===
0099,
5
===

 

{99,5}

gar qaṣd idhar kā hai to ṭuk dekh ke ānā
yih dair hai zuhhād nah ho ḳhānah-e ḳhālā

1) if you have an intention in this direction, then just take a look before coming
2) this is a temple, Ascetics-- it would not be 'Auntie's house'!

 

Notes:

dair : 'A convent or monastery (of Christians, or of Sufis, &c.); a temple, a place of worship, a church'. (Platts p.556)

 

ḳhānah-e ḳhālā : ''Aunt's house'; a place of rest and security'. (Platts p.485)

S. R. Faruqi:

How beautifully, in ḳhālah-jī kā ghar nahīñ hai , he's maintained the spirit of this idiom! Mir was perfectly accomplished in versifying idioms and proverbs. In our time, Yaganah followed him in this respect; but he wasn't able to create the same effect, because Mir was a master of versifying idioms and proverbs in a way that brought out some new aspect of them, or some unexpected sense, while Yaganah used them in place of ordinary themes. Nevertheless, in this difficult art, among the practitioners we were lucky to have Yaganah.

In the present verse, the pleasure is also that perhaps the Ascetics might consider the mosque or the khanaqah to be 'Auntie's house', and might do there whatever they fancy. But the temple is a different case! Here, the etiquette is different. here the Ascetics aren't in charge-- rather, they are constrained by rules.

Compare:

{85,7},

{1088,9},

{1091,1}.

FWP:

SETS == HERE/THERE; IDIOMS
MOTIFS == RELIGIONS
NAMES == ASCETIC
TERMS == IDIOMS

The opposition between the temple and 'Auntie's house' is explicit. But by identifying the addressees as 'Ascetics', the speaker also makes clear the opposition between the temple and their previous haunts, the mosque or the Sufi khanaqah. He warns them that the temple will prove to be a more rigorous place, where a certain level of discipline must be maintained.

The speaker presents himself not neutrally but as a frequenter or guardian of the temple. It is the 'here' from which he speaks, as the yih makes clear. He is fiercely protective of it; he seems to be warning off the Ascetics not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the dignity of the temple.

 

 
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