nah hogaa yak-bayaabaa;N maa;Ndagii se ;zauq kam
meraa
;habaab-e maujah-e raftaar hai naqsh-e
qadam meraa
1) from a desertful of fatigue my relish will not be less/little
2a) my footprint is a bubble of a wave of movement
2b) a bubble
of a wave of movement is my footprint
Urdu text: Vajid 1902 {11}
He says, no matter how tired I might become, my ardor for desert-wandering will not be lessened. The way a wave of water swells with the intention of rolling onward, in the same way my footstep has an ardor for moving forward. (26)
The way a bubble moves along with the wave, and until it is destroyed doesn't pause for breath, in the same way my relish can't be lessened by the length of the road and the weariness of travel. (24)
Compare {157,5}. (166)
SETS == FILL-IN;
TRANSITIVITY
DESERT: {3,1}
Ghalib originally composed a ghazal of seven verses (Raza p. 224); he chose to include only the first two of these verses (Hamid p. 10) in his published divan. More on this topic: S. R. Faruqi's choices.
About yak expressions: This is the same 'desertful,' yak-bayaabaa;N , that appears in the title of 'A Desertful of Roses', though actually the title comes from {147,3}. Other examples: a 'cityful of longing' in {16,2}; both a 'footstepful of madness' and a 'two-world-ful desert' in {18,2}, a 'two-world Doomsday' in {81,11x} (though of course these can be variously translated). For other yak- examples with meanings including wholeness, completeness, and/or suddenness, see {3,11x}; {4,12x}; {11,5x}; {12,5x}; {12,6x}; {29,8x}; {37,5x}; {42,10x}; {69,2}; {71,7}; {79,6x}; {81,3} (including Faruqi's citation of a parallel verse by Mir); {146,5x}; {192,5}; {212,2}; {217,4}. A minority of these instances ({4,12x}, {16,2}, {42,10x}, {146,5x}) include an i.zaafat . Such yak constructions are idiomatic in Persian, though not in Urdu. Apart from the specific wordplay in each context, the general effect of the yak- constructions is to evoke great intensity, scope, and comprehensiveness. On similar 'two-world' expressions, see {18,2}.
Here the desert is not only invoked as a measuring-rod, but also imagined, both genuinely and paradoxically, as an ocean. Waves move in the blowing sand as they do in the sea. My footprint on the sand has the shape of a bubble (2a), and also the nature of a bubble: it travels ceaselessly along with a large 'wave of movement'. Or perhaps my fatigue eventually renders my travel ethereal: after my body collapses, my relish for travel remains, and my spirit moves along with the waves of drifting sand, so that their bubbles are my footprints (2b).
Who speaks in this verse? Presumably it is the lover, but in the verse itself his only defining quality is his unwearying relish for travel, and the endlessness of his quest. Or is it a quest? Might it not be the movement itself that intoxicates him? This is one of those 'do-it-yourself' verses-- the context and content of the journey are left to our own imagination. The simplicity and punch of the imagery, the powerful visual scene they create, work wonderfully here; Arshi proposes a comparison with {157,5}, a verse in which an equal degree of abstraction seems to produce a much less exciting result. I'd prefer to compare it with the marvelous {190,1}, another verse about strange footsteps and deserts.
Nazm:
The way the wave's relish for movement never lessens, in the same way my relish for movement won't lessen-- whether there be one desertful of fatigue, or a hundred desertsful of fatigue, it's all the same. (12)
== Nazm page 12