Verse 31855ishtko


G3

1
why would I not be turned/disaffected/oblique from the path and custom of religious-merit?
2
the nib has been cut/attached crooked, to the pen of destiny/'head-written'

'Turned, or altered (from); changed; inverted; turning or departing from allegiance, turning aside (from), disaffected; --crooked; oblique'.
'Marking out, delineating, designing; --sketch, outline, model, plan; way followed (in respect of doctrine and practices of religion, &c.)'.
t>> : 'Cutting (a thing) transversely, sideways, or across; cutting or making a pen, cutting the nib of a pen; --the nib of a pen'.
'A reed; reed-pen, pen; a pencil; a painter's brush; --an engraving tool; --a mode of writing, character, hand-writing'.
'Written on the forehead'; destiny, fate, lot, fortune'.

References
Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali Ghazal# 124
Raza, Kalidas Gupta 459
Hamid Ali Khan Open Image

This verse is an encyclopedic collection of wordplay of all kinds about writing. The word comes from the same root as , which can mean 'nib of a pen' and 'letter of the alphabet' (Platts p.476). Then means not only the usual 'custom', but also 'sketch' or 'outline'; most centrally, means the nib of a pen; the cutting of the nib of a pen; and a sideways cut. In addition, not only does mean 'pen', etc., but means 'to be cut off'. And then the final major effect: , 'destiny, is that which is 'written on the forehead'. For 'writing' wordplay, probably the only real rival to this verse is 1,1 . They are similar in their general line of thought as well: both maintain that we humans are like lines (of words or images) on paper, helplessly 'drawn' or 'written' by a casual, careless writer with a crooked pen and a taste for mischief. If we are badly drawn, not only do we acknowledge no guilt-- we firmly lay the responsibility where it belongs: on the pen-wielder. For after all, it's we who suffer the consequences; remember 110,3 . graphics/obliquenib.jpg