S. R. Faruqi:

The phrase havā kā rang badalnā is not found in dictionaries. [A discussion of other idioms with havā that some dictionaries do contain.] Mir has already versified it once before, in the second divan [{848,1}]:

hai āg kā sā nālah-e kāhish-fazā kā rang
kuchh aur ṣubḥ-dam se huʾā hai havā kā rang

the style/color of the anxiety-causing lament is like fire
since dawn, the style/color of the wind/atmosphere has been something else]

The present verse has no special excellence of meaning, except that the zamīñ and zamāñ both change with the style/color of the atmosphere. Or else, that the zamīñ and zamāñ both change at every moment, and the news of this reaches us through the changing style/color of the atmosphere.

A second point is that the ground changes at every moment, and the era/world too changes at every moment. That is, the era/world keeps changing not only because of its own passing, but because its very nature too keeps changing. Mir certainly will have known the saying of Heraclitus, that we do not step into the same river twice. (In this connection, see

{861,2}.)

And zamāñ kā har zamāñ badalnā is also finely colloquial. But the real power of the verse is in its 'tumult-arousingness' and 'mood'. If we consider this verse to be giving an opinion about the universe and the arrangement of the universe, then it is 'tumult-arousing''; and if we consider it to be based on the theme of changes in circumstances and the helplessness of human life, then the balance-pan of 'mood' weighs more heavily on the scales. For more verses on rang-e havā , see

{1504,2}.

Janab Hanif Najmi has informed me that another meaning of zamāñ is 'sky'; and on the authority of [the dictionary] ġhyāṡ he has written that when when zamāñ would be juxtaposed to zamīñ then its meaning is 'sky'. In the light of this point, the verse becomes more meaningful and 'tumult-arousing'. Janab Najmi's detailed research is praiseworthy.

FWP:

SETS == A,B; GENERATORS; REPETITION
MOTIFS == SOUND EFFECTS
NAMES
TERMS == MOOD; 'TUMULT-AROUSING'

If we take zamīn-o-zamāñ as a fixed oppositional pair, like 'earth and sky', that reading really does add a new dimension to the verse. Their being positioned together in the line, and their extreme phonetic congruence, encourage us to take the two words this way. (There are other such fixed oppositional pairs, after all-- think of nāz-o-niyāz , razm-o-bazm ).

But even without that bit of special idiomatic glue, simply to say that the zamāñ is different in every zamāñ opens out complex possibilities (see the definition above). The verse could well be saying that the 'world' is different in every 'era'. But it could also be saying that the 'era', the age, the time, is different in every 'world'-- every social or cultural world? Every planet? (The ghazal world outranks the physical world, after all, so why not describe life on other planets?)

And then, look at havā -- its meanings include 'rumor', 'reputation', 'affection', 'lust', and 'an empty and worthless thing' (see the definition above). If we ring the possible changes of these various meanings, as juxtaposed to the wide-open possibilities of the second line, we really can emerge with a tremendous range of possibilities. Since it's an 'A,B' verse, we also have to decide for ourselves how the two lines are related. Really this verse is a fine 'generator', a machine that can crank out meaning after meaning.

And surely those widely varying meanings will yield a tremendous range of 'tones' in which the verse can be read. Here is where SRF's firm assignment of one or the other of only two tones-- shor-angezī or kaifiyat -- seems unduly draconian. Why not wonder and awe? Why not rueful amusement? Why not detached observation? For further discussion of problems in ascribing 'tone', see {724,2}.