Verse 7after 1847aarhotaa


G6

1
although grief is life-destroying, how would we escape, since/while there is a heart?
2 a
if there were not the grief of passion, there would be the grief of {livelihood / the world}
2 a
if it were not the grief of passion, it would be the grief of {livelihood / the world}

'Service, employ, situation, business; earning, livelihood; --the world; fortune; age, time, season'.

References
Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali Ghazal# 43
Raza, Kalidas Gupta 397-398
Hamid Ali Khan Open Image

Some divan editions reverse two words: instead of they have (as in fact Hamid does). Also, some divans (including Hamid's) have instead of . As always, I follow Arshi. The internal rhyme at the quasi-caesura in the first line, and the repetition of in the same position in the second line, makes the verse feel very fluent, with excellent flowingness . Arshi rightly points out that 16,5 is a key verse for comparison. As in that verse, the question arises here too: is there a conversion (2a), or a replacement (2b), of griefs? Does one single grief haunt us to the grave and destroy our life, and merely change its shape under different conditions? Or do we have sufficient leeway to actually eliminate one grief and replace it with another? (Or maybe this replacement process happens involuntarily?) Would there ever be a time when we no longer have a heart, and are thus free of both kinds of grief? The clever use of , which can suggest 'while' as well as 'because', does seem to open that possibility. And then, there's the excellently chosen (see the definition above). Is the grief of passion being opposed to the grief of dailiness, of earning a livelihood, or to the grief of the whole world, the whole age? Needless to say, the answer can be any or all of the above. There are so many kinds of grief, and so many interconnections among them-- various transmutations are possible, but none will ease the deadliness of grief, or its inescapability for anyone who has a heart. More examples of the evocative use of : 16,5 ; 41,6 ; 187,5x . Ghalib also uses in a letter: 189,8 . graphics/griefs.jpg