سرائیکی ڈیجیٹل لائبریری

Khawaja Farid’s poetry presents love through two deeply connected states: برہوں بکھیڑا and سہجوں میل. The first refers to the troubled condition of love in separation, while the second refers to the natural, effortless, and embodied fulfilment of love in union. At first sight, these two seem opposite. برہوں belongs to the wider Indian idea of longing in separation, while بکھیڑا adds the sense of trouble, entanglement, odd labour, and emotional disturbance. On the other hand, سہجوں suggests naturalness, ease, spontaneity, and inner ripeness, while میل means meeting, union, and intimate coming together. But Farid does not treat these two as simple opposites. Rather, he shows that the difficult experience of separation gives depth and truth to love, while natural union remains its true fulfilment.

Farid begins from the condition of longing itself. In one important set of lines, separation appears not as an accidental break in love, but as something woven into the very structure of love:

یار پُنل دی سِک پَل پَل دی
روز اَزل دی کار اے
برہوں بَھنوالی اُلٹی چالی
سُکھ ٻوڑے ݙکھ تارے

Here longing for the beloved is shown as something constant, present at every moment. It is even linked with روز ازل, suggesting that this condition belongs to the very old and deep order of love itself. The phrase برہوں بھنوالی اُلٹی چالی is especially striking. It presents separation as a whirling and inverted movement, something strange and against the normal flow of life. Separation unsettles the lover and turns the world upside down. Yet the last line gives this suffering a paradoxical meaning: سُکھ ٻوڑے، ݙکھ تارے. It is separation that drowns comfort, but it is suffering itself that helps the lover cross over. In this way, Farid shows that pain in love is not only destructive. It also becomes a means of passage and transformation.

That is why Farid gives such a high place to برہوں. He writes:

نینہہ فرید فَقر دی مُوڑی
ٻاجھ برہوں دے کُل ڳل کوڑی

These lines are very important for understanding Farid’s thought. He says that love is the capital of faqiri, but without برہوں, all talk is false coin. In other words, without the experience of separation, words about love and spiritual poverty remain empty. They have no real value. برہوں is what gives truth, seriousness, and authenticity to love. Love becomes real only when it passes through longing, pain, and absence.

Farid goes even further and presents separation as something that has to be learned. In his address to میاں جی, the traditional teacher, he says:

جے ناں سبق برہوں دا ݙتڑو
اڄ کل ویساں نَس وائے میاں جی
برہوں سِکھیں تے برہوں سِکھائیں
ہائی شابس شابس وے میاں جی

These lines are full of meaning. Farid is not asking for ordinary bookish knowledge. He is asking for the lesson of برہوں. If the teacher cannot give that lesson, he says he will flee. This gives separation the status of a discipline or training. Longing is not only something that happens to the lover; it is also something to be learned, lived, and taught. The repeated phrase برہوں سکھیں تے برہوں سکھائیں shows that love in separation becomes a kind of inner knowledge. This makes برہوں بکھیڑا even richer in meaning. It is painful and disorderly, but it is also educative.

After establishing the truth of separation, Farid turns to the fulfilment of love in union. But this union does not come through force or struggle. It comes as destiny ripening into nearness:

قسمت جاڳے بخت بھڑائے
قادر دوست ملائے
سہجوں لیٹے تول نہالیں
سوہی سیجھ سجائے

The main stress here falls on قسمت and بخت. Love reaches fulfilment when destiny awakens and fortune opens. Union is not presented as something achieved through anxious effort. It comes when the destined moment arrives. In this sense, سہجوں میل is not merely easy union; it is the natural flowering of what was already written in fate. The image of the beautifully decorated سوہی سیجھ, adorned with تول نہالیں, gives this fulfilment a sensuous and embodied form. Yet the key word remains سہجوں. The lovers lie down in ease, without strain and without fuss. Love reaches fulfilment as something natural, intimate, and inwardly fitting.

The same idea appears in another beautiful set of lines:

یار فرید کݙاں سَمبھلیسی
سہجوں سݙ کر کول ٻلہیسی
جے وت بخت بھڑائیو وے یار !

Here Farid longs for the moment when the beloved will take care of him, call him naturally and gently, and let him sit beside him. These lines add a very tender shade to the meaning of سہجوں میل. Union is not imagined as something seized by the lover through effort. It comes when the beloved himself calls the lover near in an easy and natural way. The final line makes the role of ripeness clear: this can happen only when the time matures and fortune opens. Love’s fulfilment thus depends on a destined hour, but it appears in the form of intimacy, care, and nearness.

This meaning becomes even clearer in another set of lines:

رانجھݨ ماہی تخت ہزاروں
میں کارݨ اِتھ آئے
سوہی سیجھ تے سانول سَہجوں
سِکدی کوں ڳل لائے

These lines move from grandeur to intimacy. The beloved may come from majesty and distance, but the final movement is towards embrace. Once again, the important word is سَہجوں. The dark beloved draws the yearning lover close in a natural way, without strain or drama. Here union is not only physical meeting. It is a fulfilment that feels proper, easy, and true to the nature of love itself.

At this point, it is useful to note that Farid’s word سہجوں also has a wider Indic background. It can be connected with the idea of sahaja, especially in traditions like Bengal Vaishnava Sahajiya, where the word carries the sense of what is natural, innate, spontaneous, and inwardly realised. This does not mean that Farid should be reduced to that specific tradition. But the resonance is meaningful. It helps us see that سہجوں میل is not just easy meeting. It is a form of union that is true to the deepest and most natural condition of love.

Taken together, برہوں بکھیڑا and سہجوں میل form a single movement in Farid’s poetry. Separation is the difficult and strange path through which love gains truth, depth, and intensity. Union is the natural, destined, and embodied fulfilment towards which this path leads. Farid celebrates سہجوں میل as love’s true fulfilment, but he gives special importance to برہوں, because longing is what makes love inwardly serious and real. In Khawaja Farid, برہوں is the ordeal that makes love true, while سہجوں میل is the natural fulfilment that makes that ordeal worthwhile. If سہجوں میل is love in its fulfilment, برہوں is love in its deepest truth.