Ghazal 16, Verse 9x

Gyan Chand:

In the word ;xamyaazah there's an iihaam , because in connection with ;xumaar the attention goes to the meaning of 'yawn'. But here 'revenge' or 'retribution' is intended. We saw the leisure of sorrow and joy in the world. That leisure showed absolutely no faithfulness. That is, the leisure was very little. Having come into the world, for seeing sorrow and joy we were punished with a lifetime as long as the duration of a single ;xumaar . A ;xumaar is the painful condition of the wearing off of intoxication; thus it's not desirable. Even if we would get something in the world, there will still be the condition of ;xumaar .

Ghalib's accomplishment is that he joined together sorrow and joy both, into the lifetime of a ;xumaar . In ;xumaar there's certainly sorrow, because the body is wracked with pain, and it's the decline of intoxication. Along with this, there's also a suspicion of joy, because ;xumaar is the result of the joy of wine, and in it too to some extent there remains intoxication. (94-95)

FWP:

SETS == TRANSITIVITY
WINE: {49,1}

Raza p. 227. S. R. Faruqi's choices. This is the ninth verse of the ten-verse ghazal that Ghalib originally composed; in his published divan he included only verses three through seven.

Gyan Chand's reading of ;xamyaazah as 'retribution' doesn't seem appropriate at all, since there's no indication in the verse of any remotely punishable offense. On the contrary, in fact, the connection of ;xamyaazah and ;xumaar is a classic pairing that pertains entirely to intoxication; for discussion and examples, see {12,2}.

After drinking, a ;xamyaazah is a sign of satisfaction: a stretch and a yawn of intoxicated repletion. And how long does it last? Because of the second line's structural transitivity, we learn either that the ;xamyaazah is the length of a 'single lifetime of intoxication/hangover' (2a), or that the 'whole lifetime of intoxication/hangover' is the length of a ;xamyaazah (2b). But since ;xumaar can mean both the desirable state of 'intoxication', and the all too painful one of a 'hangover', a number of possible readings inevitably arise:

=the brief yawn of satisfaction itself, was equal in value to a whole lifetime of intoxication (because life is short)

=the yawn (of satisfied intoxication) itself was equal in value to a whole lifetime of hangover (because we value pleasure even though it's always mixed with pain)

=the whole length of a lifetime of intoxication was no longer than the brief yawn at its end (because life is short and its satisfactions are fleeting)

=the whole length of a lifetime of hangover was no longer than a brief yawn (because life is so short that not even painful experiences are worth mentioning)

As usual for Ghalib, all of these readings work enjoyably with the bittersweetness of the first line. For in it the sarcastic word 'faithfulness' suggests that the speaker feels betrayed by the treacherous brevity of life; but the generally resigned and philosophical tone suggests a detached awareness that life is to short to make it worthwhile even to brood or complain about its brevity.