'is' vs 'us'

[Anil Kala]

Sometimes the words are interchangeable sometimes there is subtle difference in meaning . I was looking at Rekhta website , today's she'r is

ai sham.a tujh pe raat ye bhārī hai jis tarah
maiñ ne tamām umr guzārī hai is tarah



NATIQ LAKHNAVI


I was wondering, conjugate of 'jis' is 'us' so why is 'is' used by the poet? Besides while reading the she'r I first read 'sham'a' as 'shaam' (evening) and it gives a different spin to the she'r but I guess 'shaam' would make it out of meter.


Anil

[Naseer]

Anil Saahib, the first two couplets of this ghazal are;

ai shama3 tujh pih raat yih bhaarii hai jis tarah
maiN ne tamaam 3umr guzaarii hai is tarah

dil ke sivaa ko'ii nah thaa sarmaayah ashk kaa
hairaaN huuN kaam aaNkhoN kaa jaarii hai kis tarah

You will notice that "us" would not rhyme.

A while back, this is/us topic came up and I did a little bit of digging and started a thread in which I believe you and Vijay Saahib were the only additions! So, you can see it was a highly popular topic!:-)

kis alif-siin ko is paRhuuN awr kis alif-siin ko us?
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/alt.language.urdu.poetry/is$20us$20diivaan-i-Ghalib$20$20Naseer%7Csort:date/alt.language.urdu.poetry/sqFw1NMSlR4/Bk9zMvKDQzAJ

Naseer

[vijay...@gmail.com]

Naseer sahib aur Anil sahebaan, aadaab-o-tasliimaat!

I just wanted to make one point. If the right word to properly convey the import of 'jis' in the first misra is 'us' in the second, then to use 'is' in the second misra merely to fulfill the requirements of prosody is lazy, in my opinion. Although the beauty of Ghazal (or rhymed Naz'm) lies in the mathematical precision with with the rules are followed, this should never be at the cost of using an inappropriate semantic just to fulfill this requirement. It is akin to the situation of square peg in a round hole and one can't just get around it by sanding off the corners of the peg to make it fit.

I personally feel, like Anil sahib, that 'jis' goes more correctly with 'us', perhaps only with 'us', but there may by arguments that even with 'is', it is meaningful. I don't see it but am willing to be led!

Best regards,

Vijay

[Naseer]

OK, Vijay Saahib, be prepared to be led!:-)

ai shama3 jis tarah tujh pih *yih* raat bhaarii hai
*is* (raat kii) tarah maiN ne tamaam 3umr guzaarii hai

I presume you have referred to Anil Saahib as "Anil Saahibaan" because of his multiple identies, namely Kali Hawa, Baad-e-Siyaah, C.Naseem, Anil Kala and of course Marut Shyam!:-)

Naseer

Naseer

[Anil Kala]

>
> OK, Vijay Saahib, be prepared to be led!:-)
>
> ai shama3 jis tarah tujh pih *yih* raat bhaarii hai
> *is* (raat kii) tarah maiN ne tamaam 3umr guzaarii hai
>
> I presume you have referred to Anil Saahib as "Anil Saahibaan" because of his multiple identies, namely Kali Hawa, Baad-e-Siyaah, C.Naseem, Anil Kala and of course Marut Shyam!:-)
>
> Naseer
>
> Naseer

Naseer Saahib aadaab!

I am also willing to be led ...

The spin you have given to meaning of the she'r has a problem! 'raat' comes out a villain in the first misra therefore it seems unlikely that poet spent his life as a villain!

I am still waiting to be led...


Anil

[Vijay Kumar]

On Wednesday, 10 July 2019 19:49:07 UTC+1, Naseer wrote:

>
> OK, Vijay Saahib, be prepared to be led!:-)
>
> ai shama3 jis tarah tujh pih *yih* raat bhaarii hai
> *is* (raat kii) tarah maiN ne tamaam 3umr guzaarii hai

I am not persuaded Naseer sahib, apologies. Both words, 'jis' and 'is' are used as qualifiers for 'tarah'. Expanding the explanation that takes them away from 'tarah' detracts from the poetry. One may as well use prose.

>
> I presume you have referred to Anil Saahib as "Anil Saahibaan" because of his multiple identies, namely Kali Hawa, Baad-e-Siyaah, C.Naseem, Anil Kala and of course Marut Shyam!:-)

This is droll:-) I wish I could take credit for this smart explanation. Fact is that it was sheer laziness on my part to use 'sahebaan' for a single person, even with multiple personas.

Best regards,


Vijay

[bekas Murray]

On Friday, July 12, 2019 at 3:42:59 AM UTC-7, Vijay Kumar wrote:
> On Wednesday, 10 July 2019 19:49:07 UTC+1, Naseer wrote:
>
> >
> > OK, Vijay Saahib, be prepared to be led!:-)
> >
> > ai shama3 jis tarah tujh pih *yih* raat bhaarii hai
> > *is* (raat kii) tarah maiN ne tamaam 3umr guzaarii hai
>
> I am not persuaded Naseer sahib, apologies. Both words, 'jis' and 'is' are used as qualifiers for 'tarah'. Expanding the explanation that takes them away from 'tarah' detracts from the poetry. One may as well use prose.
> >

Reverse the order of the lines

maiñ ne tamām umr guzārī hai is tarah
ai sham.a tujh pe raat ye bhārī hai jis tarah

[bekas Murray]

jis tarah ki baataiN ho rahi haiN is tarah kaam nahiN chalay gaa.

[vijay...@gmail.com]

Bekas sahib,

There is a subtle difference in this example and the she'r in question. The right construct for a proper comparison would be:

jis tarah kii baateN ho rahii haiN, is tarah kii baatoN se kaam nahiiN chalegaa. (we can't leave out 'baateN' from the second part of the sentence).


Now I will propose that here, 'us' tarah kii baatoN.. is more correct than 'is' tarah kii baatoN...

Best regards,

Vijay

[Naseer]

Vijay Saahib, aadaab.

To my mind the poet is saying....

ai shama3 tujh pih *jis tarah* yih raat bhaarii hai
*usii tarah* maiN ne apnii tamaam 3umr guzaarii hai

*usii tarah" is of course an emphasised form of "us tarah" and this is what you and Anil Saahib expect what the poet ought to have written.

However, take a look at the following sentence taken from Platts' "A Grammar of the Hindustani or Urdu Language", page 309.

*jis daraxt ke niiche* tuu khaRaa hai, *yahaaN" ek aaftaabah ashrafiyoN se bharaa hu'aa gaRaa hai.

In other words, *jahaaN* tuu khaRaa hai, *yahaaN" ek aaftaabah ashrafiyoN se bharaa hu'aa gaRaa hai.

Here both Anil Sahib, you and I would have expected *vahaaN* in place of *yahaaN*.

So if jahaaN > yahaaN is correct, then jis tarah > is tarah is also correct.

Naseer

[bekas Murray]

wo royaa jis tarah, bachay rotay haiN is tarah

There is a difference in usage of jis as used here. This jis implies emphasis as well.

There is a difference of emphasis in the the following.
wo jis tarah royaa logoN ke dil hil ga'ay
wo is tarah royaa ke logoN ke dil hil ga'ay.

is tarah, us tarah can basically translate as like this, like that. Other forms are aisay, waisay. By themselves it would be ye/wo (This that).

For emphasis or demphasis aisaa/waisaa, ye/wo are interchangable even when it is not a matter of near or far.

ye baighairat (to show lower esteem even if the person being talked about is not near)
for lowness
ye baighairiti
ye kaisay log thay

For highness
wo 'aalaa zarfi
wo kaisay log thay
wo nabioN main rahmat laqab paanay walaa

Other languages also do this. In arabic
zalik alkitab (that book when what is actually meant is this book but that is used to denote respect for or quality of the book or could simply mean the book over there.)

In English
To be or not to be that is the question. (To show the importance of the question even though it would also be right to say this is the question)

For this you abandoned your principles.



> Best regards,
>
> Vijay

[vijay...@gmail.com]

Thanks Naseer sahib. I can agree with you that the usage like this can be seen in prose and poetry and the meaning understood easily enough. Would you consider this useage 'less correct' or 'less intuitive' than what Anil sahib and I are asserting?

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine that the radiif of the ghazal is 'us taarah'. (Imagine a few asha'ar ending in the radiif 'us tarah' to establish the rhythm and flow of the ghazal in your mind). Then the she'r would be:

ai shama'a tujh pe raat yeh bhaari hi jis tarah
maiN ne tamaam umr guzaari hai us tarah.

I find this version intuitively correct. The other version, although understandable in its meaning, causes me to pause and hesitate for a moment.

Hopefully we can agree on this.

Best regards,

Vijay

[vijay...@gmail.com]

Bekas sahib,

Many thanks for taking the time and coming up with so many examples of 'is' v/s 'us', both in Urdu and English. This latter in fact might be more useful for me to try to elucidate my point. I have taken into consideration all your examples and agree with all. In the she'r in question though, we are trying to address an ambiguity (aik ibhaam) between the two misras. So expressing it in English: I want to see it stated as:

O shama'!, the manner in which this night is hanging heavy on you
I have passed my whole life like that!

The poet is stating it thus:

O shama', the manner in which this night is hanging heavy on you
I have passed my whole life like 'this'.

Although the meaning as to what poet is trying to say is quite obvious, in the second version, the second misra is not all that well connected to the first. The first misra is offering a useful simile which the second misra should use and resolve. But in the second version, the second misra stands on its own. The poet is stating how he has passed his whole life (like this) without specifying how. The first misra by its sheer presence forces us to conclude that poet is giving us the answer to this 'how' in this first line. There is not the seamless transition from the first to the second misra as exists in the first version above.

Hope I am making myself clear.

Best regards,

Vijay

[bekas Murray]

O shama, "the Way" this night weighs heavy on you
is "the way" that I have spent my entire life.

"the Way" standing here for jis tarah with a capital W for emphasis. It is a very specific way.

"the way" for is tarah

[Naseer]

Bekas Murray Saahib aadaab 3arz hai.

I am afraid, I don't quite follow how "jis tarah" is "The Way" and "is tarah" is "The way"!

This is how this is explained in grammar books.

Proximate: "is tarah" (In this way/manner)

Remote: "us tarah" (In that way/manner)

Relative: "jis tarah" (The way/manner)

Correlative: "tis tarah" (In that way)

Interrogative: "kis tarah" (In what way/manner? How?)

Theoratically speaking, "jis tarah" should be paired with "tis tarah" but the language has "moved on" where the preference is for "us tarah".

So, purely from grammatical point of view, the poet should have paired "jis tarah" with "tis tarah" in the same way that "jab" is paired with "tab".

ai shama3 tujh pih raat yih bhaarii hai *jis tarah*
maiN ne tamaam 3umr guzaarii hai *tis tarah*

However, as I have indicated the correlative (tis, tahaaN, so (going with jo, tidhar) is replaced with the proximate (us, vahaaN, vuh, udhar etc) in the modern language.

Natiq Lakhnavii appears to have gone one stage further and has decided to pair the relative (jis tarah) with the proximate (is tarah)!

More examples from Platts but this time "yih" being paired with "us".

yih kitaab maiN ne us kaa varaq phaaR Daalaa.

yih kitaab us kaa juzdaan achchhaa hai.

.....................................

diin aur faqr the kabhii kuchh chiiz
ab dharaa kyaa hai us meN aur is meN

......................................

Naseer

Naseer

[bekas Murray]

Let's say this sentence was written in English:
The way this night weighs heavy on you is the way that I have spent my entire life.

How would you translate it?

> This is how this is explained in grammar books.
>
> Proximate: "is tarah" (In this way/manner)
>
> Remote: "us tarah" (In that way/manner)
>

As I said in an earlier in the thread proximate and remote are not only used for that purpose but also for emphasis.

> Relative: "jis tarah" (The way/manner)
>
> Correlative: "tis tarah" (In that way)
>
> Interrogative: "kis tarah" (In what way/manner? How?)
>
> Theoratically speaking, "jis tarah" should be paired with "tis tarah" but the language has "moved on" where the preference is for "us tarah".
>
> So, purely from grammatical point of view, the poet should have paired "jis tarah" with "tis tarah" in the same way that "jab" is paired with "tab".
>
> ai shama3 tujh pih raat yih bhaarii hai *jis tarah*
> maiN ne tamaam 3umr guzaarii hai *tis tarah*
>
> However, as I have indicated the correlative (tis, tahaaN, so (going with jo, tidhar) is replaced with the proximate (us, vahaaN, vuh, udhar etc) in the modern language.
>
> Natiq Lakhnavii appears to have gone one stage further and has decided to pair the relative (jis tarah) with the proximate (is tarah)!
>
> More examples from Platts but this time "yih" being paired with "us".
>
> yih kitaab maiN ne us kaa varaq phaaR Daalaa.
>
> yih kitaab us kaa juzdaan achchhaa hai.
>

The above two constructions I find odd and have not heard them being used but may be somewhere in some dialect they are used but the sentence construction still looks unwieldy.
Normally one would simply say
Main ne is kitaab kaa varaq phaaR Daalaa

Sounds like written by the same guy who wrote in the song the line:
ye dil maiN doongi meray yaar ko.

Which is a construction I had not seen before.

[vijay...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, 13 July 2019 21:37:40 UTC+1, bekas Murray wrote:

>

> O shama, "the Way" this night weighs heavy on you
> is "the way" that I have spent my entire life.
>
> "the Way" standing here for jis tarah with a capital W for emphasis. It is a very specific way.
>
> "the way" for is tarah
>
>

I understand even without comprehending the import of small 'w' v/s capital 'w'. But I see the lines as:

O shama, "the Way" this night weighs heavy on you

(that) is "the way" I have spent my entire life.

v/s what the poet is saying:

O shama, "the Way" this night weighs heavy on you

(this) is "the way" I have spent my entire life.

Even if we leave out the two contentious qualifiers.

Vijay

[bekas Murray]

You can completely leave out this or that :)

> Even if we leave out the two contentious qualifiers.
>
> Vijay

Here is Faiz. Now he is using is tarah with jis taur but jis taur is the "same" as jis tarah or jis tariqay say. The order is reversed that is is tarah coming before jis taur. As I said earlier if the order of the lines of Natiq's couplet are reversed perhaps it would make it clearer.

Anyway her is Faiz:

jis roz qaza aaegi
FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ

kis tarah aa.egī jis roz qazā aa.egī

shāyad is tarah ki jis taur kabhī avval-e-shab

be-talab pahle-pahal marhamat-e-bosa-e-lab

jis se khulne lageñ har samt tilismāt ke dar

aur kahīñ duur se anjān gulāboñ kī bahār

yak-ba-yak sīna-e-mahtāb ko taḌpāne lage

shāyad is tarah ki jis taur kabhī āḳhir-e-shab

nīm-vā kaliyoñ se sarsabz sahar

yak-ba-yak hujra-e-mahbūb meñ lahrāne lage

aur ḳhāmosh darīchoñ se ba-hañgām-e-rahīl

jhanjhanāte hue tāroñ kī sadā aane lage

kis tarah aa.egī jis roz qazā aa.egī

shāyad is tarah ki jis taur tah-e-nok-e-sināñ

koī rag vāhima-e-dard se chillāne lage

aur qazzāq-e-sināñ-dast kā dhundlā saaya

az-karāñ-tā-ba-karāñ dahr pe mañDlāne lage

kis tarah aa.egī jis roz qazā aa.egī

ḳhvāh qātil kī tarah aa.e ki mahbūb-sifat

dil se bas hogī yahī harf-e-vidā.a kī sūrat

lillāhil-hamd ba-anjām-e-dil-e-dil-zadagāñ

kalma-e-shukr ba-nām-e-lab-e-shīrīñ-dahanāñ

https://www.rekhta.org/nazms/jis-roz-qazaa-aaegii-faiz-ahmad-faiz-nazms

Faiz himself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U69Q5WbAGn4

Another rendition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUdxuWOc-HU

[vijay...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, 14 July 2019 08:13:41 UTC+1, bekas Murray wrote:

> You can completely leave out this or that :)

Of course I can in the English version you posted (although it is there in my mind) but you can't in the original because it is not yours to do. The poet has put it in.

I have absolutely no problem with the way Faiz has used these words. Now, if I can't make you see the difference between their use in the she'r under discussion and the way Faiz has used them; then either the difference doesn't exist, or I lack the precision of language to make it clear. In either case, it is doubtful if we will get very far in our discussion.

Best,

Vijay

[bekas Murray]

I think we have. Sometimes there cannot be agreement and that is ok.

Faiz's usage was given more for the other point (the question of the original post): Whether is tarah can be used with jis tarah (not specific to what you were commenting on).

kis tarah aa.egī jis roz qazā aa.egī?
shaid is tarah (ae gi qaza) ki jis tarah ...

tum ne tamam umr guzaarii hai kis tarah?
maiñ ne tamām umr guzārī hai is tarah, tujh pe raat ye bhārī hai jis tarah

> Best,
>
> Vijay

[vijay...@gmail.com]

:-)

I see your point. I think we agree that when the question or the point to be resolved is 'kis tarah', the equation is different.

e.g.:

aap kii raat kis tarah guzarii?

merii raat (to) is tarah guzarii jis tarah aik umr guzar rahii ho etc.

But when the point to be resolved is:

aap kii raat jis tarah guzarii

Then the intuitive response would be:

merii us tarah tamaam umr guzarii

Now I admit that if the point to be resolved is:

aap kii raat (to) is tarah guzarii:

then the response would be:

jis tarah merii tamaam umr guzarii

Best regards,

Vijay

[bekas Murray]

jis qadar jis ka dar khatkhataayaa
us qadar is ka dar yaad aayaa