===
0074,
1
===

 

{74,1}

ġhamze ne us ke chorī meñ dil kī hunar kiyā
us ḳhān-māñ-ḳharāb ne āñkhoñ meñ ghar kiyā

1) her sidelong-glances made the theft of the heart into a skill/art
2) that house-wrecker made a home in the eyes

 

Notes:

S. R. Faruqi:

In the opening-verse there's nothing special. The point is only that before committing a theft or house-breaking, a clever thief looks over the place and takes a house right nearby, so that it would be easy to spot an opportunity and take advantage of it. Here the beloved practiced this skill: with the intention of stealing the heart, she took up residence in the eyes. The wordplay of 'house-wrecker' and 'made a home' is fine.

This very same theme he's also composed elsewhere in the first volume, like this [{103,1}]:

chorī meñ dil kī vuh hunar kar gayā
dekhte hī āñkhoñ meñ ghar kar gayā

[in the theft of the heart she used such skill/art
the moment she saw them, she made a home in the eyes]

FWP:

SETS == IDIOMS
MOTIFS == EYES; HOME
NAMES
TERMS

Her 'sidelong glances' settled in the 'eyes'; that 'house-wrecker' made a 'home'. Behind this excellent wordplay there also lies the idiomatic expression kisī kī āñkhoñ meñ basnā , 'to become the apple of someone's eye', which literally means 'to settle/live in someone's eyes'. Here, that idiom is not actually present, but it's clearly and strongly evoked, and thus through its invisibly hovering presence becomes perhaps even more enjoyable.

 

 
-- urdu script -- devanagari -- diacritics -- plain roman -- more information --