shauq us dasht me;N dau;Raa))e hai
mujh ko kih jahaa;N
jaadah ;Gair az nigah-e diidah-e ta.sviir nahii;N
1) ardor runs me around in that desert where
2a) the path is not other than the gaze of the eye of a picture
2b) there is no path except for the gaze of the eye of a picture
That is, it [=the path] is nonexistent. The way the gaze of the eye of a picture is nonexistent.
Or this: that ardor takes me away into that desert where everyone is, like a picture, absorbed in amazement. (82)
[The commentator Asi writes another meaning: the way the eye of a picture is amazed, in the same way if there's any path there, then it's the path of amazement, nothing else. (238)
As a matter of fact, there is no path in that wilderness where the poet is wandering, prompted by the lashings of his shauq , but to establish that non-existence of a path the poet creates an image of a nonexistent thing: the glance from the eye painted in a picture. (42)
In the common interpretations, the theme is one of wildness and lostness from the path. But if we consider 'the gaze of the eye of a picture' to be not metaphorical but in reality some sort of a path, then a different and very interesting meaning appears.
Suppose that the speaker is lost in contemplation of a picture of the beloved, such that he doesn't see anything else. But he feels that from the eye of the picture rays are radiating out that are acting as paths.... In this way 'the gaze of the eye of a picture' is not a metaphor for complete amazement or the nonexistence of a road, but rather the becomes a metaphor for the roads that open up by means of the beloved's gaze. The picture of the beloved alone is what really exists, it's the key to mysteries and the road to reaching the 'desired pearl'. (1989: 141) [2006: 142-44]
SETS == TRANSLATABLES
DESERT: {3,1}
EYES {3,1}
GAZE: {10,12}
ROAD: {10,12}
This particular word for path, jaadah , is part of Ghalib's repertoire of highly abstract images; it's never used matter-of-factly, when a road is just a road. For more examples of its effectiveness, see {9,4}. Like the other verses that use the word jaadah , this verse too is haunting, suggestive, elliptical. (For another case in point, see the next verse, {92,3}.)
In a way, the verse is easy to understand. It can be turned into prose, it can even be translated. We can easily put together the grammar; since it has enjambement, the two lines are even part of the same thought, which is a further help in constructing its meaning. Thus we can't even argue over different ways to put it together.
And yet-- what does it really mean? Needless to say, that's where the opacity lies.
The commentators offer us three basic possibilities for the second line:
1) The gaze of the eye in a picture is fixed forever in one direction; by extension, therefore, it's petrified with amazement (Nazm)
2) The gaze of the eye in a picture doesn't exist, because there's no eye there to gaze; thus it's an image of nonexistence (Hasrat, Naim)
3) The gaze of the eye in a picture is a path for the lover who is 'lost' in contemplation of the beloved's portrait. His ardor provides him with this path through the desert and may guide him toward the mysteries of self-transcendance that he seeks (Faruqi). This reading also reminds us of the classic romance and fairy-tale motif of the hero who falls desperately in love when he merely sees a picture of some distant fair one.
Everybody is concerned to resolve the obviously obscure second line, and nobody has much to say about the first line. But there are a couple of points of interest in it too. The first is the vuh , 'that' desert. It's not just any old random desert, but a very particular one. (For a reminder of just how elaborately perverse the deserts of passion can be, see {16,4}.)
Perverse, and even hellish. For my ardor doesn't just lead me into such a desert, or cause me to wander casually through it. It literally 'runs me around' [dau;Raa))e hai] in it. The suggestion is that whatever we choose to make of the second line, the lover's position is not a happy or easy one. He finds no rest, no tranquility, no assurance. Is he perhaps even getting-- from his own ardor, of course-- a kind of 'runaround'? Running around in this haphazard way is, after all, just what a person might do if he was stuck in a desert and couldn't find any 'path'.
Nazm:
That is, the ardor for mystical knowledge takes me away toward that desert where there's no path except for the gaze of the eye of a picture. Having set foot in this valley, every person is compelled to become amazement from head to foot. (91)
== Nazm page 91