Ghazal 4, Verse 8x

{4,8x}*

hai kahaa;N tamannaa kaa duusraa qadam yaa rab
ham ne dasht-e imkaa;N ko ek naqsh-e paa paayaa

1) where is the second step of longing, oh Lord?
2) we found the desert of possibility [to be] a single/certain/unique/excellent footprint

Notes:

tamannaa : 'Wish, desire, longing, inclination (=ārzū); reqnest, prayer, supplication, petition'. (Platts p.337)

 

dasht : 'A desert, a steppe, an arid plain; a forest'. (Platts p.518)

 

imkaa;N : 'Possibility, practicability; power; contingent existence (in contrast to vujuub or necessary existence)'. (Platts p.82)

 

ek : 'One, single, sole, alone, only, a, an; the same, identical; only one; a certain one; single of its kind, unique, singular, preëminent, excellent'. (Platts p.113)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

Azad:

There is no doubt that through the power of his name [since 'Asad' means 'lion'] he was a lion of the thickets of themes and meanings. Two things have a special connection with his style. The first is that 'meaning-creation' and 'delicate thought' were his special pursuit. The second is that because he had more practice in Persian, and a long connection with it, he used to put a number of words into constructions in ways in which they are not spoken. But those verses that turned out clear and lucid are beyond compare.

People of wit did not cease from their satirical barbs. Thus one time Mirza had gone to a mushairah. Hakim Agha Jan 'Aish was a lively-natured and vivacious person.... He recited this verse-set in the ghazal pattern:

'If only you understand your own composition, then what have you understood?
The pleasure of composition is when one speaks and the second understands

We understood the speech of Mir, we understood the language of Mirza [Sauda]
But his speech--he himself might understand, or God might understand'

For this reason, toward the end of his life he absolutely renounced the path of 'delicate thought'. Thus if you look, the ghazals of the last period are quite clear and lucid. The state of both [earlier and later poetry], whatever it may be, will become apparent.

From elderly and reliable people I have learned that in reality his divan was very large. This is only a selection. Maulvi Fazl-e Haq, who was unequalled in his learning, at one time was the Chief Reader of the court of Delhi district. At that time Mirza Khan, known as Mirza Khani, was the chief of police of the city. He was a pupil of Mirza Qatil. He wrote good poetry and prose in Persian. In short, these two accomplished ones were the intimate friends of Mirza Sahib. They constantly met together in a friendly way and discussed poetry. They heard a number of ghazals [of Ghalib's]. And when they saw the divan, they persuaded Mirza Sahib that these verses could not be understood by ordinary people. Mirzā said, 'I've already composed all this much. Now what remedy can there be?' They said, 'Well, what has been done has been done. Make a selection, and take out the difficult verses.' Mirza Sahib gave the divan into their care. Both gentlemen looked it over and made a selection. That is the very divan that we today go around carrying pressed to our eyes like spectacles!
==this trans: Pritchett and Faruqi, Ab-e hayat, pp. 405-06 (slightly edited)

Naim:

The world is commonly referred to as the 'world of possibilities,' ((aalam-e imkaa;N . The poet has used dasht in the place of ((aalam ('world, universe,' or 'state, condition'), which conveys the poet's subjective atititude towards this world, which is vast and yet barren and unattractive for him.

The craving within the human heart is boundless; it is always reaching out for newer horizons. In face of it this world of myriad charms and endless possibilities seems only lacklustre, a wilderness, and its vastness only the extent of one footstep. The poet's passion demands vaster regions.

The world is only one footprint, i.e., it indicates only that someone has been here. But that person's journey didn't end here, he has gone forward leaving his footprint behind, only one print. The world is considered to have been brought into existence by God because of a desire on His part to manifest Himself and to look at Himself. But this manifestation is still much less in magnitude to God's glory. God's desire did not find total fulfilment of expression here. Many more worlds are still behind the veil. Even the present world is constantly going through changes. (1970, 26-27)

Gyan Chand:

This verse causes me to remember the dwarf [vaaman] avatar from Hindu mythology. In order to embarrass some king, he [=Vishnu] came in the guise of a Brahmin, and asked him for three paces' worth of land on which to build a hut. The king agreed. In one footstep, the dwarf encompassed the whole world; in the second, the underworld [paataal]. No space at all was left for the third footstep.

Ghalib says, how can the breadth of our longing be described! The whole world, and all its possibilities, are only one footprint. Where has our longing even placed a second footstep? Where is there even scope for it? (67)

FWP:

SETS == EK
DESERT: {3,1}
GRANDIOSITY: {5,3}

Raza p. 222. S. R. Faruqi's choices. Ghalib took verses from two separate early (1821) ham-:tar;h ghazals and combined them in his published divan. From one ghazal he took {4,1}, and from the other he took the rest, {4,2-7}. This is the second verse in the ghazal of which the first verse is {4,1}.

Not just everything in the universe, but everything that is possible, everything imaginable, everything conceivable, becomes 'one' footprint. The use of ek to describe the footprint adds a further clever touch of multivalence (see the definition above): is the footprint single, or specific ('a certain'), or 'only' a footprint, or a 'unique' or 'excellent' footprint? No matter what kind of a footprint it is, we've left it behind; in a single step we're long gone, and what worlds, oh Lord, are left for us to conquer? (Maybe only the inner world of kindness and compassion for each other.)

The forceful internal rhyme of paa paayaa adds emphasis and sense of impatience. (Some critics have actually carped about it, considering its repetitiveness a 'defect' [((aib] and speculating that the awareness of this flaw is what caused Ghalib to omit it from the published divan. Among much other counter-evidence, a more than sufficient refutation of this view is found simply in the presence of {26,7} in the published divan.

And what a phrase is dasht-e imkaa;N , 'desert of possibility'! Is it a 'desert' because it is full of redundant, useless, already-explored possibilities? Or is it a 'desert' of possibility in the sense that there is no possibility there? Or is it a 'desert' because we already know, even before exploring them, that every in this world possible possibility is finite, trivial, worthless, unhelpful? (Just the kind of questions, in fact, that we might ask about a 'desertful' of roses.)

Compare {102,1}, an almost equally extravagant verse that may (or may not) apply to God.

GHALIB'S UNPUBLISHED VERSES: It's astonishing that this marvelous early verse was treated by Ghalib as a stepchild and left unpublished throughout his lifetime. And it's far from alone in that melancholy distinction. When I've discussed all this with Faruqi, he's always pointed to it as a mystery. He finally gave it as his best guess that Ghalib felt that the verses that he omitted wouldn't add appreciably to his reputation, so he just never took the trouble of going back and picking them up later on. The largest group of these unpublished verses were from 1816, with another group up to 1821.

Later critics have usually claimed that Ghalib repudiated his early verses; as an example of such views, consider the highly tendentious and unreliable account provided above by Azad; it's full of his sly, dexterously anti-Ghalib insinuations. For further discussion see {155,3}. At some later time I'd like to go into this whole question in much more detail. In the meantime, please note that this present ghazal, {4}, is itself quite early (1821), and surely it can't reasonably be called anything other than simple and straightforward.

In any case, on this website I'm trying to provide a small measure of redemption: when (1) published ghazals have unpublished verses, and when (2) these verses are singled out by Faruqi in his selection, then I include them. We've already seen examples of this inclusiveness in {3}; but I've chosen the present brilliant verse to be the occasion for more general discussion.

These early verses are well-known from reliable manuscript sources, and it's hard to believe that Ghalib chose not to include more of them in any of the four published editions of his divan that he oversaw in his lifetime. By contrast, for an example of some late verses that Ghalib clearly did want to have included in his divan but that late in his life remained unpublished, see {216,1}. (Such genuine verses are NOT to be confused with apocryphal verses wrongly attributed to Ghalib; for discussion of these, see {219,1}.)

When C. M. Naim, my teacher, started the Annual of Urdu Studies, he chose this particular unpublished verse as the sole adornment of the cover of every single issue. I think it was worthy of the honor. And now since I find he has included it in his brief commentary also, that should suffice to give it a bit of space here, as a small sample of the riches that, for whatever reasons, Ghalib didn't choose to share with us. Just for pleasure and nostalgia, here's what the covers looked like:

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