FWP:
SETS == IDIOMS
SPRINGTIME: {13,2}
WRITING: {7,3}
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.
The imagery in the first line comes from the realm of book-binding. The parts or 'signatures' (folded page-sections that are stitched as a unit into the binding) of spring, are described as the 'connection' (or tightly bound mutual relationship) of a 'single binding-thread'-- not of a book, but of va;hshat . For discussion of such book-binding imagery, see {10,12}.
There's an extra idiomatic punch in the phrase yak-shiiraazah , which can also be read as something like 'a whole-bindingful of'; on Ghalib's use of yak expressions see {11,1}.
And of course, the definition of spring as such a paradoxical pairing, as a 'connection' of 'wildness', is an enjoyable shock. How much mutual 'connection' can different forms of 'wildness' or 'wilderness' or 'savagery' (see the definition above) have, anyway?
When we turn to the second line, we find three examples of such unsociable 'wildness': the foliage is alien, the breeze is a wanderer, and the rose itself is a non-acquaintance. Apparently they don't know each other, and have no wish to do so-- or means to do so, even if they did wish it. They are all separated from each other, all scattered and dispersed-- that is to say, they're pareshaa;N , in the Persian sense of the word.
There's also a clever bit of wordplay, since sabzah-e begaanah , literally 'alien greenery' (see the definitions above), is an idiomatic expression for 'weeds'; as usual, Ghalib has made it work in both its colloquial and its literal senses. For other such usages of the phrase, see {67,5x}; {81,8x}; {257x,8}.
for a straightforward example of this usage, see {81,8x}; and for an elegantly implied one, see
Thus we have the elegant paradox of a 'connection' made up of things that are 'scattered'. Are these three examples among the 'signatures' that themselves constitute the 'connection'? We can't be sure, since the two lines don't make the identification explicit. But certainly these or similar 'signatures' literally 'are' the connection of the stitched-binding of wildness that is spring. And why not? Both halves of the paradox insist on maintaining themselves.
Spring has an identity, it is a volume, a whole, something that makes a coherent 'connection' among various disparate parts. But at the same time, it's like a book in which each of the normally identical 'signatures' is different from all the others. For each of its signatures is not only disparate, but also inherently isolated or antisocial or preoccupied with its own affairs. The energy of spring is a huge upsurge in the life-force of all its separate parts-- one that sends them off with renewed vigor, to be more powerfully themselves. Any 'connection' among such parts must be made at a more cosmic level; or perhaps only abstractly, in our minds.
Note for grammar fans: In the first line, it does seem that the noun rab:t , 'connection', is being used in place of the adjective marbuu:t , 'connected'. Ghalib is Ghalib, kyaa kare;N ?
Asi:
The springtime is the connection of the stitched-binding of wildness. That is, because of springtime some parts of madness have become collected. Because the foliage is alien, the breeze is a wanderer, the rose is unacquainted.
== Asi, p. 68