Ghazal 396x, Verse 3

Gyan Chand:

If the perfection/excellence of beauty depends on heedlessness, then your picture is superior to you, because it always maintains heedlessness toward us. A second meaning is that if in your manner of life only/emphatically heedlessness is the sign of the perfection of beauty, then for us your picture is better than you, since it does not practice heedlessness, and is ready to look in our direction.

== Gyan Chand, p. 458

FWP:

SETS == HUMOR; PETRIFIED PHRASES

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.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

Ghalib doesn't have very many verses about paintings; for others, see {6,1}.

Gyan Chand spells out the two enjoyable possibilities. Assuming that heedlessness would be part of the perfection or excellence of (the beloved's idea of) beauty, why is the beloved's picture better than the beloved herself? One possibility: it's better because it's even more heedless than she is; she might someday pay some attention to the lover, but the picture never will. Another possibility: it's better from the lover's point of view because it doesn't actively practice heedlessness the way she does; it never averts its eyes or turns its head away.

There's also the pleasure of takalluf bar-:taraf ; for more on this petrified phrase see {65,1}. Its colloquial meaning, something like 'to tell the truth', is an excellent way to introduce the lover's surprising preference for a picture over a person. And its dictionary meaning, 'leaving aside formality' may well describe the way the picture behaves better than the person: it does not use the social barrier of deliberate 'formality' to withdraw itself from the lover.

And best of all, the second line is, thanks to the punchy closural force of ta.sviir , truly witty and amusing.