Ghazal 297x, Verse 6

{297x,6}

ai asad ham ;xvud asiir-e rang-o-buu-e baa;G hai;N
:zaahiraa .saiyaad-e naadaa;N hai giriftaar-e havas

1) oh Asad, we are personally/'ourself' a prisoner of the color and scent of the garden
2) evidently/apparently, the foolish Hunter is a captive of desire/lust

Notes:

:zaahiraa (a variant of :zaahir;an ): 'Outwardly, openly, publicly, manifestly, evidently, plainly, apparently, to all appearance, seemingly, ostensibly'. (Platts p.755)

 

havas : 'Desire, lust, concupiscence, inordinate appetite; — ambition; — curiosity'. (Platts p.1241)

Asi:

Oh Asad, the real truth is that we ourself remain a prisoner of the color and scent of the garden; and the foolish Hunter thinks that she has captured us. This is an absolutely half-baked idea; in this way she herself is a prisoner.

== Asi, p. 133

Zamin:

That is, the Hunter is a great fool who has taken upon her head the burden of ill-repute-- since the whole world calls her greedy/avaricious, although the cause of our captivity is our desire for the spectacle of color and scent.

== Zamin, p. 198

Gyan Chand:

He accuses the Hunter of desire/lust, because of which she doesn't allow the birds to come into the garden. The truth is that we birds are spontaneously captured by the color and scent of the flowers of the garden. For this reason we have come near to the Hunter.

== Gyan Chand, p. 224

FWP:

SETS
BONDAGE: {1,5}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.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

Gyan Chand thinks that the speaker is a bird, which indeed works very well; I think it's the most satisfying interpretation. But nothing in the verse requires it.

The two lines report on two kinds of captivity: in the first line, the speaker reports himself as captivated or 'captured' by the color and scent of the garden; in the second line, he reports the Hunter's apparently being a captive of 'desire, lust'. Does this mean that the speaker has been spontaneously 'captured' by the garden, and the Hunter foolishly thinks that she has captured him herself? Or does it mean that he has been captured by something lofty and beautiful, while the 'foolish' Hunter has been captured by something unworthy (a blood-lust for prey perhaps, or an egotistical desire to flaunt a trophy)?

In either case, the verse leaves considerable room for doubt. Most conspicuously, :zaahiraa (see the definition above) can mean either something strongly affirmative like 'obviously' ('manifestly, plainly'), or something more doubtful like 'seemingly, apparently, ostensibly'-- with overtones of possible falsehood. Perhaps the Hunter has some kind of advanced mystical knowledge, so that her 'desire/lust' looks culpable but actually is not? Perhaps her behavior results not from 'desire/lust' at all, but from something else entirely?

But even more enjoyably, it's also quite possible that the lover is trying to deceive the listener, and perhaps himself as well, by offering a kind of desperate rationalization ('She didn't really capture me-- I voluntarily surrendered, and not even to her!'). Or there's the bird who speaks in {71,4}: 'I am voluntarily captivated by love of the Hunter-- otherwise, I still have plenty of strength to fly away!'. In either case, do we really believe this lofty and dignified (and self-aggrandizing) version of events?