Ghazal 423x, Verse 4

{423x,4}

ḳhudā yaʿnī pidar se mihrbāñ-tar
phire ham dar bah dar nā-qābilī se

1) the Lord-- that is to say, more kind/gracious than a father
2) we wandered from door to door through unworthiness/'non-approachingness'

Notes:

yaʿnī : 'That is to say, viz., i.e., to wit, videlicet; — for, because'. (Platts p.1250)

 

mihrbān : 'Loving, affectionate, friendly, kind, benevolent, beneficent, favouring, indulgent, gracious, propitious; compassionate, merciful'. (Platts p.1100)

 

qābil : 'Approaching, ensuing, following; next (year); a recipient; capable, able, skilful, clever; worthy, sufficient'. (Steingass p. 946)

Zamin:

That is, it was our unworthiness, that we left off trusting the Lord and took up wandering from door to door. In the first line, yaʿnī is entirely inappropriate, and the omission of the verb is far from a proper taste. If instead of yaʿnī there were ḥub hai , then the verse would have been clear and the claim would have been proved.

== Zamin, p. 402

Gyan Chand:

The Lord is kinder than a father. In search of a livelihood, we wandered from door to door. This is only/emphatically our incapacity. Perhaps if we had stayed at home in pious trust, then he would have given us the needful.

== Gyan Chand, p. 398

FWP:

SETS
SOUND EFFECTS: {26,7}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.

Zamin was so hostile to that yaʿnī in the first line that I gave it some close attention, and I think it's there for a reason. Under oral performance conditions, we would initially hear ḳhudā yā , and we would only be able to correct ourselves retrospectively. For ḳhudā yā is a fine Ghalibian exclamation; here are some examples: {117,6x}; {120,2}; {205,2}; {225,4x}. In all except {120,2}, it even occurs right at the beginning of the line, just as it briefly seems to do in the present verse. And in a verse so equivocal about calling on the Lord, a sort of halfway call is the perfect thing.

There's also the wordplay of qābil as 'approaching, following' (see the definition above), so that nā-qābilī would also mean 'non-approachingness'; this is of course a secondary sense (since it's usually temporal), but it adds to the pleasure of a verse about random wandering and avoidance.


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