Ghazal 421x, Verse 2

{421x,2}

aarzuu-e ;xaanah-aabaadii ne viiraa;N kar diyaa
kyaa karuu;N gar saayah-e diivaar sailaabii kare

1) the longing for house-prosperity made me desolate
2) what can I do, if the shadow of a wall would 'do floodingness'?!

Notes:

aabaadii : 'Inhabited spot or place; colony; population, number of inhabitants; cultivated place; cultivation; ... prosperity; state of comfort; happiness, joy, pleasure'. (Platts p.2)

 

sailaabii : 'Relating to or depending on a torrent, or stream, or flood, &c.; liable to be flooded (land); — s.f. Wetness, moisture, damp'. (Platts p.712)

Asi:

The longing for house-prosperity made me even more greatly desolate, and the shadow of the wall kept acting as a flood. Now what can I do to it, and what cure is there for it?

== Asi, p. 292

Zamin:

That is, I am such a house-ruined one that the shadow of the wall of my house has the power of a flood. That is, to the extent that I keep longing for house-prosperity, to that extent there keeps being house-ruination. But for the shadow to become a flood and make the house desolate, is only a claim. This is an extremely favored theme of Mirza's; he has versified it in many places.

== Zamin, p. 422

Gyan Chand:

As much as I wanted to make my house prosperous, by that much it became desolate. A wall is built so that the house would be protected, but for me the shadow of the wall created wetness and proved to be a destroying flood. What can I do, if in my prosperity [aabaadii], ruination [barbaadii] would be concealed?

== Gyan Chand, p. 429

FWP:

SETS == GESTURES
HOME: {14,9}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.

The obvious question is, what would it mean for the shadow of a wall to 'do floodingness' (see the definition above)? Here are some possibilities:

=The shadow of a wall is dark and cool, and perhaps permits a bit of moist ground to linger beneath it. The speaker, in the madness of passion, delusionally perceives this effect as a 'flood'.

=Desperately longing for a flourishing house, the speaker builds a wall, but the very act of building it reminds him of all he has lost, and of all the impossibilities of his condition. The realization that he will never (again?) have such a home subjects his heart to a fresh wave of desolation, like a dark 'flood'.

=When the speaker builds a wall, the shadow that it creates brings back memories of the glorious days when he used to sit in the shadow of the wall of the beloved's house (as in {138,6}); he is then overwhelmed by a 'flood' of tears.

=The speaker is not fated to have a flourishing house. His destiny is so powerfully contrary that when he even builds a wall, its shadow turns into a flood and washes everything away.

In short, the action of the shadow of the wall remains an uninterpretable 'gesture'-- if it even occurs at all, which is by no means assured (since the kare is in the future subjunctive).

Compare the supreme example of strange watery (?) behavior: {17,2}.