Ghazal 309x, Verse 5

Asi:

Oh Asad, in the wine-house, because of the stone of the oppression of the sky, the condition is such that the wine is fallen-spirited and the glass is heart-brokien. The extent to which calling wine 'fallen-spirited' is subtle/enjoyable-- people of sound [saliim] temperament will be well able to judge of it.

== Asi, p. 151

Zamin:

Wine is a thing that 'falls'; thus he has called it 'fallen-spirited'. A glass breaks; thus he has called it 'broken-hearted'.

== Zamin, p. 217

Gyan Chand:

Asad, into the wine-house the sky has thrown the stone of oppression-- from which the wine's heart has fallen, and the bottle's heart has broken. If someone would strike a bottle with a stone, then the bottle breaks and the wine falls.

== Gyan Chand, p. 244

FWP:

SETS
SKY {15,7}
WINE-HOUSE: {33,6}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.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

As we in the ghazal world all know, the sky is the source of many disasters that rain down on human beings. In this verse, the disaster takes the form of a stone thrown down from above, on us and the societal 'wine-house' in which we gather. The result, as Zamin succinctly notes, is an excellent melding of wordplay and meaning-play: "Wine is a thing that 'falls' [in the sense that its quality deteriorates over time]; thus he has called it 'fallen-spirited'. A glass breaks; thus he has called it 'broken-hearted'."

By contrast, an example of pure wordplay is the use of miinaa to mean 'wineglass'. For miinaa also means 'the azure vault', the sky itself (see the definition above). Since here the sky is the wineglass-breaker, it definitely is not part of the meaning of miinaa , the wineglass, in this context. But Ghalib could easily have used saa;Gar for wineglass instead (for a full inventory of wine vessels, see {28,1}). Aren't we glad he didn't? Doesn't the multivalence of miinaa make the verse more piquant, more unsettling?