Ghazal 275x, Verse 4

Asi:

On the one hand there's ourself, such that our life has been spent in viewing the springtime of beauty. And on the other hand there's the Nightingale, whose months and years keep changing-- sometime's it's autumn and sometimes it's springtime, and constantly in this way the color of the garden keeps on revolving.

== Asi, pp. 96-97

Zamin:

That is, the way the Nightingale's months and years (days of the lifetime) are spent together with the revolving of the color, in the same way my life was spent in viewing the springtime of your beauty. But in the revolving of the color of the garden, autumn and springtime have both come. Is Mirza's point in 'springtime of beauty', that the beloved has youth and old age both? But this utterance is not the speech of a poet. It is the practicing of a new-practicer who wants to become a poet.

== Zamin, p. 137

Gyan Chand:

In this verse Asi has made a comparison of his own situation with that of the Nightingale-- that for my whole lifetime I keep on witnessing the springtime of the beauty of the friend/beloved; the Nightingale has to deal with the alternation of springtime and autumn. But probably the poet did not want to say this. He has called himself a Nightingale. By 'month and year' he means all the time. What is the time, and lifetime, of a Nightingale? To keep viewing the color of the garden, and its revolving. Whether springtime would come or autumn, the sole focus of the Nightingale's attention is the garden. My lifetime too has been spent in remaining focused on the springtime of the beauty of the friend/beloved. I have nothing to do with anything else. Only the beloved's beauty is the life of the lover.

== Gyan Chand, p. 170

FWP:

SETS == A,B
SPRINGTIME: {13,2}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.

Here is a textbook case of the power of what I call 'A,B' construction. The two lines make two independent statements, about the lives of two beings who are of different species, but are both lovers. Asi asserts that their two lives are being contrasted-- the speaker's life is stable, while the Nightingale's life is a cycle of constant seasonal change. Gyan Chand maintains that their two lives are being likened to each other, or even equated-- both lives consist of stability of feeling through cycles of seasonal change.

Needless to say-- at least, I hope it's needless-- Ghalib has so framed the verse that both readings are perfectly possible, and no rational grounds exist for preferring either one over the other. The two veteran commentators, each convinced of his own reading, provide a perfect illustration of this situation.

The wordplay pairs-- .sarf and gardish above all, but also the other first-line versus second-line pairs of 'lifetime' versus 'month and year', and 'springtime' versus 'garden'-- all work perfectly with the two possible readings. In each case, the first-line and second-line words have both differences and similarities; either can be emphasized, as the interpreter chooses.

The verse is also simple, beautiful, and flowing. No doubt that's why Qurratulain Hyder used gardish-e rang-e chaman as the title of a novel, and named one of its characters 'Andalib Bano'.