===
1353,
4
===

 

{1354,3}

letii hai havaa rang saraapaa se tumhaare
ma((luum nahii;N hote ho gulzaar me;N .saa;hib

1) the breeze takes its color/style/mood from your 'head-to-foot' [description/beauty]
2) it doesn't seem that you are in the garden, Sahib

 

Notes:

saraapaa : 'From head to foot, throughout, totally; cap-a-pie; —s.m. The whole from head to foot; the whole body; —a complete description in verse (of graces or charms, &c.)'. (Platts p.648)

S. R. Faruqi:

For a theme similar to this one, and some discussion, see

{1536,5}.

Mir has often expressed this theme, but in the present verse he has done something new: that the 'color' of the breeze and the 'color' of the beloved have become absolutely one; thus the beloved, although she is absorbed in her stroll in the garden, is not even visible at all.

In ma((luum nahii;N hote ho there's also the aspect that it seems that the beloved isn't even in the garden at all-- only the 'color' of her saraapaa has spread around it. For further discussion, see

{24,2}.

In addition to the breeze, Mir has often versified the theme of the water's changing color. For example, in the fifth divan:

{1714,9}.

Colors mutually reacting to each other, and under that effect the sense of colors changing, is common in Mir's poetry. It seems as if he'd acquired the eye of a painter. (In his Persian poetry, many painting terms appear.) On the mutual reactions of colors, see

{1102,5}.

[See also {1373,1}; {1504,2}; {1590,8}.]

FWP:

SETS == POETRY
MOTIFS
NAMES
TERMS

SRF takes the saraapaa of the beloved to be her 'head to foot' presence in the garden, which is perfectly plausible and works very well. The breeze (along with the flowers, etc., no doubt) so submerges its identity in hers that the whole garden looks like her, so that indeed it isn't possible to distinguish her actual form from all the wannabes and groupies around her.

But equally enjoyable is the literary sense of saraapaa as 'a complete description in verse (of graces or charms, &c.)' (see the definition above). Thus possibly the breeze is so entirely intoxicated by passion (and havaa of course also means 'desire') not by the actual sight of the beloved, but merely upon hearing an account or a description of the beloved's beauty. If the breeze has succumbed so readily to her charms, it wouldn't be strange, for in South Asian romances and folktales it's common for the hero to fall desperately in love in exactly this way; he sometimes even falls into a swoon.

On this reading, the beloved herself apparently isn't in the garden. For after all, she doesn't need to be. And why would she deign to be, when a mere saraapaa description will do the job so effectively for her? If she herself were in the garden, the breeze would have the original at hand, and wouldn't even need to borrow its 'color, style mood' from the saraapaa .