Verse 91833arga))ii


G3

1
the time/world/fate struck you down, Asad ullah Khan
2
where are those lamentations/tumults, which way did that youthfulness go?

'Time, period, duration; season; a long time; an age; ... —the world; the heavens; fortune, destiny'.
'Howling, lamentation, wailing, crying; --wail, lamentation; --confused murmur, noise, tumult, uproar'.

References
Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali Ghazal# 205
Raza, Kalidas Gupta 382-83
Hamid Ali Khan Open Image

The 'lamentations/tumults' and the 'youthfulness' may of course be two separate items that are simply listed together as they are recollected, but they may also-- more enjoyably-- be equational, as paraphrases of each other. Asad's youth, in short, consisted, at least in his (nostalgic?) memory, entirely of weeping, wailing, 'howling', and other kinds of generally miserable uproar. And not only that, but when he laments the losses caused by time, the only thing he remembers-- or at least regrets-- seems to be the fact that he's no longer capable of such youthful wild tumults of grief. Nazm's observations, both about the force of the verse, and about the effect of the poet's using his full name, are exactly right. The full name also gives a kind of valedictory effect, as though his life were being summed up and memorialized at its close (though of course the poet was then in his thirties). For another such example, see 71,10 . graphics/zodiac_battistaagnese.jpg