[ghazals]

1. 01

   Ranjish Hi Sahi

   Ahmad Faraz · popularised by Mehdi Hassan · two couplets added in performance

   “Ranjish Hi Sahi” is a deeply emotional Urdu ghazal written by Ahmad Faraz and made famous by Mehdi Hassan. The song captures the anguish of unrequited love and longing, where the singer pleads for their beloved to return, even if only to hurt them again.

2. 02

   Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo

   Fayyaz Hashmi · music by Sohail Rana · a geet, with its own refrain

   A timeless geet first sung by Habib Wali Mohammad in the 1973 film Badal Aur Bijli, and later made legendary by Farida Khanum: a lover’s plea for the beloved to stay a little longer.

3. 03

   Baat Karni Mujhe Mushkil

   Bahadur Shah Zafar · nine couplets, six translated · Devanagari, Urdu and Roman

   The last Mughal emperor laments that speech, company and the heart itself were never this difficult before: a personal lament that also reads as the fading of an era.

4. 04

   Mohabbat Karne Wale

   Hafeez Hoshiarpuri · from Mehdi Hassan to Arooj Aftab

   There will be no shortage of those who love you, but I will not be among them. A ghazal of separation whose sorrow, the poet suggests, outweighs the grief of the whole world.