Verse 21821aryaad aayaa


G11

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
Doomsday had not yet/still taken a breath
2
again/then the time of your journey came to mind/recollection

References
Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali Ghazal# 27
Raza, Kalidas Gupta 328
Nuskhah-e-Hamidiyah 74-75
Hamid Ali Khan Open Image

Another lovely example of how poetically effective it is to refuse to specify the relationship between the two lines. Is 'Doomsday' to be equated with 'the time of your journey', so that the beloved has barely left when the lover starts helplessly remembering the Doomsday of her departure? Or are these two independent events, so that Doomsday itself barely distracts the lover for even a moment from the obsessive memory of her departure? Hali chooses the first reading, and Bekhud Mohani chooses the second. Both readings are of course entirely plausible, but the second reading has an extra delight, in its tone of impatience: the actual Doomsday is just an interruption in the lover's compulsive reliving of the time of the beloved's departure-- and best of all, not even a major interruption, just a small bother. It occupies about one moment of his attention, it barely has time to take a breath, before he's impatiently brushed it aside and is back to his obsessive remembering of the real Doomsday, that of her departure. Then both and , such unpretentious little words, multiply the possible times and connections. Here's my long-ago attempt at a translation (1985) . graphics/doomsday.jpg