0183_12

S. R. Faruqi:

These verses [the five verses {183,12} through {183,16}] are a 'verse-set' [qit̤aʿh band]. Mirza Ali Lutf, the author of gulshan-e hind , has expressed it very finely in a verse:

yih bhī hai nayī chheṛ kih uṭh vaṣl meñ sau bār
pūchhe hai kih kitnī rahī shab kuchh nahīñ maʿlūm

[this too is a new kind of teasing, that in 'union' she gets up a hundred times,
and asks, 'how much remains of the night-- I don't know at all!']

Apparently it seems that for the theme that Mirza Ali Lutf expressed in a single verse, Mir was obliged to compose a verse-set of a number of verses. But in truth, in Mir's verse-set there are many refinements and subtleties, on the basis of which this verse-set has become a superior example of 'erotic' [fāsiqānah] and playful [ibtihājī] poetry.

First of all, look at the supreme idiom pusht-e chashm-e nāzuk karnā [in {183,14}]. Only three or four poets have made use of it, and no one at all has placed it within an episode the way Mir has.

In thī ṣubḥ jo muñh ko khol detā [in {183,15}] the jo is a conditional; that is, it's used to mean 'if'. And here thī is for confirmation; that is, morning would certainly have come. This is a usage particular to Urdu; it will be hard to find a trace of it in any other language. Through adopting this structure, infinite dramatic force is created in the poetry. For example, 'His cruelty and oppression was at such a level that if anybody opened his mouth, then-- it was all over, his head was in a state of having been cut off!' [koʾī muñh kholtā to bas us kī gardan kaṭī huʾī thī] (that is, it was at once cut off).

Another beauty of the meaning is that to open the mouth is the same as for dawn to come; and the lover's chief goal is that the night would not be finished. In this way the permissibility of hiding the face in the curls [in {183,16}] emerges. But not only this-- in fact, the curls spread out over the face have themselves become a metaphor for night. That is, the beloved's curls spread out over her face are themselves a metaphor on the part of the beloved that there's still some of the night left. That is, the beloved too wants it not to be dawn; otherwise she wouldn't have covered her face with her curls.

Then, how excellently the pen-name has been used [in {183,16}], so that it is a form of address, and also does the work of a pen-name! This too is Mir's special style.

For the beloved to come and sleep at our house, and in this way for our sleeping fortune to awaken [in {183,13}], is also fine. In baham pahuñchnā is a suggestion that this occasion has been obtained after great effort and difficulty; it's not a thing that happens every day.

The present verse is an 'enmeshed' [muʿaqqad] verse-- that is, a verse in which if the last word of the first line is joined to the beginning of the second line then the meaning appears. Nowadays some people consider it a 'fault' [ʿaib], although from it a kind of 'entanglement of words' [taʿqīd-e lafz̤ī] is created, and the elders have not considered 'entanglement of words' to be a fault. For further discussion on this, see:

{54,5}.

In this verse-set the theme is not particularly deep, but the sequentialness of the expression and the flowingness of the words are beyond praise. Although the refrain was rather awkward [be-ḍhab], and the rhyme too was nothing very inspiring [shiguftah], he has used them with complete success. The 'affair-evocationi' [muʿāmilah-bandī] too is extremely fine.

One aspect of the theme of this verse, Mir has versified well in a ruba'i. The enjoyable thing is that there's 'affair-evocation'-- but not of an 'affair' itself, only of the longing for it:

vaṣf apne diloñ ke kis se kahye sāre
us shoḳh kī tamkīñ ne to jī hī māre
bāloñ meñ chhupā muñh nah kabhū yūñ pūchhā
kah'h mīr gaʾī rāt kyūñkar bāre

[to whom would I tell the whole description of my heart?
the grandeur/dignity of that mischievous one has slain my inner-self
having hidden her face in her hair she never once asked,
'tell me, Mir, how did the night pass?', finally]

{183,12}

Notes:

S. R. Faruqi:

FWP: