View Single Post
Old
  (#62)
@ahna@
Registered User
@ahna@ has a spectacular aura about@ahna@ has a spectacular aura about
 
@ahna@'s Avatar
 
Offline
Posts: 299
Join Date: Dec 2012
Rep Power: 13
18th December 2012, 08:33 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Taish View Post
One of my favorite shers from the diwaan is:

kyaa tang ham sitam-zadagaa;N kaa jahaan hai
jis me;N kih ek bai.zah-e mor aasmaan hai




In its richness of possibilities and undecideability of tone, this verse is one of the true 'meaning-machine' gems of the divan. It's the kind you could take to a desert island with you, and savor its every possible interpretive nuance. We know by now the excellently multivalent uses of a phrase like this one in the first line that is introduced by kyaa : it can be an exclamation, the way the commentators insist on taking it ('how narrow this world is!'); it can be a yes-or-no question ('is this world narrow, or isn't it?'); and it can be a scornfully negative exclamation ('what-- as if this world is narrow!'). Right away we have a sufficiently intriguing set of possibilities to energize the whole verse; after the first line we are left very eager to hear the evidence for the narrowness (or non-narrowness) of the world.

Then the second line opens up for us an even more undecideable and enjoyable question of symmetry: since Urdu is much less dependent on word order than English, both 'A is B' and 'B is A' readily present themselves as possible readings. As usual with Ghalib, both possibilities work intriguingly with all the various permutations of the first line. And, as Faruqi points out, the tone too can vary: the possibilities include not only sarcasm but also wonder, despair, perplexity, indignation, and ruefulness.

Who are the 'oppressed ones'? They are us, but who are we? We suffering lovers, no doubt; and more widely, we who are victims of injustice and tyranny. And ultimately, we human beings, living our cramped, oppressed, and all-too-limited lives under an ant's-egg sky. But then, maybe it's just the opposite, maybe our lives are not limited at all. It could be that our wide-ranging minds find ample freedom even in such a tiny ant's-egg space; or maybe the sky itself is a mere ant's egg to us in our boundless mental (and spiritual?) inner spaces (as in the similarly dismissive treatment of Rizvan's garden in). We oppressed ones, we readers, end up being allowed-- or forced, depending on how we look at it-- to invent the verse's tone and meaning for ourselves.

For another verse in which the sky is compared to an egg, see. Another enjoyable verse for comparison is the irresistible, in which the round dome of heaven becomes not an ant's egg but-- even more dismissively-- a mere wastebasket. And what else is as small as an ant's egg? Why, an inner chamber of the heart of the Moth.

The nearest comparison i cud find are: Mir's verse on ant...

ham ((aajizo;N kaa khonaa mushkil nahii;N hai aisaa
kuchh chuu;N;Tiyo;N ko le kar paa))o;N tale mal jaanaa

aajiz : 'Lacking strength or power, or ability, powerless, impotent, unable (to do), unequal (to); weak, feeble, helpless; brought low, overcome; lowly, humble; exhausted; dejected; in despair, hopeless; baffled, frustrated'



And of course there's Hamlet: 'O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams'.


sorry for mistakes if any.....
excellent explanation taish........
par ye tume explain kiya ya kahin se liya hai... i mean tumne bhi kahin padha hoga na... where????
   
Reply With Quote