===
0048,
1
===

 

{48,1}

us kā ḳhirām dekh ke jāyā nah jāʾegā
ay kabk phir baḥāl bhī āyā nah jāʾegā

1) having seen her gait, going will not be [able to be] done/'gone'
2) oh partridge, then/again even/also coming to your senses will not be [able to be] done/'gone'

 

Notes:

ḳhirām : 'Pace, gait, walk, march; stately gait, graceful walk; strut'. (Platts p.488)

S. R. Faruqi:

baḥāl ānā = to come to one's senses

The opening-verse is by way of introduction, but the wordplay of āyā and jāyā is interesting.

FWP:

SETS == WORDPLAY
MOTIFS == SOUND EFFECTS
NAMES
TERMS

The partridge is of course famous for its graceful gait. But having seen the beloved's gait, the partridge will be awestruck and stupefied, and thus quite unable to 'go' or move. And not only that-- it will be sunk in such a trance of envy and despair and desire that it will be unable thereafter even to 'come' to its senses.

As SRF notes, there's nothing going on in this verse besides the wordplay; but then, what else is necessary? The piquant combination of 'going will not be gone' and 'coming will not be gone' not only mirrors the partridge's confusion and helplessness, but also creates enjoyable effects of sound and rhythm. SRF has pointed out elsewhere (2015) that 'the mountain quail, or partridge, is supposed to have a swaggering, drunken, and most attractive walk'.

Note for grammar fans: Here are two prime examples of the 'passive of impossibility'. In order to show absolute negation, something like mujh se yih khānā khāyā nahīñ jāʾegā , 'this food won't/can't be eaten by me', is about as absolutely firm as one can get. As a rule, passives are made from transitive verbs like khānā ; but 'passives of impossibility' can also be made from intransitives, as in yahāñ baiṭhā nahīñ jātā , 'it is impossible/forbidden to sit here'. In the present verse, in the first line jānā is used in this construction, not with its normal irregular perfect form, gayā , but with an unusual, regular one, jāyā ; the result is 'going will not be done [literally, 'gone']'. In the second line there's a similar construction with ānā : 'coming [into one's senses] will not be done [literally, 'gone']'. Similar uses of the 'passive of impossibility' construction occur in both {48,6} (with the transitive dikhānā ) and {48,7} (with the intransitive ānā ).

 

 
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