0002_01

{2,1}

kyaa mai;N bhii pareshaanii-e ;xaa:tir se qarii;N thaa
aa;Nkhe;N to kahii;N thii;N dil-e ;Gam-diidah kahii;N thaa

1a) was even/also I, through distress/scatteredness of temperament, conjoined?
1b) as if even/also I, through distress/scatteredness of temperament, was conjoined!

2) the eyes were somewhere, the grief-{affected/'seen'} heart was somewhere [else]

S. R. Faruqi:

The interpretation of the verse is clear, but the wordplays are superb and demand attention: pareshaanii (scatteredness) and qarii;N (near) are not devoid of pleasure. Then the eyes are somewhere and the heart is somewhere else. Here too the opposition of scatteredness and contiguity appears. Because the eyes may be anywhere and the heart may be anywhere, but they're both housed in one single body. The eyes were somewhere-- this can also mean fixed on some beautiful face or scene. But that beautiful face was not the beloved's; the heart was lost in the thought of the beloved, and the eyes were fixed somewhere else.... The affinity between the eyes and ;Gam-diidah ('seen' by the eyes) is also fine.

Atish has straightforwardly borrowed from on this theme, but he has composed it at a very low level:

dil kahii;N jaan kahii;N chashm kahii;N gosh kahii;N
apne majmuu((a kaa har ek varaq barham hai

[heart somewhere, life somewhere, eye somewhere, ear somewhere
every single page of my collection was disordered]

In Atish's verse, there's no justification for supposing himself to be a collection (that is, there's no creative logic); there's only an assumption. On this basis, to suppose heart, life, eye, ear to be pages of this collection, then to say that these pages are disordered, is not free of incoherence. In Mir's poetry almost all aspects of creative logic and style come together; thus even his ordinary verse seems overflowing.

{2,1}

Notes:

S. R. Faruqi:

FWP: