S. R. Faruqi:

With us, one standard for beauty and delicacy is that the skin should be extremely clear and there should be very little fat on the body. (By contrast, in western countries for a long time a plump bosom and a heavy body were considered beautiful. Up to the seventeenth century, in western painting beautiful women were generally more or less heavy-bodied, and sometimes they actually looked pregnant.) Among the Iranians too, slenderness has been considered an important part of beauty. But with us, heavy breasts and bosom, but a slender body and delicate skin, were given more importance.

One aspect of this vision is that about beautiful people it's famously said that if they eat paan, then the redness of it glimmers in their throat. Among historical persons, about Ali Quli Khan's daughter, and Ghazi ul-Din Imad ul-Mulk's wife, Gunna Begam Muntazir (d.1775), it was very famous that when she ate paan, then its redness could clearly be seen in her throat.

In Shaikh Tasadduq Husain's dastan āftāb-e shujāʿat (vol. 1, p. 317), a beautiful person is described like this:

galā vuh nāzuk aur ṣarāḥī-dār hai aur aisī ṣāf jild hai kih us meñ se surḳhī pān kī ba-vaqt khāne pān ke gale kī ragoñ aur gosht meñ z̤āhir hotī hai -

[The throat is so delicate and crystalline, and the skin so clear, that at the time of eating the paan, the redness of the paan is apparent in the veins and flesh of the throat.]

Nineteenth-century poets have composed this theme very well. Consider these verses. By Nasikh:

rang pāñ se sabz sonā ban gaʾe kundan se gāl
mubtazal tashbīh'h hai sone pah mīnā ho gayā

[from paan, the color of her cheeks became verdantly golden, like fine gold
it's a commonplace simile-- it became enamel-work on gold]

By Atish:

mai-e gul-rang sī jhalkī jo surḳhī pān kī us meñ
galū-e yār par ʿālam huʾā shīshe kī gardan kā

[it glimmers like rose-colored wine, the redness of paan, in it
upon the throat of the beloved has come the condition of a neck of glass]

By Jalal:

gale se phūṭ ke niklā hai terā pān kā rang
sharāb-e surḳh kī hai sāqiyā qalam gardan

[it has burst out from the throat and emerged, your paan-color
of red wine, oh Saqi, is the 'pen' of the neck]

Nasikh's verse is the best of the three, but none of them has the effect of the physical pleasure of the body that is in Mir's verse. One reason for this effect is the insha'iyah style of the second line, and in it the extremely suitable use of hāʾe re -- see

{973,1}.

Among western poets, in Shakespeare and Garcia Lorca alone can be seen this use of very small words to create an immediate sense of the pleasure of the body. In our poetry, only to Mir has this kind of mastery been vouchsafed. Nazir and Mus'hafi too very frequently speak of the body, but Nazir's poetry has a kind of immature, ebullient enthusiasm; it has no delicacy. Indeed, Mus'hafi retains his power over mind and senses, but in his erotic poetry there's sometimes also vulgarity. If Mir speaks of a short/tight robe, then Mus'hafi also mentions a flimsy lungi.

And indeed, Bahadur Shah Zafar has, in a famous 'head-to-foot' [sarāpāʾī] ghazal, maintained Mir's theme in a very sensuous way:

āñkheñ haiñ kaṭorā sī vuh sitam gardan hai ṣurāḥī-dār ġhaẓab
aur us meñ sharāb-e surḳhī-e pāñ rakhtī hai jhalak phir vaisī hī

[the eyes are like cups-- such cruelty! the neck is like a flagon-- a disaster!
and in it the wine of the redness of paan then maintains a glimmer, somehow]

This whole ghazal is drowned in a feeling of physical and erotic delicacy. Such a style is found neither in Mus'hafi, nor in Mir. On the theme of color, listen to one more verse from that ghazal:

gar rang-e bhabhūkā ātish hai aur bīnī shuʿlah-e sarkash hai
to bijlī sī koñde hī paṛī ʿāriẓ kī chamak phir vaisī hī

[if the flaming color is fire, and the nose is a proud/'high-headed' flame
then like lightning there suddenly flashed the glitter of the cheek, somehow]

In English it's been said that an 'upturned nose' is a sign of beauty, but to call the nose a 'high-headed flame' is also peerless.

On the beloved's delicacy, Musavi Khan Fitrat has created a good theme [in Persian]:

'Her delicacy is such that when she walks on a carpet,
Then on the soles of her feet the pattern of the carpet can be seen.'

Mus'hafi has virtually translated Musavi Khan Fitrat, but verbosity has made the theme pallid. From his fourth divan:

lipat̤ kar ūs meñ phūloñ ke jab vuh sāth sotā hai
badan par naqsh ho jātā hai gul boṭā nihālī kā

[when she sleeps with me, wrapped in a flowered quilt
on her body the flower-and-sprig pattern is mapped]

[See also {1024,1}.]

FWP:

SETS == EXCLAMATION
MOTIFS == EROTIC SUGGESTION
NAMES
TERMS == THEME

I do like the Atish verse cited by SRF, for its 'double activation'. The first line tells us that the redness of paan glimmers 'in it' like rose-colored wine, so when the second line tells us that the beloved's neck has attained the condition of a shīshe kī gardan , then this is true in two separate ways: it has become a 'neck of glass' because it's so transparent, and also the 'neck of a flagon' because it seems to contain wine.