ਤੇਰੇ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਨਚਾਇਆ · تیرے عشق نچایا
Bulleh Shah, 18th century — a kafi of divine love as a dance the lover cannot refuse, in an annotated edition where every word answers when you tap it.
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The refrain
tere ishq nachāiā kar ke thaiyā thaiyā
Your love has set me dancing — thaiyya, thaiyya.
What the poet is doing
The whole kafi turns on a single image: love as a dance the body cannot help but perform. Thaiyya thaiyya is the beat of dancing feet — the poem opens already in motion, the way a possessed dancer at a shrine is seized before a word is spoken.
The speaking voice is grammatically feminine — “I have died,” mar gaī. This is a Sufi convention: the soul is the longing bride, and God the Beloved. A male poet writes as a woman in love because, before God, every soul is the one who waits.
Stanza 1 · The cup of poison
tere ishq ne ḍerā mere andar kītā
Your love has pitched its camp inside me;
bhar ke zahir piālā maĩ tā̃ āpe pītā
I filled the cup with poison and drank it myself.
jhabde bohṛī̃ ve tabībā nahī̃ tā̃ maĩ mar gaī ā̃
come quickly, O healer, or else I die.
What the poet is doing
The zehar pyālā, the poisoned cup, is drunk knowingly and by the lover's own hand — āpe pītā. Love is not a misfortune that befalls; it is chosen, with the price attached. The only physician who can cure the sickness is the very Beloved who caused it — which is why the plea is to tabīb, the healer, and no one else.
Stanza 2 · After the sun has set
chhup giā ve sūraj bāhar reh gaī ā lālī
The sun has set; only its red glow stays behind.
ve maĩ sadqe hovā̃ devẽ muṛ je vikhālī
I would give my life if you would show yourself once more.
pīrā maĩ bhull gaī ā̃ tere nāl nā gaī ā̃
O master, I erred — I did not go with you.
Stanza 3 · Do not hold me back
es ishqe de kolõ mainū̃ haṭak nā māe
Do not hold me back from this love, O mother.
lāhū jāndṛe beṛe kehṛā moṛ liāe
Who can turn back the boats already cast off?
merī akal jo bhullī nāl mahāṇiā̃ de gaī ā
my straying reason has drifted off with the boatmen.
Stanza 4 · Qibla and Kaaba
es ishqe dī jhaṅgī vich mor bolẽdā
In this thicket of love a peacock is calling;
sānū̃ qiblā te kābā sohṇā yār disẽdā
to me my lovely Beloved appears as Qibla and Kaaba.
sānū̃ ghāil kar ke pher khabar nā laī ā
you wounded me, then never came to ask after me.
What the poet is doing
This is the audacious heart of the kafi. Qibla is the direction of Muslim prayer; the Kaaba its centre at Mecca. Bulleh Shah says his prayer now faces the Beloved's face instead. Read as blasphemy it is shocking; read as Sufism it is exact — for the wahdat mystics, the Beloved and God are not two, and to love truly is already to pray.
The peacock in the jhaṅgī, the wild grove, is a Punjabi shorthand for longing: its cry rises in the monsoon, the season of separated lovers. Bulleh Shah drops it in with a single word and trusts his listeners to hear the whole ache.
Stanza 5 · At Inayat's door — the signature
bullhā shoh ne āndā mainū̃ ināyat de būhe
Bulleh Shah has come to the door of Inayat,
jis ne mainū̃ puāe chole sāve te sūhe
who dressed me in robes of green and crimson.
jā̃ maĩ mārī hai aḍḍī mil piā hai vahiyā
the moment I struck my heel to dance, I found my Beloved.
What the poet is doing
The kafi form ends with the makta — the couplet where the poet names himself. Here Bulleh Shah signs by pointing to his master: Shah Inayat Qadiri of Lahore, a gardener by caste. That Bulleh Shah, a high-born Sayyid, took a low-caste arāīn as his guide was a scandal his family never forgave — and one his verse answers again and again.
The robes “green and red” are the dervish's colours of initiation; the stamped heel, aḍḍī, is the first beat of the dance. Union is not reached by learning or lineage but by surrender: the instant the lover dances, the Beloved is there.
More kafis, and the great qisse — Sohni Mahiwal, Mirza Sahiban, Sassi Punnun — will join the Parallel Reader in future updates.
Sources & further reading
- Bulleh Shah (c. 1680–1757), Kāfīā̃ — public domain. Text follows commonly printed and sung editions; recensions vary.
- J. R. Puri & T. R. Shangari, Bulleh Shah: The Love-Intoxicated Iconoclast (1986).
- Christopher Shackle, essays on the Punjabi Sufi lyric and the kafi tradition.
- English translation and annotations above are Punjabia's own, made for learners — plain prose, not verse.