the night embraces.”

(In the song Moh Moh Ke Dhaage the words are Tu Din Sa Hai Main Raat, Aa Dono Mil Jaaye Shaam ki Tarah – we are as different as the day and night, but to make this relationship work, can we meet midway like the twilight? – A completely opposite perspective from Khamosh Sa Afasana – different situations different views.)

Back to the topic. The relationship is in its twilight zone waiting for that small light that her beloved would have lit. She blames the beloved for not kindling a lamp. The pain of someone waiting for a hand that is never extended is brought out in the above lines.

The end - Searching for shore in a sea of solitude

कितने साहील ढूँढे, कोई न सामने आया
जब मझधार में डूबे, साहील थामने आया
तुम ने साहील पहले बिछाया होता

This stanza is assigned to her new friend/companion. This is a more anguished voice. The tone mixes accusation with a vulnerable accounting of survival. The man expresses solidarity with the woman’s thoughts. Here Gulzar is mourning both the desperate search for refuge (Sahil meaning Kinara), and the belated arrival of help. The sting is in imagining that the beloved could have prepared the shore in advance, turning contingency into care. The thought behind the lines is - the absence of foresight or empathy becomes the real betrayal, not the mere fact of difficulty.

In fact, the song is a study in absence — of words not spoken, acts not taken, and lights not lit. Each stanza enlarges a single moral complaint: that small, timely gestures of care would have altered fate. The speaker’s mental arc moves from reflective sorrow to reproach and back to a quieter acceptance, while the music’s minimal colors make silence itself a resonant presence. It’s a work that is at once tender and unforgiving, private and universal, and which remains haunting precisely because its images are allowed to evaporate like writing on water.

The trailor can be seen here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e1jl12T1r4