173_01

{173,1}

jis bazm me;N tuu naaz se guftaar me;N aave
jaa;N kaalbud-e .suurat-e diivaar me;N aave

1) in that gathering in which you, with pride/coquetry, would enter into the conversation
2) life would enter into the figure/frame of the face/aspect of the wall

Notes:

aave is an archaic form of aa))e (GRAMMAR)

kaalbud : 'The body (of a man or animal); the frame; the heart; --figure, form, mold, model'. (Platts p.803)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

Nazm:

The theme is very famous among the poets, that in the beloved's lip and mouth is the quality of life-bestowingness. For this reason, if through her conversation life would enter into the aspect/face of the wall, it wouldn't be strange. guftaar me;N aanaa with the meaning of 'to converse' is not the idiom of Urdu, it's a translation [from Persian]. (193)

== Nazm page 193

Bekhud Dihlavi:

He says, 'The gathering in which you converse with airs and graces-- the pictures that hang on the walls of that house come to life.' (249)

Bekhud Mohani:

Having seen in himself the life-giving power of the beloved's words, the lover says, if you would begin to converse coquettishly in a gathering, then life would enter into the pictures painted on the wall. (337)

FWP:

SETS
GATHERINGS: {6,3}

The second line has two possible readings. The first is the one the commentators spell out: that life would enter into the 'face' or aspect of the very wall. But then-- that meaning hardly requires kaalbud . What other possibilities does kaalbud open up? Since it can mean 'model', right there we've got it. One's life would assume the form of, would take as a model or pattern, the wall. In other words, the listeners would be petrified, dazed, entranced by the beloved's dazzlingly flirtatious conversation. They'd be frozen in place, as immobile as a wall; probably their love-crazed faces would be pale and blank, like a whitewashed wall, too. Needless to say, there's plenty of precedent for such a reaction: just consider {116,8}, in which the pattern for human behavior in the beloved's street is the prostrate, open-mouthed 'stupefaction of a footprint'.