FWP:
SETS == DIALOGUE; PARALLELISM
GATHERINGS: {6,3}
LIGHTNING: {10,6}
SMILE/LAUGHTER: {27,4}
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. Ghalib chose this verse for inclusion in .
The simile of the rain as tears, and thus of the rainclouds as weeping, is obvious. That of lightning as smiling or laughing (since hañsnā has both meanings) is based on the flash of brilliant white teeth as they are suddenly visible in a smile or laugh. (And of course, the sight of the beloved's teeth dazzles the lover's eyes as lightning does.)
These brilliant white teeth should also be imagined as flashing against a suitably dramatic background of blackened gums, since the use of missī ('a powder composed of yellow myrobalan, gall-nut, iron-filings, vitriol, &c., used for tingeing the teeth of a black colour', Platts p.1036) was very common in Ghalib's world. Admirers of Umra'o Jan may remember that the ceremony through which a t̤avāʾif formally entered the profession was called missī lagānā . For more on missī , see {417x,2}.
Compare {212,1}, another verse involving a smile/laugh and a show of teeth.
Gyan Chand:
The raining-down of clouds has the similitude of weeping, and the cause of the weeping is restlessness: there is the wish for a gathering of happiness. The way a child weeps in order to cause some desire to be fulfilled, in the same way the clouds are weeping and insisting. The flash of lightning has the similitude of smiling/laughing, but it is momentary. The lightning flashes as if it is smiling/laughing at the clouds' request: 'How small is the interval of life! How would a gathering be able to be arranged in an instant?!'
== Gyan Chand, p. 492