Ghazal aur Nazm
Ghazals and Nazms, both are forms of poetry..
The format or the structure is different in two forms.
Ghazals are usually sung while Nazms are usually read.
Ghazal has a strict format as it has to have a Meter, Qaafiya (rythming pattern) and Radeef (the word is repeated at the end of line), while nazms are free form poetry with no such restriction. Nazms are focussed to a theme or topic while ghazal is a collection of coupletes, each of the couplet can have a different theme or independent provided they have same Meter, Qaafiya and Radeef.
For example:
Hum hain mataa-e-koocha o bazaar ki tarah
Uthati hai har nigaah kharidaar ki tarah
"ki tarah" is Radeef while "bazaar and kharidaar" is Qaafiya.

Apart from Qaafiya and Radeef, there are Matla and Maqta. Matla is the opening couplet of ghazal and usually its often repeated between other couplets. The above couplet is matla. Maqta is the usually the last couplet of ghazal, where the poet puts his signature in the sher (couplet) you can find maqta'a in many ghazal where poets name or takhallus appear in the couplet. Like in the song above the last stanza is as below:
Majrooh likh rahe hai woh ehday wafa ka naam.
this couplet is maqta as Poet has used his name in the couplet.

Rishte

Rishte bas rishte hote hai
Kuchh ek pal ke kuchh do pal ke
Rishte bas rishte hote hai

Kuchh paro se halke hote hai
Barso ke tale chalte chalte
Bhaari bharkam ho jate hai
Kuchh bhaari bharkam barf ke se
Barso ke tale galte galte
Halke phulke ho jate hai
Rishte bas rishte hote hai

Naam hote hai rishto ke
Kuchh rishte naam ke hote hai
Rishta wo agar mar jaye bhi
Bas naam se jeena hota hai
Rishte bas rishte hote hai

Zindagi: Kaisi hai paheli...

During this new year season, my mailbox flooded with new year wishes. One of the message I forwarded to my friends. The content was:

Life is like having a cup of tea.
You sit by the side of the window, lift the cup and take a careless sip,Only to realize, somebody forgot to put the sugar. Too lazy to go for it you somehow struggle through the sugarless cup. Until you discover un-dissolved sugar crystal sitting at the bottom...
---That's Life---

Now one of my friend asked me "bhai kuch samajh nahi aayee ye chai kee kahani"
"Hmmm... Is chai ki kahani samajhni padegi", the first thing comes into my mind and result is this post.

To see the life everyone has its own viewpoint. Shayar or philosopher generally try to present their viewpoints through simple things and its upto you how you are interpreting those hidden things. Now come to this wordings.

Normally we people are not satisfied with our life and keep on complaining about it. The cup of tea symbolizes the life and it has come to an end. So we should try to enjoy each and every moment out of it. Actually every moment comes with something to cherish about but we fail to see or feel that or rather we dont make effort to realize that and feel like that life has given nothing to us (just like tea without sugar), we are supposed to keep ourself sad and consider it as our fate. We want someone else to fill our life with happiness.

But at later stage of life you realized that you were totally wrong and the happiness were actually around you but you dont try to get it, just like "un-dissolved sugar crystal sitting at the bottom... ". So when you are about to pass your life and see back to the passed time then you realized that you missed those things which are near you but you fail to recognize.

I personally feel like some people unnecessary keep themselves sad by thinking about future or something which they have not. Rather we should try to enjoy with what we have. The small incidence or anything around us, are enough to make your day full of happiness/satisfaction, its just how you see the world. A very old dialogue from a movie: A character 6 can be seeing as number six or as number nine, it depends how u see the it ;-)

I cant stop myself writing the wordings of Gulzar which has similar meaning:
"Aane wala pal jane wala hai, ho sake to isme zindagi bita do, pal ye jo jane wala hai"