Verse 7x1816uusthaa
G1
1
yesterday we saw Asad in a corner of the grief-chamber
2
he was hand on head, head on knee, with/from a despairing heart
'Disappointed, despondent, hopeless, desperate'.
| References | |
|---|---|
| Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali | Ghazal# 31 |
| Raza, Kalidas Gupta | 160 |
| Nuskhah-e-Hamidiyah | 83-84 |
| Asi, Abdul Bari | 71-72 |
| Gyan Chand | 116 |
| Hamid Ali Khan | Open Image |
Yesterday we saw Asad in a corner of the wine-house [Asi's text has ] in such a condition that through sorrow and stupefaction his hand was on his head and his head was on his knee. This verse is a picture; no telling why it was stricken from the selection .
== Asi, p. 74
The hand on the head, and the head on the knee, express a condition of grief and sorrow; and grief and sorrow, a condition of despair. Instead of saying that the despairing heart caused me to put my hand on my head and my head on my knee, he has said that 'My head was on the knee of the despairing heart'. This disjointed construction seems to be the reason that this verse has been ignored.
== Zamin, p. 86
The 'knee of the despairing heart'-- that is, his own knee. Yesterday we saw Asad in his grief-chamber, in a condition with his head placed on his knee, his hands placed on his head, and with a despairing heart.
== Gyan Chand, p. 116
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices . This verse is NOT one of his choices; mainly for the sake of completeness, I have added it myself. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in 4,8x .
For more on sitting , see 32,2 .
It's true that, as Zamin complains, the most obvious reading of the second line is indeed 'hand on the head, head on the knee of the despairing heart'. But the is a versatile construction, and I think we can rescue the line by deciding to take it not as 'he was A, with B of C', but rather as 'he was A, B, with/from C'. This latter reading is highlighted and made more inviting by the conspicuous progression of 'hand on head, head on knee'. It is comparable to the use of in 4,11x . In that verse, the lover was 'slain by negligence'; in the present verse, he was thrown into a physical posture of misery by his despairing heart.
But even though we can rescue it, it's hard to make it very exciting. I've put it in mostly to make the original ghazal complete.
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