Ghalib: Innovative Meanings and the Ingenious Mind by Gopi Chand Narang

Author:Gopi Chand Narang
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: N/A
ISBN: 9780199091515
Publisher: OUP India
Published: 2017-10-02T18:30:00+00:00

194 N

aata hai daagh-e hasrat-e dil ka shumaar yaad

mujh se mere guneh ka hisaab aye khuda n maang

Remembering the wounds

that I suffered in the pursuit

of my heart’s desires,

ask me not, O God,

the count of my sins.

The protagonist on the Day of Judgement implores God not to ask about the count of his sins because this would remind him of the scars of non-fulfilment of desires and the sins he did not commit. He prays that this question should not be asked. Why? Because this has happened so many times that the count has been lost. It is a fact that God has not provided enough resources to fulfil all the desires. The code is so restrictive and rigid that a libertine would like to violate it time and again. Mark the power of the dialectical twist that by using one negative, n maang, Ghalib turned the argument upside down, creating an interesting theme that provides defence for the helpless man and holds God answerable for man’s sins.

In a similar couplet that is reproduced afterwards, the poet creates a binary relationship between the sins committed and the sins not committed. If A is positive when B happens, A should be negative when B does not happen. On the one hand, the poet makes an argument for fairness which is understandable. But he goes on to point out the absurdities of life where things do not happen according to the given plan. By doing this and by turning the argument full circle, Ghalib demolishes the whole structure of conventional sin and virtue. It is given and imposed by the social structure.

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