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0020,
5
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{20,5}

sannāhaṭe meñ jān ke hosh-o-ḥavās-o-dam nah thā
asbāb sārā le gayā āyā thā ik sailāb sā

1) in the 'howling wilderness' of [my] life, there was no awareness-and-senses-and-breath
2) it took away all the equipment-- something like a single/particular/unique flood had come

 

Notes:

sannāhaṭā is a variant of sannāṭā

 

sannāṭā : 'Loud or violent sound, rumbling noise, clatter (made by wind and rain or hail, &c. at a distance), howling (of the wind), roaring, roar (of waves, or a conflagration, &c.); violent blast or gust; a dashing or driving (of rain, &c.); ringing, whizzing, whiz (of bullets, &c.); vehemence, animation, briskness and eagerness; —a transport of passion or rage; —a howling wilderness, a dreary place or spot; a stunning blow or shock; a state of alarm or terror, consternation; amazement; anything monstrous or frightful'. (Platts p.679)

 

asbāb : 'Causes, motives, means; resources; —s.m. sing. Implements, tools, instruments, apparatus, materials; goods, chattels, effects, property; furniture; articles, things; commodities, appliances, machinery; stores, provision; funds; necessaries; baggage, luggage; cargo'. (Platts p.47)

S. R. Faruqi:

The sound harmony [ṣūtī āhang] of the whole verse creates an uncommon effect of the rushing sound and fear of rising water and high wind. The fear for one's life was like a flood in which everything in the house flowed away. Only people who have seen a flood rising can recognize it. The rising water and the rushing of the wind during a flood are called sannāṭā . There's no need to explain how beautiful is its affinity with 'flood'. The word asbāb brings the verse nearer to ordinary life. In a flood, even if people flee and escape with their lives, their household effects are definitely damaged.

Another meaning is that upon being confronted by the beloved, the mood of passion became so overpowering that the lover was on the verge of death, so that his 'equipment' (awareness, sense, endurance, strength, heart, mind, etc.) was naturally wrecked. Where Mir has used the word asbāb , he has used it with great excellence:

{11,3}

{1851,9}

In the verse under discussion, the zila of 'life' and 'breath' is also fine.

FWP:

SETS == EK; FILL-IN; SUBJECT?
MOTIFS == SOUND EFFECTS
NAMES
TERMS == ZILA

Not only is sannāṭā a striking word in itself, every meaning of which can here be made available (see the definition above)-- but the variant form that Mir has used, sannāhaṭā , is even more prolonged, rhythmic, and ominously repetitive; it really does feel as if it might not be possible to escape from it.

In the first line sannāhaṭe meñ jān ke could be thought of as jān ke sannāhaṭe meñ , 'in a mortal sannāhaṭā ' (on the order of balā-e jāñ , 'a mortal disaster'). Or the jān could be taken as short for jān kar : 'having known [myself] to be in a sannāṭā '; there's no explicit first-person subject in the first line, but certainly the speaker lurks behind it in a general way. For in the rest of the line, the grammar tells us only that the set of those three things 'was not there'; but we can hardly help assuming that the place where they were not was in the life of the speaker/lover. On this reading, the line expresses first a cause, then an effect: 'when I realized what mortal trouble I was in, then my faculties left me'.

And what is the subject of the second line? It might be 'a single/particular/etc. flood-like thing' [ik sailāb-sā]. It might be the sannāhaṭā from the first line. But it might also be something unspecified, something about which the speaker is helplessly babbling in panic and disarray, with his mind and senses so disordered that he can't think or speak clearly. Most effectively, Mir has left us to 'fill in' for ourselves the nature of the dreadful cataclysm. What is it that could be (like) a sannāṭā , and could be (like) a cosmic sailāb ? Probably we will all have our own ideas, based on our own lives, as to what that might be.

 

 
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