FWP:
SETS
== IDIOMS; JO; WORDPLAY
CURLS: {14,6}
This is one of the many verses that engage in word- and meaning-play involving pareshaanii , in its literal sense of 'disorder, disarrangement', juxtaposed to its metaphorical sense (by an obvious extension) of 'worry, anxiety'-- mental disorder or disarrangement. The commentators point out that 'may X come upon you' is a kind of curse. The speaker wishes that the pareshaaniyaa;N may come 'upon' (literally, 'before') the beloved-- or, more precisely, upon her curls. Why such an apparently hostile wish? Needless to say, we're left to figure out for ourselves exactly what is going on. Here are some possibilities:
=Since the lover has suffered all his life from 'anxiety and trouble' over the entirely twisting curls, may he have justice: may the same 'disorder and disarrangement' afflict them in their own turn! (Since the curls are so entirely twisting, if they became disordered it would be a truly alarming task for them to sort themselves out again, so this would make a very satisfactory punishment for them.) This reading emphasizes a quest for justice.
=Since the lover has already endured these pareshaaniyaa;N for a whole lifetime, and now they've finally killed him, it's the turn of the curls-- the curls are a perfect home for them, they should take them on! This reading expresses the passing on of a legacy; it doesn't tell us anything about whether this legacy is a favor, a curse, or something else; and it glosses over the double sense of the word most elegantly. (For more cases in which the lover worries about what will happen to this or that when he's gone, see {57}.)
=These very pareshaaniyaa;N that have been afflicting the lover-- may these very ones be passed on to the curls! (This is a kind of literal-minded curse.)
The versatile little jo can be read in two ways. It can be taken as the relative, yih jo pareshaaniyaa;N ham ne , so that it directly applies to the pareshaaniyaa;N (1a). Or it can be read more freely as a kind of 'since' or 'in that': jo ham ne yih pareshaaniyaa;N (1b). By now I hardly have to point out that both senses work very cleverly-- though differently-- with the second line.
For a more effective parallel drawn between
the beloved's long dark curls and the lover's long dark
thoughts, see {71,2}; though the
word pareshaanii doesn't literally appear
in the verse, it hovers noticeably right in the background. A
subtler case in point is {111,8},
which again juxtaposes-- by the strong power of implication--
the beloved's tangled curls and the lover's anxious thoughts.
Nazm:
May they come before you, and may you yourself suffer for it, and you're welcome to them, etc. (197)
== Nazm page 197; Nazm page 198