FWP:
SETS == KIH
CLOTHING/NAKEDNESS: {3,5}
DESERT: {3,1}
ROAD: {10,12}
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices.
For discussion of the radical, full-spectrum ambiguity of kih , see {145,12x}. Wherever the word jaadah appears, it seems to signal extreme abstraction; on this see {9,4}.
The desert is basically roadless by definition; the roads that run along beside it or on its borders, and the paths that run through it, are dwarfed by its trackless immensity; they are thus 'strange, alien' to it (though this is not the only use that can be made of ;Gair ). Thus these desert-bordering roads resemble the hem of the desert's garment. And the paths through the desert, in their length, thinness, distinctiveness, twistingness, and abundance of small stitch-like footstep-marks, may well be seen as the stitching that holds the garment together, or even as the embroidery that adorns it.
Thus the basic metaphorical equation seems to be: a small path is a thread, a larger road is a garment-hem. Together they are (actively or passively) part of the 'cutting-out' (or defining, or preparing) by or for the desert, of the 'garment of house-desolation'-- 'house-desolation' being a condition in which clothing, like every other domestic comfort, is destroyed or otherwise lacking.
So: what's actually going on here, where is the agency located? The grammar is so cleverly framed that the path-thread, the road-garment-hem, the cutting-out, the garment, and the desert itself can all be seen either as active entities, or as passive parts of a process external to them. The 'with' [bah] in the first line is so vague that it doesn't provide any further information.
Which of course helps enable the radical ambiguity of the kih to be fully operative. There's also the transitivity of the 'A=B' second line, which in fact feels almost redundant, since the undecideability of the multiple abstractions of the verse seem hardly changed by either arrangement.
And all this kind of thing-- from a self-taught kid aged nineteen or so. How come none of my students show any signs of this wild baroque genius? Are they frittering and twittering it all away? But of course, nineteen felt older then than it does today.
Gyan Chand:
By 'cutting-out of the cloth' he has here meant not only the cutting out of cloth, but rather the sewing as well, as if the 'cutting-out of the clothing' is the 'preparing of the clothing'. The desert is a desolate house. It wanted to cause the 'clothing of house-desolation' to be prepared. In the garment-hem of this clothing the strand of the path has done the work of thread. He has given for the path the simile of thread-- and then, for that thread with which the garment-hem would be sewn. Since for the desert, the path is strange/alien, thus in preparing the garment-hem of house-desolation the desert has resorted to the help of a stranger/alien. (369)