Ghazal 18, Verse 2

{18,2}

yak qadam va;hshat se dars-e daftar-e imkaa;N khulaa
jaadah ajzaa-e do-((aalam-dasht kaa shiiraazah thaa

1a) through one footstep of wildness/madness, the lesson of the account-book of possibilities opened up
1a) through one footstep of wildness/madness, the lesson of the account-book of possibilities unravelled

2a) the path [that the madman had left behind] was the binding-thread of the parts/signatures of the two-world desert
2b) the path [of madness itself] was the binding-thread of the parts/signatures of the two-world desert

Notes:

va;hshat : 'A desert, solitude, dreary place; --loneliness, solitariness, dreariness; ...wildness, fierceness, ferocity, savageness; ...distraction, madness' (Platts p.1183)

 

daftar : 'A roll, scroll, list; an index; a bundle of papers or written documents tied together in a cloth; a record, register, journal, book, volume, account-book'. (Platts p.519)

 

khulnaa : 'To open, come open or undone; ... to open out, unravel; to be opened (as a knot, or a road for traffic, &c.); to be disentangled, be unravelled; to be untied or unfastened; to be uncovered, be unfolded, be exposed, be laid bare'. (Platts p.879)

 

jaadah : 'Way, road, pathway, highway; the right road; manner, practice'. (Platts p.370)

 

juz [of which ajzaa is the plural]: 'Part, portion; particle; component part, ingredient; part or section of a book (consisting of eight leaves)'. (Platts p.381)

 

shiiraazah : 'The stitching of the back of a book'. (Platts p.740)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

Nazm:

That is, when possibilities in their beginning made a little bit of wildness/madness and otherness, then the world of possibilities became present. And one footstep of that wildness, wherever it fell, was like a binding-thread of the pages of two hundred deserts. Because when a foot is lifted in wildness/madness, it will be lifted only to move toward the desert. And in the eyes of the knower of mystic knowledge, the whole world is an empty possibility. In the construction 'two-world-desert' the author has made the measurement of the extent of the desert the whole world, the way he has made the measurement of fatigue a 'desert' [in {11,1}] and the measurement of hesitation a 'knee' [in {212,2}] and the measurement of longing a 'city' [in {16,2}]. (19)

== Nazm page 19

Vajid:

Urdu text: Vajid 1902 {18}

Bekhud Mohani:

In the state of wildness/madness I had taken the very first footstep. When the truth of the chapter of possibilities was revealed, then it was as if it was the binding-thread of the pieces of the path of the world. That is, the way in a binding-thread all the pages become strung together, in the same way the pieces of the two worlds were threaded in the path of the desert of wildness/madness. In this verse 'wildness/madness' means renunciation of the world, which is necessary for passion for the True Beloved [((ishq-e ;haqiiqii] and mystical knowledge of the Lord. (44)

Josh:

The interpretation is that spirits experience a kind of wildness/madness and emerge into the world of possibilities-- that is, the world of existence-- and this state of affairs persists. Every one has set his face toward the road of this wildness/madness, and in this way this scattered world of spirits, on the road toward the wildness/desert of possibilities, in the aspect of a group, looks like a binding-thread. (75)

Arshi:

Compare {10,12}. (167)

FWP:

SETS == GENERATORS
DESERT: {3,1}
MADNESS: {14,3}
ROAD: {10,12}
WRITING: {7,3}

ABOUT do-((aalam : What is a 'two-world desert'? A desert that contains the two worlds, in a relationship of inclusion? One that is the two worlds, in a relationship of identity? One that is the size of the two worlds, as a kind of measuring-rod? One that is linked to the two worlds in some other way? The ambiguity seems at least as rich and complex as that of an i.zaafat construction. It's a well-established (Persian-derived) expression, but there seems to be no one way to resolve it. The only thing that's clear is that normally the two worlds are the present one, and the (Islamic) world to come. Other examples of similarly open-ended 'two-world' expressions: {4,10x}; {11,4x}; {16,10x}; {68,10x}; {197,4x}; {212,6x}; {226,7x} // {348x,4}, do-jahaa;N ; {349x,7}; {350x,5}; {373x,3}; {379x,4}, do-jahaa;N ; {416x,3}. Examples in which the 'two worlds' seem to have a somewhat more straightforward sense: {51,5x}; {64,6}; {154,2}; {360x,2}; {361x,2}; {361x,4}; {374x,5}; {398x,2}; {399x,3}; {433x,7}.

In the present verse, the possibility of the 'two worlds' as a measuring-rod suggests that the first line could also contain a 'footstepful of madness' (a measurement of extreme smallness), if we read yak qadam va;hshat as belonging to this measuring-rod family as well. For more on such yak constructions, see {11,1}.

It seems that madness or wildness left the beaten track and broke free, setting off into the desert-- and with one single first step the 'lesson of the account-book of possibilities' opened. There's a great play on khulaa -- the lesson 'opened' the way a book opens, of course. But as we learn from the second line, it might also have 'opened' the way the signatures (see the definition of juz above) of a book or account-book (see the definition of daftar above) fall apart when the binding-thread is cut. And is the 'path' the one the mad lover has left, or the path of madness itself that he has now embarked on?

I've tried to show in my translation the two possibilities for each line. Their combinations thus yield four main interpretations something like these:

=(1a) and (2a)-- When the lover set out into madness (or into the wilderness), a new lesson about possibilities was revealed to him, for his wild departure cut the binding-thread that artificially held together the parts/signatures of the (rational) 'account-book' of the 'two-world' desert.

=(1a) and (2b)-- When the lover set out into madness (or into the wilderness), the path of madness on which he had embarked taught him a new kind of coherence, for this new path proved to be the binding-thread of the parts/signatures of the account-book of the 'two-world' desert.

=(1b) and (2a)-- When the lover set out into madness, the lesson of possibilities unravelled into new kinds of perception or revelation, for the path of sanity he had left had been the binding-thread that held together the parts/signatures of the account-book of the 'two-world' desert.

=(1b) and (2b)-- When the lover set out into madness, the lesson of possibilities unravelled into wildness and incoherence; this was inevitable, since the path of madness itself was now the only binding-thread that held together the parts/signatures of the account-book of the two-world desert.

And of course, there is the wide range of va;hshat -- as both wildness and wilderness, loneliness and ferocity (see the definition above). No translation could possibly capture all that in English. There is also the piquant counterpoise of yak qadam va;hshat in the first line with do-((aalam dasht in the second.

The word shiiraazah works very well here, especially with ajzaa ; see the brilliant {10,12} for further discussion and examples. And the word jaadah , here as elsewhere, seems to be part of Ghalib's regular tool kit of abstract imagery; for more examples, see {9,4}.

Consider also {5,4}, in which va;hshat in the mind destroys the desert itself. The present verse also resonates with {4,8x}, which also features a single footstep and, strikingly, a 'desert of possibilities'. Ghalib must be one of the world's most cerebral-chauvinist poets-- he is so often (ruefully) celebrating the powers of the mind.

This verse is one of my own special favorites. It's wildly abstract, but not at all incoherent; there are various paths through it, but it doesn't at all degenerate into a morass.

 

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