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juu;N juu;N : 'As; as far as, as long as; as by degrees'. (Platts p.398)
juun : 'Old, decayed; —time; period, age'. (Platts p.398)
juun : 'The body (as the repository of the soul); the form of existence or station as fixed by birth; birth; transmigration'. (Platts p.398)
ai;N;Thnaa : 'To twist, wind, spin, make into hanks or skeins; to make crooked, to distort; to wring (the ear); to punish, chastise; to tighten, squeeze, press, contract; to wrench from, extort, take by force or fraud, appropriate wrongfully; —v.n. To twist, writhe, wriggle; to cramp; to be tightened, cramped, pressed, to shrink, be contracted; to become rigid, stiff, &c.; to strut, stalk, &c.' (Platts p.115)
;xamiir : 'Leaven, ferment; kneaded and leavened dough; —composition, constitution; earth, clay'. (Platts p.494)
FWP:
SETS == GENERATORS; KYA
MOTIFS == FOOD
NAMES
TERMS == THEME-CREATION; ZILAReally the heart of the verse is that fascinating word ai;N;Thnaa . I've shown Platts's whole definition above. The meanings seem to spring from a basic idea, both physical and psychological, of 'twisting', or of being 'twisted'. For it's important to note that this verb, unusually, can be either transitive (taking ne ) or intransitive without changing its appearance (another such verb is badalnaa ). Thus the action of ai;N;Thnaa can be something that the speaker does to others, transitively ('to wring, to punish, to chastise, to press'), or something that the speaker experiences or does to himself, intransitively ('to become rigid, stiff; to strut, stalk'), or something that is done to the speaker, or that the speaker undergoes, passively ('to be tightened, cramped, pressed; to shrink, be contracted').
Thus the moral thrust of the whole verse can be instantly turned around by our decision as to whether the speaker is acting (on others, or on himself) or being acted upon. And the action that he's giving or receiving is to be drawn from an extraordinarily broad range of possibilities.
As so often, the second line gives us no guidance. Thanks to the 'kya effect' of kis , the line could be a question (the speaker wonders what he must be made of, for the process in the first line to occur). Or it could be an exclamation showing either approval or disapproval of what he must be made of. And then, what is the exact tone of this exclamation-- boastful? vexed? astonished? amused? plaintive? bitter? resigned? We are left to take our choice.
Moreover, just look at the richness of the wordplay! In addition to those many and elaborate examples pointed out by SRF, there are others. In the first line, juu;N juu;N of course comes from jyuu;N jyuu;N , but the shorter form used in this verse also has hovering around it two different Hindi-side juun words, one meaning 'old, decayed' and the other meaning 'the body' (see the definitions above). These Hindi-side echoes are all the more relevant since ai;N;Thnaa itself is a notably Hindi-sounding word. There's also the misleadingly related-looking pair of jaate hai;N and jaaniye , which might even induce a momentary 'doubt about derivation'.
SRF has pointed out the word-clusters related to pottery and cooking, but my own favorite is a bit more specific. I love the fact that ai;N;Thnaa means, so graphically, 'to twist, to wring, to squeeze, to press'-- as well of course as their passive counterparts 'to be twisted, to be wrung, to be squeezed, to be pressed'. And then, most elegantly, ;xamiir means 'leaven' and 'kneaded and leavened dough'. We are obviously led to envision the work of a baker. The baker twists, wrings, squeezes, presses the dough until it is well leavened and kneaded. And the dough itself is of course made from flour, which with its fine dry particles strongly resembles dust. So the speaker may be imagining himself either as an energetic, forceful baker, or as a batch of thoroughly pummeled and kneaded dough.
Note for grammar fans: Basically, ai;N;Thte jaate hai;N means that we 'go on ai;N;Thnaa -ing'. This can easily be a steady-state operation, as in dekhte jaate hai;N , 'go on looking'. But SRF seems often to read it here as progressive or cumulative, as in biga;Rte jaate hai;N , which can also mean 'goes on growing angry' in the sense of growing angrier and angrier. The verse itself leaves both options open, so that we can make our own choice.
Note for translation fans: With such a wide range of choices, how to translate ai;N;Thnaa ? I thought of 'cranky' or 'cross-grained', since those seemed the most in tune with SRF's preferred interpretation of the word. But finally I decided that it would be better just to keep the 'twisting/twisted' pair, so that the reader would be reminded that ai;N;Thnaa would require special handling. Needless to say, a literary translator wouldn't have this flexibility, but would have to make a single choice. (Internet, have I told you lately that I love you?)