Ghazal 109, Verse 2x

{109,2x}

tan-e bah band-e havas dar nadaadah rakhte hai;N
dil-e z kaar-a jahaa;N uuftaadah rakhte hai;N

1) we have/keep a body that is not given into the bondage of lust/desire
2) we have/keep a heart that is fallen/helpless from the work/action of the world

Notes:

havas : 'Desire, lust, concupiscence, inordinate appetite; —ambition; —curiosity'. (Platts p.1241)

 

dar : 'In, into, within, among; on, upon; ... at, near, close by; under; of, concerning, about'. (Platts p.508)

 

daadah : 'Given, bestowed, imparted'. (Platts p.500)

 

uuftaadah for uftaadah seems to begin with a lengthened vowel in order to fit the meter.

 

uftaadah : 'Fallen, lying flat or horizontally; lying waste or untilled (land); poor, wretched, helpless'. (Platts p.61)

Gyan Chand:

We keep a body that is not captured in the bondage of lust/desire; we keep a heart that is not subject to worldly affairs. (273-74)

FWP:

SETS == A,B; PARALLELISM
BONDAGE: {1,5}

Raza p. 155. S. R. Faruqi's choices. Ghalib originally composed a ghazal of eight verses, from which he chose one for publication in his divan. In the original eight-verse ghazal, this verse was the first one.

The two lines look parallel-- but are they? The first line could well be claiming a kind of virtuous behavior: we keep our body properly pure, suitably free of 'lust' and desire. But when-- after, under mushairah performance conditions, a suitable delay-- we hear the second line, that word uftaadah brings us up short.

For rather than seeming to describe a vaunted moral choice, the word uftaadah strongly suggests a decline, a weakness, a state of 'fallenness' that is worse than some state that went before. So we have to go back and look at the first line in a new light. Perhaps lust/desire is itself the proper 'work of the world', something in which we too would and even should normally participate?. Perhaps the reason we no longer involve ourselves in it is not that we're superior to it, but that we're no longer capable of it (as in {41,1})?