Ghazal 10, Verse 1

Hali:

To compare heaven to a bouquet in the niche of forgetfulness of the self-less ones is a an entirely novel simile which has never been seen anywhere.
==Urdu text: p. 139 in Hali, Yadgar-e Ghalib

Nazm:

To 'put something in a niche', or put it 'at the top of the niche', is an idiom for forgetting about it, and to put it 'in the niche of forgetfulness' is even more of an exaggeration. And here the word 'bouquet' has produced this beauty: that people put bouquets in niches for decoration. And the second point is that the Garden has been interpreted as a bouquet in a lowly place; this too is not devoid of beauty. But this beauty is associated with style and rarity [badii((]; there is no excellence of meaning. (10)

== Nazm page 10

Vajid:

Urdu text: Vajid 1902 {10}

Faruqi:

In this verse the beauty of style and rarity themselves are of no common order. To demean paradise with such a suitable word as 'bouquet', and then to do it in such a way that it is lower than the low and to make that very thing a cause of adornment (they arrange bouquets in niches) is no laughing matter. This is a high order of innate wit.... Then look at the use of 'self-lessness' with 'niche of forgetfulness'-- it creates a novel form of wordplay upon wordplay. When we've forgotten ourselves, why wouldn't we forget a commonplace bouquet like Paradise?....

It should also be kept in mind that 'niche of forgetfulness' is a metaphor; by using it in its dictionary meaning Ghalib has created a reversed metaphor. This too is a special trait of Mir and Ghalib's. (1989: 32-33) [2006: 42-43]

FWP:

SETS == EK
BEKHUDI: {21,6}
GRANDIOSITY: {5,3}

Ghalib originally composed a ghazal of twelve verses (Hamid p. 9), and he chose to include all of them in his published divan.

This verse is so lovely, so witty, and so complexly enjoyable!

It belongs to a set that I call 'snide remarks about Paradise'; for more examples, see {35,9}. But the verse is careful to emphasize that the snide remarks apply to that particular Garden of Rizvan which the Ascetic praises-- and thus not necessarily to any other. For perhaps the one he's praising is not the real one! It might be only a petty floral vision framed in his own limited and conventional imagination. The relative clause structure makes this possibility quite real, and of course wonderfully piquant and enjoyable.

By turning the immortal Garden of Rizvan into a mere bouquet, we self-less ones also destroy its immortality and condemn it to start withering almost at once. Moreover, if this one is one single [ik] bouquet, we probably have others as well, of equal or greater glory. And all of them, of course, have been tossed aside casually, because in our self-less state we know far more beautiful realities.

Yet apart from this obvious reading of ik , consider all the others in the definition above. The verse might not mean to dismiss the bouquet so casually, but to describe it: a 'certain' one, or a 'unique, singular' one, or a 'preeminent, excellent' one. Any of these readings, needless to say, would give a different, and differently piquant, slant to the verse.

On the 'niche of forgetfulness', compare {111,2}.

The semantic affinity between ek and :taaq (see the definitions above) is also remarkable, and doubly enjoyable since the primary meaning of :taaq as 'niche' is so entirely unrelated. Here's a classic view of some of the white marble wall-niches in the Musamman Burj, Agra Fort:

And here are many sizes and shapes of niches set into the walls of an old haveli in Sheikhupura, near Lahore:

In a less lavish home, with plaster walls, you can still have niches-- like this one, or even plainer: