Sunday, March 30, 2008

Analysis

Ok... for our analysis we choose a classic ghazal rendered by JS, early in the 1980s, Live in Pakistan. In that tour he chose classic urdu poetry since people of Pakistan, naturally speak that language. This one is by "Maahir Ratlaami". Below is the ghazal, and the split of the syllable construct. We will number the ghazal as per the misra... so "Jo nazar..." would be line no. 1 and "Aap apna ...." would be line no. 2 and so on. Below I will provide the clarification.

जोज़र कायाहोतीहै
2*12212122*2
अपनावाहोतीहै
2122*12122*2
ज़िंगी जबज़ाहोतीहै
212*212122*2
शिक़ीकायाहोतीहै
212*212122*2
तेरेगेताते शबनम
22*22*1212*22
शर्से होतीहै
212*212122*2
रोकिअपनी मस् नज़रों को
212*22*2122*2
सारी दुनयाराहोतीहै
22*22*12122*2
उनकेशिक़की ज़िंगीमाहिर
22*222*212*22
कितनीनाकायाहोतीहै
22*2212122*2


First note that 2* indicates flexible syllable as per the rules explained below. So we may scan it as 2 or 1 as required by the meter.
Now note some interesting lines.
Line no. 3, Zindagii is scanned as Zin-da-gii (2-1-2*), this is a common way of treating the "nuun" symbol.
Line no 5, note the "lataafat-e-" the "izaafat" (the -e symbol) is merged with the consonant "t" to make it "te" and "fa" is scanned as 1. So it becomes "la-taa-fa-te"(1-2-1-2*). If you hear JS, he deliberately makes it sound like "la-taa-fa-te". Obviously, he is a master at this, so he had noticed that already. The word "lataafat" (meaning grace) would however be scanned as "la-taa-fat"(1-2-2).
Line no 8, "duniya" is always scanned as "dun-yaa" to make it 2-2*.

Now, to determine the behar. Let us follow this approach.
1. Count the number of syllables in each line. We have 10.
2. Open up the List of beher.
3. Start searching for 10 syllable behars. They are #2, #9, #13, #14 and #16.
4. Match each of these behars with the syllable constructs patterns. I like to start from the end of the behar. You may choose as per your liking. Remember, all 2* ones can be used as 2 or 1 as the meter requires.

Following the above, we reach the conclusion that the 'behar' of our ghazal is #14 (2122/1212/22), which is named as "Khafiif musaddas makhbuun mahzuuf maqtuue", a very un-romantic sounding, unlike the ghazal though :). Oh! of course, you could check all the 'misras' of the ghazal, they fit the behar exactly, within the given rules!

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