FWP:
SETS == GENERATORS; HI; IZAFAT; STRESS-SHIFTING
PROPORTIONALITY: {6,4}
What is this crucial vahm-e ;Gair ? Ghalib has made quite sure that we're offered a buffet full of choices. The i.zaafat guarantees us several possible relationships: an illusion created by an Other? an illusion that itself is an Other? an illusion pertaining to an Other in some other way? Then there's the ambiguity of whether the illusion is one in the speaker's mind that concerns an Other, or one in an Other's mind that concerns the speaker; on these two possibilities, see {41,6}.
Then there's the doubleness of ;Gair itself (see the definition above), which also adds to the array of choices: it can be not only a noun (2a), but also an adjective (2b), so that the i.zaafat construction can also be read as an adjective-noun sequence.
Then there's hii with its own possibilities: it can be restrictive (there's only that much distance, and not a bit more), or else emphatic (there's that much distance). In a verse as abstract as this one, the choice between these two readings can make a real difference in interpretation.
In short, this is a verse of wildly abstract philosophizing, with no doubt a certain free-floating charm as it drifts through the void.
But consider a suggestive case for comparison: {97,7}. It too has a vahm , a display of pech -o-taab , and a problematical Other lurking in the background. But in {97,7} the Other is the Rival, and the situation is not maximally abstract but maximally specific, since it directly concerns a 'union' that, it seems, might be actually taking place.
Ghalib's greatest verses lie between these two extremes. There should be enough specificity to give scope for not only wordplay (which both {97,7} and {98,5} do have) and preferably Ghalib's flashing wit (which neither has, in its sharp and vintage form), but also, above all, some movement from the more specific to the more abstract, and back, and forth, and back again. These two verses, both bolted firmly into place on their respective ends of the spectrum, have hardly any scope for such movement.
It makes me feel full of impatience and pech
-o-taab to read them. I'll take the haunting, memorable {98,4}
any day. The presence of a real horse (well, somewhat real, anyway), perhaps with
reins and stirrups flapping, running as he pleases, energizes that verse.
Nothing energizes this verse. It is only complexly and unresolvably philosophical.
From a poet like Ghalib, I want to ask for a bit more flash.
Hali:
By 'Other' is here intended what exists besides Allah, which according to the Sufis is absolutely nonexistent. Because they consider everybody nonexistent except that Existent One. He says that to the extent that because of the illusion of existence besides Allah night and day I am restless, to exactly that extent I am distant from my reality, that is, my existence.
==Urdu text: Yadgar-e Ghalib, pp. 149-50