===
0292,
9
===

 

{292,9}

furṣat-e ḳhvāb nahīñ żikr-e butāñ meñ ham ko
rāt din rām-kahānī sī kahā karte haiñ

1) we have no leisure for sleep/dreams, in speaking of the idols
2) night and day, we always say something like a 'Ram-story'

 

Notes:

rām kahānī : 'The Rāmāyan or story of Rām; —a long story'. (Platts p.583)

S. R. Faruqi:

This theme too he has used a number of times; for example, in the fourth divan [{1494,8}]:

uṭh gaʾe par mire takye ko kaheñge yāñ mīr
dard-e dil baiṭhe kahānī sī kahā karte the

[upon my arising, it will speak to the pillow, here, Mir
the heart-pain was 'seated' and always told something like a story]

From the sixth divan [{1853,9}]:

dil ko jānā thā gayā rah gayā hai afsānah
roz-o-shab ham bhī kahānī sī kahā karte haiñ

[the heart had to go, it went; a story has remained
day and night even/also we always say something like a story]

The idea of the present verse isn't found in any other one. The term 'Ram-story' is devastating, and its zila with the word 'idols' too is fine. Because żikr is used in Sufistic and religious terminology for the remembrance of God and for those special phrases that are brought to the tongue when remembering God, when juxtaposed to 'idols' and 'Ram-story', it has a remarkable pleasure.

Then, 'Ram-story' has two meanings: (1) long narrative/'dastan'; and (2) story/'dastan' of difficulties. Here, both meanings are appropriate.

Jur'at too has well versified the zila of 'Ram-story' and 'idols':

dard-e dil us but-e be-raḥm se kahye to kahe
jā ke yih rām-kahānī to sunā aur kahīñ

[if you tell the pain of the heart to that merciless idol, then she would say
'go and tell this 'Ram-story' somewhere else']

But in Jur'at's verse the second meaning is more suitable, while in Mir's verse both meanings are brought in.

In a quatrain of Hali's too, 'Ram-story' has been well used; but only the first meaning is suitable:

bulbul kī chaman meñ ham-zabānī chhoṛī
bazm-e shuʿarā meñ shiʿr-ḳhvānī chhoṛī
jab se dil-zindah tū ne ham ko chhoṛā
ham ne bhī tirī rām-kahānī chhoṛī

[we abandoned singing with the Nightingale in the garden
in the gathering of poets, we abandoned verse-recitation
from the time when you cheerfully abandoned us
we too abandoned your 'Ram-story']

FWP:

SETS
MOTIFS == DREAMS; RELIGIONS; SPEAKING
NAMES
TERMS == QUATRAIN

The insistence on the lack of 'leisure' for sleep, and on 'night and day' recitation, emphasizes the sense of the 'Ram-story' as a 'long' narrative. The speaker's obsessive (or even helpless?) commitment to this żikr also evokes, as SRF observes, a mystical absorption in divinity-- only in this case of course the obsession is about 'idols' rather than God. The result is an interminable 'Ram-story' that is a long story, a mystical/religious story, and inevitably (in the ghazal world) a 'story of difficulties' as well.

But then, it's not ultimately so clear-cut. For what the speaker can't stop reciting is 'something like' a Ram-story-- literally, something 'Ram-story-ish'. What does the difference consist in? As so often, part of the imaginative work of the verse is left for us readers to do for ourselves.

 

 
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