0011_06

{11,6}

apnī to jahāñ āñkh laṛī phir vahīñ dekho
āʾīne ko lapkā hai pareshāñ-naz̤arī kā

1) where your eyes met [in love]-- look then/again only/emphatically there!
2) the mirror has an addiction to 'scattered-gazing'

Notes:

āñkh laṛnā : 'To encounter the eyes (of); to exchange love-glances; to fall in love (with), be enamoured (of)'. (Platts p.95)

lapkā : 'A bound forward (in order to snatch); a snatch; --nimbleness, &c. (= lapak ); --a bad habit; a vitiated taste'. (Platts p.950)

pareshāñ-naz̤arī : 'Confusion of sight'. (Platts p.259)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

S. R. Faruqi:

Another aspect of this theme, Bedil has expressed very finely [in Persian]:

'The wonder of the garden is not a fellow-traveler with the flower
The mirror departs from itself [with the sight of the glory], and the glory remains established [within it].'
[in the same way, even if the flower would depart, the wonder of the garden remains]

In contrast to Bedil, Mir has often described the mirror as having a 'scattered gaze'. For example, in the second divan [{807,2}]:

āʾine kī mashhūr pareshāñ-naz̤arī hai
tū sādah hai aisoñ ko nah dīdār diyā kar

[the 'scattered-gazing' of the mirror is famous
you're naive-- don't keep giving such ones a vision of you!]

See also the lapkā verses by Atish and Hali in {43,1}.

Shah Nasir has taken over Mir's whole second line. The only difference is that he has changed the word order to make it fit his meter. From the point of view of wordplay, Shah Nasir's verse too is very fine:

āʾīne ko hai pareshāñ-naz̤arī kā lapkā
aur hotī hai myāñ chashm-e muruvvat dekho

[the mirror has an addiction to 'scattered-gazing'
look, friend-- the 'eye of kindness' is different]

FWP:

SETS
MOTIFS == EYES; GAZE; MIRROR
NAMES
TERMS == THEME

The mirror's 'scattered' or 'dispersed' gazing is a sign of fickleness or lack of discretion, or even of the kind of disturbance or agitation that would more properly characterize a human lover. On this pretext, the speaker urges the beloved to look away from the mirror, to look back again to where she had previously made eye contact-- that is, of course, to look at the lover himself.

Alternatively, the verse might be an abstract injunction to a lover: be faithful, don't be like the wanton, promiscuous mirror.

Here are some further notes (2015) from SRF on the verse:

'The mirror reflects everything that comes before it. The eye is also supposed to reflect, like a mirror, whatever comes before it. More particularly, the image of the beloved is always there in the lover’s eye. So the conceit here is that the mirror looks at everything indiscriminately. It makes eyes at whoever comes before it, but the lover’s eye always reflects the beloved.'