FWP:
SETS == HUMOR; WORDPLAY
SCRIPT EFFECTS: {33,7}
The rhyme-words in this ghazal are all of course intended to end with the same vowel sound; this sound is usually taken to be īd . But in some cases this makes for truly odd effects. Here are some thoughts on the subject from Pasha Mohamad Khan (Apr. 2008):
'The as-yet-unwritten history of the vowel shift in Persian from maj'hūl ( o , e ) to maʿrūf ( ū , ī ) is weird and meandering -- unfortunately one can't always identify the classical pronunciation of a Persian word with its modern South Asian pronunciation. This ghazal is to my mind an indication that Ghalib meant for ummīd to be pronounced ummed , which is possible in classical Persian. Personally I'm quite convinced that the rhyme words in the ghazal must be pronounced naumed , bed , jamshed , ḳhvurshed , bhed , jāved , ummed , rather than naumīd , bīd , jamshīd , ḳhvurshīd , bhīd , jāvīd , ummīd . It is valid to read these as having maj'hūl vowels; in the case of jāved , I've never heard it pronounced as jāvīd in Urdu. Basically, it makes more sense to use the ed endings, which are attested in Steingass, than to turn bhed into bhīd . This indicates that either these maj'hūl vowels hadn't yet become maʿrūf in Ghalib's time, or that Ghalib used the maj'hūl pronunciation of ummīd and ḳhvurshīd for poetic reasons.'
I find this argument very plausible, and so I've opted for Pasha's suggested readings of the rhyme-words. There's also the fact that bhed is a purely Indic word (and the only such word on the list), so to convert it into bhīd on entirely Persian-specific grounds would be a stretch.
This is a 'short meter' [chhoṭī baḥr] ghazal, so there's less room in each line for complex effects. As usual, the commentators seem to be satisfied with no effects at all, just a prosy paraphrase. As usual, I look for more. And in this case, the 'more' leaps to the eye-- the wordplay and 'script-play' of sipārī , which in its normal written form, without short vowel markers, looks exactly like supārī (see the definitions above). (For more on such 'script-plays', see {33,7}.)
Lest I be thought frivolous, note that Ghalib could easily have put the far more common jāñ-niṡārī or jāñ-fishānī or jān-bāzī in exactly the same metrical space. (The latter would fit if it were given a full nūn .) These are the words that the commentators use to explain (and in one case, actually to define) jāñ-sipārī , a word they obviously think may be unfamiliar to their readers. (When the word is used once more, in {164,7}, it's clearly there because it can form a rhyme-word.)
Yet Ghalib chose instead to use jāñ-sipārī , and to plant (sorry, sorry!) the name of this tree-grown nut exactly beside the name of a tree that doesn't grow nuts-- in a line that could also be read as declaring that one's life is a (useful, enjoyable) supārī , not a (fruitless) willow-tree. (And what has more 'effect' than betel-nut, the vital ingredient in pān ?) Ghalib again sneers at the bed tree for its fruitlessness in {95,7x}; see that verse for further discussion.
It might be argued that Ghalib had a lofty mind, and wouldn't even have noticed such a mere low-class frivolous pun in the first place. To which I say, Hah! How probable is it that someone like me, a latecomer who started studying Hindi at the age of 20, and Urdu even later, could easily notice a bit of wordplay that would remain invisible to Ghalib? Ghalib could hardly have failed to see it (even if he didn't put it in on purpose, as I'm sure he did). If he didn't want his readers to experience it as part of the verse, he could easily have replaced it with one of the commentators' preferred synonyms. Compare a similar effect in {230,11}.
As further evidence (if any is needed) of Ghalib's irreverence and sense of humor, consider his whole impromptu ode addressed to a betel-nut. (I'm glad to have an excuse to drag it in!) It pulls out all the stops of ghazal rhetoric. We find Majnun, Laila, the Ka'bah, the desert, the wine-cask, the Paris, the beloved, and even the wildly abstract suvaidā itself (on this term see {3,2}), all pressed into service to praise this particular betel-nut-- which was a fine one, of course, with no fiber. So why can't the present verse be allowed a touch of that same uninhibited sense of fun?
(As a fringe benefit, and further evidence of Ghalib's sense of humor, right after the betel-nut ode in his divan comes a little two-verse verse-set:
don't ask about its rank-- that which his Exalted Highness
has sent me, a roghni roti made of besan-flour
he wouldn't have eaten wheat, he wouldn't have emerged from
Paradise
if Hazrat Adam had eaten this besan-flour roti.)
While working on Mir, I've just come upon another interesting case, cited by Faruqi in connection with M{420,7}. It is a verse by Siraj Aurangabadi that plays Ghalib's trick in reverse:
jāñ supārī dāġh katthā chūnā chashm-e intiz̤ār
vāst̤e mihmān ġham ke dil hai bīṛā pān kā
[life, betel-nut; wound, catechu; lime, the eye of waiting
for the sake of the guest Grief, the heart is a
bira of paan]
Here Siraj is definitely using jān supārī , because the line specifically equates the lover's life with a betel-nut (in a line full of the ingredients of paan). But in such an amusing verse, surely he must have enjoyed setting up his audience to hear or read at the beginning of the first line the more expectable jān-sipārī -- only to provide them not with lofty notions of the martyrdom of love, but with the makings of a paan!
Here is a nice descriptive tribute to paan, by Rakhshanda Jalil.
Ghalib:
[1858, to Saqib:] I have one verse-set in this meter that I had composed in Calcutta [in 1826]. The occasion for it was that in a gathering [majlis], Maulvi Karam Husain, a friend of mine, placed on the palm of his hand a betel nut of very good quality, without any fiber, and asked me, 'Let some similes be versified about this'. While sitting there, I composed a verse-set of nine or ten verses and gave it to him, and as a reward I took that betel nut from him. Now I am thinking-- those verses that keep coming to mind, I will keep writing down. [The italicized verses are those he published in his divan, but didn't include in this letter.] The verse-set:
this glossy betel-nut that is in the Sahib's hand
however much you praise it, it is suitable for it (1)
the pen has its finger against its teeth [in amazement]: how to write of it?
Speech has its head in its collar [in deep thought]: how to speak of it? (2)
[[write of it as the seal on the letter of revered and beloved ones
speak of it as the amulet on the arm of self-adorning beautiful ones (3)]]
[[write of it as the cosmetic [missii]-stained finger-tip of beautiful ones
speak of it as the wound on the side of the liver of mad lovers (4)]]
[[write of it with the similitude of the signet-ring of the hand of Solomon
speak of it as resembling the tips of the breasts of a Parizad (5)]]
connect it to the burnt-out star [of bad fortune] of Qais
speak of it as the musky beauty-spot on the heart-attracting face of Laila (6)
suppose it to be the black stone of the wall of the Ka'bah
speak of it as the navel of the musk-deer of the desert of Khitan (7)
[[if in style you suppose it to be the qaaf in tiryaaq [opium]
in color, speak of it as the newly-sprung greenery of the Messiah (8)]]
if in a prayer-cell you declare it to be the 'seal of prayer' [the forehead-mark that results from much prostration]
in a winehouse, speak of it as the plug ['brick'] of the cask of wine (9)
write of it as the cosmetic [missī ; see {417x,2}]-stained finger-tip of beautiful ones
speak of it as resembling the tips of the breasts of a Parizad (4,5)
[[why would you write of it as the lock on the door of the treasury of love?
why would you speak of it as the [point of the] drawing-compass of longing? (10)]]
[[why would you depict it as an unobtainable pearl?
why would you speak of it as the pupil of the eye of the Anqa? (11)]]
[[why would you write of it as the button of the robe of Laila?
why would you speak of it as the foot-print of the camel of Salma? (12)]]
In short, there are twenty or twenty-two amusing comparisons [phabtiyāñ]. How could I remember all the verses? The final verse [bait] is this:
suppose the palm of the Servant-protector's hand to be a heart
and call this glossy betel-nut [supārī] the [Sufistic] 'black spot' on the heart [suvaidā] (13)
==Urdu letter text: Khaliq Anjum vol. 2, pp. 714-15
==Azad's version: Pritchett and Faruqi, pp. 501-02 [somewhat modified toward literalness]
==full Urdu text of the poem itself (13 verses): Arshi pp. 131-32
==full Urdu text of the poem itself (13 verses): Hamid pp. 207-08