===
0684,
3
===

 

{684,3}

rahe nah kyūñke yih dil-bāḳhtah sadā tanhā
kih koʾī āve kahāñ maiñ to ghar nahīñ rakhtā

1) how/why would this one with a gambled-away heart, not remain always solitary?
2) for how/where would anyone come? --after all, I don't have/'keep' a house!

 

Notes:

kyūñke is a metrically shortened form of kyūñ-kar .

 

bāḳhtah : 'Played; staked; lost, beaten (at play)'. (Platts p.118)

S. R. Faruqi:

He has brought together two 'proofs' of solitude. One is obvious: that since I don't even have a house, so if people (friends and companions, or the beloved) would come to meet me, then where would they come? The second proof is that I'm one with a 'gambled-away heart' [dil-bāḳhtah]; that is, I've already lost my heart, and where can a better companion and friend than the heart be found? When there is no heart, then I'll remain always alone. Because the beloved's house is normally in the heart, and the heart isn't even in my possession. The style of the second line is very fine; the simplicity with which he's said 'after all, I don't keep a house' is especially worthy of praise-- as though it is a natural and obvious thing, that I wouldn't have a house.

Zamin Ali Jalal has versified this theme in a very contrived manner:

dil ko ḳhvāhish hai kih mihmān banāʾūñ us ko
kahtī hai ḳhānah-badoshī koʾī ghar ho to sahī

[the heart has a longing that I would make her a guest
wanderingness says, 'at least let there be a house!']

FWP:

SETS
MOTIFS == HOME
NAMES
TERMS == PROOF

There's a nice double usage of the two interrogatives. In the first line kyūñ-ke (short for kyūñ-kar , to suit the meter), though it idiomatically means 'how?', is obviously derived from its conspicuously incorporated 'why?' [kyūñ], And in the second line, kahāñ is idiomatically used as a kind of negative exclamation, though its literally meaning of 'where' is never entirely overridden.

As SRF says, the common-sensical, almost impatient tone of maiñ to ghar nahīñ rakhtā works wonderfully. The effect is like saying, 'after all, I don't keep a five-star hotel!'. The surprising thing is not that you don't do such a thing, but that anybody would even remotely think that you might. And most of the idiomatic relish is provided by that untranslatable little to ; 'after all' was the closest I could come to catching its effect.

 

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