Ghazal 404x, Verse 6

{404x,6}

tujh ko ai ;Gaflat-nasab parvaa-e mushtaaqaa;N kahaa;N
yaa;N nigah-aaluudah hai dastaar-e baadaamii tirii

1) where/how do you, oh heedlessness-lineaged one, have any care for ardent ones?
2) here, your almond-colored turban-sash is gaze-stained

Notes:

nasab : 'Genealogy; lineage, race, stock, family, caste'. (Platts p.1137)

 

dastaar : 'A sash or fine muslin cloth wrapped round a turban'. (Platts p.516)

 

baadaam : 'An almond; spiceries; ... the eye of a mistress; ... — baadaam-e saaqii , The eye of the beloved; — baadaam-e shiguufah shudan ( kardan ) , To shed tears; — baadaam-e shiguufah-fishaan , A weeping eye'. (Steingass p.137)

Gyan Chand:

;Gaflat-nasab = one who is from the house/descent of heedlessness. Oh heedlessness-showing beloved, you have no care for lovers. Therefore your almond-colored turban is stained with their gazes. Here 'almond-colored' has no special meaning; it has come in only because of the rhyme.

== Gyan Chand, p. 552

FWP:

SETS
GAZE: {10,12}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.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

Faruqi observes that a great fault of the commentators is that they don't consult dictionaries. Here is a perfect example of what he means. Gyan Chand asserts firmly that 'Here 'almond-colored' has no special meaning; it has come in only because of the rhyme'. Yet not to speak of all the Indo-Persian dictionaries Gyan Chand had at his disposal, he wouldn't have had to go any further afield than Steingass (see the definition above) to correct his judgment.

In fact the idea of beautiful eyes as 'almond-like' is so entrenched in Persian that the equation can be made directly, as in Steingass's example of baadaam-e saaqii , the 'eye of the beloved', and in his metaphors for weeping too. This wordplay is the source of whatever limited charm the verse has. The 'almond eyes' of the ardent ones have been fixed so desperately on the beloved that their gaze has stained his turban-sash. In order to achieve this effect their gaze must have been almost physically pasted to the turban-sash (as in 'Their eyes were glued to his face'). Perhaps these physically operative gazes might even have dyed the turban-sash; it might owe its almond color to them alone.

This verse seems to envision the beloved as a beautiful male adolescent; for other such verses, see {9,2}.