Ghazal 42, Verse 4

{42,4}

mai;N aur ek aafat kaa ;Tuk;Raa vuh dil-e va;hshii kih hai
((aafiyat kaa dushman aur aavaaragii kaa aashnaa

1) I, and a single/particular/unique 'fragment of disaster', that wild/savage heart!-- which is
2) an enemy of repose and a friend/acquaintance of wandering

Notes:

aafat : 'Bane, pest, plague; any evil affection; evil, disaster, trouble, misfortune, calamity; wretchedness, misery, hardship, difficulty'. (Platts p.67)

 

va;hshii : 'Wild, untamed; shy; unsociable; --uncultivated; uncivilized, barbarous; savage; untractable; fierce, ferocious'. (Platts p.1183)

 

aashnaa : 'Acquaintance; friend; associate; intimate friend, familiar; lover, sweetheart; paramour; mistress, concubine; --adj. Acquainted (with, - se ), knowing, known; attached (to), fond (of)'. (Platts p.57)

Nazm:

'Am' is omitted; that is, I am, and that heart which is an enemy of repose. Obviously, 'disaster' is not something of which there can at all be a 'fragment', but logic has no power at all over idiom. (39)

== Nazm page 39; Nazm page 40

Vajid:

Urdu text: Vajid 1902 {42}

Hasrat:

In the first line, 'and' is the 'connection of dependence' [((a:taf-e mulaazamat]. (42)

Bekhud Dihlavi:

I've been forced to raise this wild heart which is a fragment of disaster and an enemy of repose. That is, it doesn't even let me sit in my house in peace. In the madness of passion it drags me from street to street, and lane to lane. (79)

FWP:

SETS == EK; I AND
FRIEND/ENEMY: {4,3}
SOUND EFFECTS: {26,7}

Hamid and some others have have ik in the first line, but as always I follow Arshi, who has ek . Metrically speaking, either one can fit.

For more on the range of the idiomatic expression 'I and,' see {5,6}.

The all-too-expressive phrase aafat kaa ;Tuk;Raa is hard to capture exactly in English. With its Indic retroflex sounds, it has a homey but exasperated feeling, like affectionate abuse directed at an intimate. The heart is infuriating! Still, the lover is fond of it. He sighs and calls it a miserable wretch; he tells it, 'you'll be the death of me yet'. But what would he do without it?

The elegant wordplay of aafat and ((aafiyat is supplemented by the complex sound effects in the second line: just look at how many long aa vowel sounds there are, supplemented by the sh - n consonants repeated between dushman and aashnaa . Three prominent v sounds also knit together vuh, va;hshii, and aavaaragii . And there are the conspicuous aa sets in aavaaragii kaa aashnaa .

Compare {33,5}.