Ghazal 191, Verse 2

Nazm:

kisī par ban jānā is that person's being involved in a difficulty. (214)

== Nazm page 214

Bekhud Dihlavi:

He says, 'I do call her, but there's no hope that from my calling she will come. Alas, emotion of the heart-- if you would help me a bit, and cast such an attraction over her that she wouldn't be able to stand not to come, then she can come.' (273)

Bekhud Mohani:

Oh attraction of the heart, through your claim I call her, but now it's your task that she would become so restless that she wouldn't be able to endure not to come. (374)

FWP:

SETS == IDIOMS
SCRIPT EFFECTS: {33,7}

ABOUT bin āʾe and related forms: This is an archaism; nowadays it would be āne ke binā , or more commonly āne ke baġhair ; also occasionally baġhair āne ke (which has its own archaic Ghalibian form; on this see {59,1}). Nowadays bin is very little used. For another example of the pattern see the following verse, {191,3}. A reversed example with āʾe bin appears in {201,2}; {201,4} offers bin kahe .

On the idiomatic grammar of nah bane expressions, see {191,8}.

Like the previous verse, {191,1}, this one has a second line that is full of sound and script effects and idiomatic (and almost untranslatable) wordplay. In that one we had bane (twice) and banāʾe ; here we have ban jāʾe , bin āʾe , and bane . Above all the ban and bin not only look the same in normal, non-diacriticized Urdu script, but come enjoyably close to rhyming; and since one is followed by jāʾe and the other by āʾe , they have an even more twin-like air.

The commentators generally feel that the 'attraction of the heart' is being addressed because it's expected to achieve the effect envisioned in the second line. The derivation of jażbah from jażb , with its sense of 'attraction' or 'drawing', readily points in that direction. But it's also clear that the verb ban jāʾe is intransitive, so that no instructions are being issued to the 'attraction'.

Thus it's also possible that the lover is just communing with himself, desperately longing, in the wild tangle of his own emotions, for the beloved too to feel something of that same desperate longing (though he knows she doesn't and probably won't). In that sense the 'passion of the heart' is a congenial friend, and thus is addressed as a sympathizer, a companion in misery. Consider the next verse, {191,3}, in which the lover is definitely longing for something from a position of helplessness ('oh if only... !').

Like the previous verse, this one really rests on the cleverly twisted, idiomatic wordplay in the second line.

For another verse about the operation of jażbah-e dil , see {205,2}.