0389_07

S. R. Faruqi:

If this verse is juxtaposed to a verse of Ghalib, then the nature of both poets' individual imaginations becomes clear. Ghalib:

G{122,2}.

Ghalib's beloved has such a relish for tyranny that even her own adornment she does when she would be able to use the eye of a dead prey animal like a mirror. The lover in Mir's verse is such that if he would once see the beloved, then he would remain rigid and staring, as if he were some slaughtered animal (for a somewhat related discussion, see the introduction to volume one [of SSA], pp. 130-131).

In Mir's verse there are a number of subtleties; in Ghalib's verse, there's only 'delicacy of thought'. Mir's 'thought' too is superb, but its basis is earthly and realistic. To look at the beloved and keep on looking is a common idea. He also calls the beloved a 'slayer', and in this regard calls the lover a 'slain one' or a 'sacrificial one'. Here the responsibilities of slayer and slain have been spontaneously obtained-- that after a glimpse of the beloved's face, the eye remains fixed and open, as if it would be the eye of some sacrificial one.

In mere ḳhūnī there's a strange kind of kinship and pride; and there are also two meanings: (1) the one who slew me; and (2) the one who is my slayer (the beloved). Now look at the wordplay: chashm , āvegī naz̤ar , chashm , āñkh , chahrah , bismil , ḳhūnī , mundī (closed), bāz (opened).

Thirty or thirty-two years after the present verse, Mir used the image of the chashm-e bismil in an entirely new way in the shikār-nāmah-e avval , and proved once and for all that if the imaginative power is strong, then the impossible too becomes possible. About the poetry of Iftikhar Jalib I once wrote that it had such a level of singularity and individuality that no principle could be founded upon it. All its possibilities are finished the moment they come into existence.

Confronting the singularity of the chashm-e bismil image and the novelty of the theme, the thought occurs, what is there now left to say about this theme? Now please look at the shikār-nāmah verse:

āñkheñ jo merī bāz haiñ jūñ chashm-e bismilī
us turk-e ṣaid-band kā yih intiz̤ār hai

[since my eyes are opened like the eye of a sacrificial one
this/such is the wait for that prey-capturing Turk]

He has entirely changed the theme, and has also maintained it too, through wordplay, with the same excellence.

Nasikh too has made a good try at the chashm-e bismil theme. But his first line is not too effective; though indeed the second line is peerless:

nūr kā nām shab-e tār-e judāʾī meñ nahīñ
jo sitārah hai vuh ik dīdah-e qurbānī hai

[in the dark night of separation, there's not even a trace of light
if there is a star, it is a single eye of a sacrificed one]

Amir Mina'i too (probably following Nasikh) has versified the theme of the eye of sacrificial one:

yād kis turk kī āʾī kih mirā zaḳhm amīr
rah gayā dīdah-e bismil kī t̤araḥ vā ho kar

[a memory of which Turk came to mind-- that my wound, Amir
remained, like the eye of a sacrificial one, open?]

maḥv-e naz̤z̤ārah-e qātil hūñ maiñ aisā dam-e ṣubḥ
kih har ik dāġh-e badan dīdah-e qurbānī hai

[I am so absorbed in the sight of the slayer, at dawn
that every wound on my body is the eye of a sacrificial one]

But because in both of Amir's verses there's much artificiality, the pleasure has become less.

{389,7}

Notes:

S. R. Faruqi:

FWP: