===
0389,
7
===

 

{389,7}

jūñ chashm-e bismilī nah muñdī āvegī naz̤ar
jo āñkh mere ḳhūnī ke chahre pah bāz ho

1) like the eye of a sacrificial one, its gaze/view will not manage to be closed--
2) the eye that, upon the face of my {slayer / bloodthirsty one}, would be opened

 

Notes:

bismilī : 'For sacrifice; for slaughter'. (Platts p.156)

 

ḳhūnī : 'Relating to blood, or to murder; bloody, sanguinary; —a murderer, an assassin'. (Platts p.497)

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.

FWP:

SETS
MOTIFS == EYES; GAZE
NAMES
TERMS == 'DELICACY OF THOUGHT'; THEME

It's rather a grim and grisly image, but it doesn't rise (or fall?) to the level of what I call 'grotesquerie'. What I like about the verse is the strong invitation to read the speaker's claim as a boast. 'You think your beloved is so murderously beautiful? Well, let me tell you about my beloved!' For after all, merā ḳhūnī can perfectly well be an affectionate nickname, 'my bloodthirsty one'. (For that reason, this verse isn't necessarily in the 'dead lover speaks' category.)

 

 
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