Ghazal 62, Verse 1

{62,1}

hai baskih har ik un ke ishaare me;N nishaa;N aur
karte hai;N mu;habbat to guzartaa hai gumaa;N aur

1a) to such an extent in her every sign/gesture is a different/additional sign/indication
1b) although in her every sign/gesture is a different/additional sign/indication

2) [when/if] she shows affection/love, then a different/additional suspicion/idea arises

Notes:

ishaarah : 'Sign, signal; beck, nod, wink, nudge, gesticulation; pointing to, indication, trace, mark, allusion, hint, clue; insinuation, innuendo; love-glance, ogling'. (Platts p.55)

 

nishaan : 'Sign; signal; mark, impression; character; seal, stamp; proof; trace, vestige; --a trail; clue'. (Platts p.1139)

 

gumaan : 'Doubt, distrust, suspicion; surmise, conjecture ... ;—opinion, fancy, notion, supposition, imagination; —presumption; probability; —conceit, pride, haughtiness'. (Platts p.914)


aur : 'And, also, for the rest, besides; again, moreover; but, yet, still; over, else; ...another, other, different; more, additional'. (Platts p.104)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

Ghalib:

Ghalib appends to a letter written in 1858, verses {1, 4, 8, 3, 2, 5, 10, 7, 11}
==Urdu text: Khaliq Anjum vol. 2, pp. 717-18
==a trans.: Daud Rahbar, pp. 95-96

Ghalib appends to a letter written in 1861, verses {1, 8, 6, 2, 4, 7, 11}.
==Urdu text: Khaliq Anjum vol. 1, pp. 374-75
==a trans.: Daud Rahbar, p. 20

Nazm:

That is, even if she shows affection, then I know it's a trick. (62)

== Nazm page 62

Bekhud Dihlavi:

He says that nothing about her is free of artifice and deceit. In the guise of love, enmity is expressed. Thus I'm always suspicious and on the alert about her. (109)

Bekhud Mohani:

Even while she's saying something, her state of mind changes. Thus even if she shows affection, I feel no happiness, thinking that her love has no stability; and I also begin to think, let's see what comes after this love! (140)

FWP:

SETS == AUR; BASKIH

Here's another wonderful exploitation of the doubleness of baskih ('although'), which can also be short for az bas kih ('to such an extent; whereas') for more on this, see {13,5}. The commentators take the latter option, which is delightful enough: she's so generally tricky that when she shows affection, one immediately suspects that she's up to something else. (In Urdu, mu;habbat karnaa does not have the primarily physical sense of its literal English translation 'to make love.')

But choosing the 'although' reading moves us into another dimension that's even cleverer and more enjoyable: although in general she's tricky and deceptive, it's especially when she shows affection or love that one's suspicions are aroused. One is suspicious of 'something more/other' behind her behavior all the time; but when she's making a show of niceness, one suspects something 'more/other' than even the usual kinds of 'more/other'.

This whole ghazal is a tribute to the protean possibilities of aur, with its extremely wide penumbra of meanings-- including both 'more of the same' (consider kuchh aur) and 'something different' (consider aur kuchh).

And just to compound the multivalence of the beloved's behavior, consider the two crucial words ishaarah and nishaan , with their semi-overlapping meanings. Does the beloved make a sign/signal/clue with another sign/signal/clue in it, so that the two meanings almost coincide? Or should we emphasize the differences?

The commentators treat this as a very simple verse, but in fact it's an unresolvably multivalent verse about opacity, about obscurity, about misdirection and deceit. Its own structure suggests the very qualities that the beloved shows. She shows them all the time-- but when she makes an affectionate gesture, when she offers you her heart, that's when you'd really better look out! So ultimately, this verse is also witty, and even quite amusing.

Compare Mir's take on the same situation: M{58,6}.

 

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