152_01

{152,1}

raftār-e ʿumr qat̤ʿ-e rah-e iẓt̤irāb hai
is sāl ke ḥisāb ko barq āftāb hai

1) the movement/pace of a lifetime is a traversing/'cutting' of a road of agitation/anguish

2a) for measurement of this 'year', lightning is the sun
2b) for measurement of this 'pain', the sun is lightning

Notes:

qat̤ʿ : 'Cutting; a cutting, section; intersection; a segment; a portion, division; a breaking off; intercepting; traversing or passing over (a road, &c.)'. (Platts p.793)

iẓt̤irāb : 'Agitation, perturbation, restlessness, distraction, anxiety, anguish, trouble, chagrin; precipitation [=haste]; flurry'. (Platts p.59)

sāl : (Persian) 'A year'. (Platts p.626)

sāl : (Prakrit) 'A thorn; --pain, affliction, trouble'. (Platts p.626)

ḥisāb : 'Measure, measurement; proportion; rule, standard; --estimation, judgment, opinion; condition, category'. (Platts p.477)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

Nazm:

That is, the way they measure a year through the movement of the sun, they ought to measure the passage of a lifetime through lightning instead of the sun; and the meaning of sāl is also 'lifetime' [ʿumr]. The meaning of 'road of restlessness' is the road that would be traversed in a state of restlessness. (163)

== Nazm page 163

Bekhud Mohani:

In sāl is an īhām -- its meaning is also 'lifetime'. The Indian [hindī] and Christian year is also measured by the sun. The road of a lifetime is traversed with restlessness and speed. The lifetime is a 'year' that we ought to measure it not with the sun, but with lightning. That is, the lifetime passes as quickly as lightning. (293)

Faruqi:

A number of people have written that the meaning of 'year' [sāl] is 'lifetime' [ʿumr]. But 'year' as 'lifetime' is neither in Urdu nor in Persian.... Now the interpretation of the second line is that the standard used to measure the length of a lifetime is one year, and a year is equal to the time in which [in classical cosmology] the sun completes one revolution. But this 'year'-- that is, the year by which we measure the length of a lifetime-- is so swift-moving that its interval is equal not to one revolution of the sun, but rather to a flash of lightning....

Between iẓtirāb as 'movement, motion' and raftār there is a 'wordplay of meaning' [riʿayat-e lafz̤ī]. Then, between iẓtirāb as 'restlessness' and sāl as 'pricking pain', there is the pleasure of ẓilʿa . He's composed a verse that's out of the ordinary.

== (1989: 278) [2006: 301-02]

FWP:

SETS == DOUBLE ACTIVATION; SYMMETRY; WORDPLAY
LIGHTNING: {10,6}
ROAD: {10,12}
SUN: {10,5}

Everybody agrees that the verse laments the shortness of life: a year is measured in relation to the (apparent) movement of the sun, but a lifetime is measured by a lightning-flash. (Compare the even greater complexity of the lightning-flash in {81,1}.) This is the reading that makes use of (2a).

But the Urdu grammatical fact that I call 'symmetry' means that if A is B, then by the same token B is A: if lightning is the sun, then equally the sun is lightning. When one is restless or anxious, time seems to pass with infuriating slowness; this is all the more true if one is feeling the (literal) 'prick of a thorn', pain or affliction (see the second definition of sāl above). So in the extremity of such a mood, a single lightning-flash might seem to last as long as the sun; it might seem that the intolerable agitation and anxiety of life is destined to go on forever (as in 2b). Thus the verse is framed to invoke both senses of sāl , and to render us unable to choose between them.

This punchy and effective verse also seems to have more flowingness than many. Perhaps it's the ā sounds that it contains, and its fine rhythm.

Compare {311x,6}, which also plays with the length of a 'year'.

Compare Mir's treatment of the same classic theme: M{760,9}.