Verse 41826arme;N ;xaak nahii;N
G9
In this meter the next-to-last long syllable may be replaced by two shorts.
1
for goodness sake-- if not she, then so be it; at least I myself should have felt some pity/mercy!
2
effect, in my ineffective breath/sigh/lament-- none at all
'Footprint; sign, mark, token, trace, track, vestige, shadow; impress, impression, influence; effect; result, consequence'.
'Breath, respiration; — the voice or sound from the breast; — a moment, an instant'.
| References | |
|---|---|
| Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali | Ghazal# 101 |
| Raza, Kalidas Gupta | 365 |
| Hamid Ali Khan | Open Image |
To call the ineffective and then say that it has no effect is, from the point of view of meaning, mere repetition. But in the idiom it's good. As in [the Arabic] 'He who kills the killed one, his is the killed one's dress' []. Turning this theme into a line, the author has made it fresh. (123)
== Nazm page 123
He says, if she didn't feel pity, then so be it-- at least I myself should have felt pity at my dire condition, in which I can't refrain from lamenting! But it's become clear that in my ineffective lament there's no effect at all. (173)
In my sighs there's not the least bit of effectiveness. If the beloved had no pity for my situation, then at least I would have had pity! That is, I myself would not have looked on my dire situation and lamented. Because if that lamentation continued, then one day it would be the end of me. (231)
How conceitful a conceit!
I can understand if the beloved does not respond to my cries, she is acknowledged to be heartless and cruel; I cannot expect my cries to make any effect on such a person. But what about me, I don't respond to these pitiful cries either; I keep torturing myself by pursuing hopeless love. Indeed, my cries are ineffective. (Of course, the argument can now continue as follows: my cries are ineffective; I must make them effective; I must suffer more.)
Note the fact that no such word as 'cry' or 'lament' has actually been used. The poet shows his disdain for his 'ineffective cry' by calling it simply 'ineffective breath'. (1972, pp. 10-11)
[Nazm's complaint about repetition is unwarranted.] It's important that despite this repetition the verse feels effective and meaningful and beautiful. Thus we can say, so what if there's repetition, as a whole the verse is beautiful. [But we need to think further about this.] We know that in Ghalib's poetry there are many uses of and different kinds of verbal and semantic device s and wordplay . Because they overlook this point, most of the commentators and critics have remained unsuccessful in providing suitable praise and interpretation of Ghalib and other classical poets.
In the present verse, it's entirely clear that in the word there is an . Take to mean 'trace' [], and to mean 'without a trace'; now see what the verse says. means 'breath'; its metaphorical [] meanings are 'melody' [], 'lament' [], 'mourning' []. Breath is a silent action, so it makes the interpretation of as a 'melody' or 'mourning' that is 'without a trace' well-grounded. Thus comes to mean 'silent melody' or 'voiceless lament, silent lament'....
'I had no pity' can have two meanings. One is that there was no effect on me myself, that is, I felt no sympathy for myself. The other meaning is that I myself had no pity on the dire condition of my heart; seeing it shattered, I would have ceased lamenting....
If it would be viewed in this way, then this verse presents the theme of the denigrating of silent laments, and the praising of loud laments. After this, the stage comes in which-- 6,6 .
== (1989: 197) 2006: 218-19
Faruqi points out the multivalence of as suggesting not only 'effect' but also 'trace' or 'sound', so that the verse can also have a sort of 'objective correlative' for the lament's futility-- its inaudibility. (On the possible confusions of , see 15,6 .)
As he also observes, in the first line can mean either that 'I would have had pity for myself' (in a general way); or that 'I would have felt sorry for my heart, and stopped those (literally) heart-rending laments'. Putting in the contrafactual is a clever touch, because it forces us to decide for ourselves how the two lines connect; nothing in the grammar itself tells us. (Why would/should the speaker have felt pity? If there had been effect/sound in the lament, which there unfortunately wasn't, then the lament would have moved him to pity.)
The real pleasure of the verse as a listening experience is surely its wonderful colloquialness and naturalness. It manages to fit in three different idiomatic expressions: (for more on this see 21,11 ; (on this see 9,4 ); and (on its idiomatic sense see 114,1 ). Yet they don't at all feel contrived or awkward. On the contrary: the verse has such a sense of gusto! It is energized by the vigor born of sheer exasperation and the explosive relief of venting one's feelings. Isn't it only right that the lover should have at least this much satisfaction?
Nazm's point, which he doesn't make very clear, seems to be about the rhetorical uses of repetition, with the Arabic example cited not for its meaning but for its use of repetition.
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