Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When I couldn't be with you for even one tiny moment, it felt like the whole world had gone dark and cruel. When, oh when, will I finally get to meet you, my beloved? The night will not pass. Sleep will not come. I lie awake, restless, until I can see you again.
The longing reaches its sharpest edge here. Ik gharhee na milte taa kalijug hotaa — "when I could not meet you for even a gharhee (a single moment), it became Kali Yuga for me." Kali Yuga is the dark age, the time of greatest separation from truth. The seeker is saying: one instant apart from you, and my whole world turns to the dark age. Time itself warps under the weight of love — a moment of separation stretches into an era of darkness.
This is the lover's distorted sense of time, known across all longing-poetry: when you are apart from the one you love, a minute feels like a year. Hun kad mileeai — "now, when will I meet you?" — the urgent, present-tense cry. And then the classic symptom of viraha, returning from earlier shabads: rain na vihaavai, need na aavai — "the night will not pass, sleep will not come." The sleepless, restless night is the body's own protest against separation.
What makes this so moving is that the longed-for sight is the gur darbaar — the Guru's court, the Guru's presence. This is love for the teacher rendered with the full intensity of romantic and devotional longing. The boundaries between missing a beloved parent, missing a teacher, and missing the divine all dissolve — because in this tradition the Guru is the doorway to all three. The ache is one ache.
Why do you think time feels so slow when you're waiting to see someone you miss, and so fast when you're with them?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI