1820_08

S. R. Faruqi:

The beauty of ṣāf maidāñ lā-makāñ sā is beyond praise. In order to convey a broad and ample and confidence-inspiring expanse, no better image than this is possible. The word ṣāf bears a special importance, because through it an effect of confidence-inspiring ampleness is created, not one of frightening emptiness. Then, this utterance has two meanings: (1) a field that would be houseless-- that is, devoid of every thing, every building, every walled enclosure; (2) a houselessness that is, like a field, clean and level.

The dictionary meaning of maʿmūrah is 'filled up'; secondarily, it's used for 'city' and 'world', as in this verse of Ghalib's:

G{19,7}.

By saying maʿmūrah-e dunyā he has bestowed on the world the character of a filled-up place-- for example, like some very big building or crowded city. In the same way the image of 'walls' takes on realism. And tang hūñ means 'I am worried, anxious' and also 'I feel narrowness for lack of space'.

This verse can also be about the lofty courage of mankind, or about some extremity of personal and inward madness, or it can also be the longing of some Flaubert-like creative writer to create some work of art that would be only and purely a work of art, and not 'about' something.

Or again, in this filled-up world it can be an expression of a feeling of detachment and alienation, as in this verse of Munir Niyazi's:

ḳhauf detā hai yahāñ abr meñ tanhā honā
shahr-e dar-band meñ dīvāroñ kī kaṡrat dekho

[fear permits one to be alone in a cloud, here
in the door-enclosed city, look at the abundance of walls]

Mir has used more or less this theme twice more, but not with such beauty. In the fourth divan [{1372,5}]:

jān ko qaid-e ʿanāṣir se nahīñ hai vār hī
tang āʾe maiñ bahut is char-dīvārī ke bīch

[life, in the prison of the elements, doesn't have only/emphatically opportunity
I became very much vexed/straitened within this four-walled space]

From the sixth divan [{1841,2}]:

ujṛī ujṛī bastī meñ dunyā kī jī lagtā nahīñ
tang āʾe haiñ bahut in chār dīvāroñ meñ ham

[in the wholly ruined neighborhood of the world, the inner-self is not content
we became very much vexed/straitened within these four walls]

[See also {490,1}.]

{1820,8}

Notes:

S. R. Faruqi:

FWP: