Ghazal 167, Verse 9

Nazm:

That is, to perform some laments had already been decreed for us from eternity. We were not able to 'draw' them there; having come here, we are drawing those very laments, and the coming and going of the breath is that very lament-drawing. From this verse it is also learned that as with Nasikh, in the author's language in response to jo it is necessary that there be a so . If you remove the so from the line, and instead of yāñ read yahāñ , the line remains metrical. And the author's rank is great-- the person who has practice [mashq] in the versifying of words, when he thinks about composing, such matters do not remain hidden from him.

Then though both forms are proper, in fact vahāñ is more correct than vāñ , and yahāñ than yāñ . If the author had rejected so , then there would also have been the advantage that in place of yāñ , there could have been yahāñ . But in order to bring in so , he chose to accept yāñ as well. And the structure gives testimony that this action is deliberate. In this verse dam huʾe is not good, but the theme of the verse is extremely refined/subtle [lat̤īf]. (186-87)

== Nazm page 186; Nazm page 187

Bekhud Dihlavi:

He says, we're predestined to ill-fortune. From all eternity, the responsibility of heaving laments had been bestowed on us. Those laments that didn't get 'drawn' there, remained-- having come into the world, they became breaths for me. The meaning is that neither were we happy in nonexistence, nor were we happy having come here. For us, even a breath has the power of a lament. (243)

Bekhud Mohani:

Oh heedless one, what you consider to be a breath-- the truth of its nature is that in nonexistence, some laments had been bestowed on us. Some I did there, those that remained have here been named 'breaths'. That is, our lamenting is not of today-- in nonexistence too this was our pursuit. That is, we are ill-fortuned forever. (326)

FWP:

SETS == HERE/THERE

Like the previous verse, {167,8}, this one rests on a sort of semantic meaning-play and wordplay between two senses of the verb khichnā (or khiñchnā ), the intransitive of kheñchnā , 'to draw'. One 'draws' a breath; fortunately we have the same idiom in English. But in Urdu one can also easily and colloquially 'draw', or 'draw out', a lament: utter it, sigh it, heave it, prolong it, drag it forth, etc.

And just as in the previous verse, it's up to us to make this connection: the verse gives us nālah khichnā , and we ourselves pair it with dam khichnā , and recognize the enjoyable subtleties thus created. In the wake of this equation come many other implications adduced by the commentators: that our every breath is a sigh, and so on.

There's also the elegant and suggestive affinity between dam and ʿadam .

Note for grammar fans: Nazm's argument is petulant rather than persuasive. Ghalib's use of so in this verse cannot, and does not, prove that he considers it an indispensable complement to jo . {12,2} and {20,9} are only two of the many verses that use jo but not so . In fact, the majority of jo verses do not use so . Nazm must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed (as my mother used to say) the day he wrote this commentary.