Ghazal 58, Verse 2


vufuur-e ashk ne kaashaane kaa kiyaa yih rang
kih ho ga))e mire diivaar-o-dar dar-o-diivaar

1) the abundance of tears created such a mood/aspect of the house
2) that my walls and doors became doors and walls



That is, the walls fell down and became doors, and the doors were filled up and became walls. (53)

== Nazm page 53

Bekhud Dihlavi:

He says, my turmoil of weeping, making progress, has created such a state in the house that the wall has fallen and become a door, and the door has been blocked and turned into a wall. (99-100)

Bekhud Mohani:

I wept so much that the very state of my house changed. The walls opened up and became doors, and the door, being filled up with mud, became a wall. That is, my constant weeping had its effect, and destroyed the house. (126)


HOME: {14,9}

Nazm suggests one possibility: my copious weeping created a flood that virtually destroyed the house. This is quite possible; for discussion of such cases, see {57,9}.

But it's equally possible that the lover's tears so blurred his vision that he couldn't tell doors from walls, but mistook them for each other. The word rang seems to tilt toward this possibility, since it has more to do with aspects, looks, feelings than with violent destruction and radical changes in physical conditions (though it can be used for either).

In either case, this is a very clever and delightful example of what I'd call a 'mushairah verse'; for more on this see {14,9}.

In this verse Ghalib not only uses a long, inconveniently specific refrain like 'doors and walls' with ease and grace, but he manages to repeat the same phrase in inverted form just before the refrain, and not only with no feeling of effort or forcedness, but in fact with excellent poetic effect. He well deserves the praise Josh gives him in {58,3}.