Ba Kas Chi Ba Kas Chi

Ba Kas Chi — What Is It to Anyone — is a song of aggressive self-defense against the social order's surveillance. The repeated phrase 'ba kas chi?' (what is it to anyone? what concern is it of others?) is the grammatical heart of every couplet: each line names something the speaker does, and each ends with the challenge to others' authority over it.

The drinking, wandering, cup-breaking are standard elements of the antinomian ghazal — the speaker who refuses religious and social codes in favor of love's own law. What lifts Ba Kas Chi above the formula is the Laila/Majnun couplet: 'If tonight you are my Leila — what is it to anyone? / Like Majnun I am in love with you — what is it to anyone?' The speaker does not just invoke the Majnun tradition; he occupies it directly, naming himself in relation to the archetype of the lover who went mad and was cast out of society. If Majnun's love was Majnun's own business, so is this.

The twist in the opening couplet: 'Though you are known for purity throughout the city / You have made me disgraced and notorious.' The beloved's reputation for purity is intact while the speaker's is destroyed. The contrast runs through the entire song — she is respected, he is defiant about the disrespect his love has brought him.