Verse 11x1816aataahai mujhe
G5
In this meter the first long syllable may be replaced by a short; and the next-to-last long syllable may be replaced by two shorts.
1
I am a new moon, such that the sky teaches me weakness/helplessness
2
for a whole lifetime, it puts me to sleep on only/emphatically one side
'Powerlessness, impotence, weakness, helplessness, submission, wretchedness'.
| References | |
|---|---|
| Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali | Ghazal# 170 |
| Raza, Kalidas Gupta | 253-54 |
| Nuskhah-e-Hamidiyah | 258 |
| Asi, Abdul Bari | 263-264 |
| Gyan Chand | 385-386,520 |
| Hamid Ali Khan | Open Image |
The new moon is thin, as though it would be weak and oppressed. It shows itself as always lying only on one side. If a man would lie on one side and bend his feet so some extent toward his stomach, then he will resemble the crescent moon. He says, 'The sky has made me weak and feeble like the crescent moon; and it causes me, like the crescent moon, to lie always on only one side'. (520)
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices . This verse is NOT one of his choices; mostly for the sake of completeness, I have added it myself. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in 4,8x .
This is a second opening-verse to the ghazal.
Gyan Chand's reading has the problem that the 'new moon' doesn't stay 'new' for very long, but is constantly engaged in waxing and then waning. So how can the speaker be a crescent-shaped 'new moon', and also be forced by the sky to maintain that helpless crescent shape 'for a whole lifetime'?
The only way to make the verse (somewhat) work is to recall that the moon always shows the same side or face, the same , to the earth. The speaker too is, through his predestined fate, dominated by the hostile sky to such an extent that he cannot even turn over in bed, but helplessly lies in the same wretched position the sky has put him in. But then this reframing makes the specifically crescent shape of the 'new moon' irrelevant. I think that Ghalib was 'over-rotating' here; I think the problems are his fault and not ours.
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