WHEN I was a little girl, maybe nine or 10 years old, my father suggested I should have a special notebook, a bayaz, in which to write down the shairs I liked. I had memorised entire ghazals, some nazms, and an assortment of shairs or two-line verses, which I enjoyed reciting when asked by my elders. It didn’t strike me then as it does now, what I understood of the poetry itself, or why I liked some verses better than others.

Growing up in a household where reading and listening to poetry was an everyday activity I internalised the ghazal and it became a part of who I was. Two years ago, going through the storehouse of books on one of my protracted trips home, I found my old bayaz. Its yellowed pages were filled with scribbles in my squiggly handwriting. Many of the verses inscribed in it are not exactly my favourites; they are mostly the ones I had memorised. Although I don’t maintain a proper bayaz anymore, I would like to share some of my favourite shairs with readers. I will start with the great Mir Taqi Mir. Mir’s well-known ghazal that begins:

was easy to memorise.

It is the beginning of love, are you crying See what may happen after this

I had written five verses from the ghazal in my bayaz. But my favourites were the following two:

This ground doesn’t turn green

Why plant seeds of desire?

The ghazal has a quizzical mood which is enhanced by the delightful qafiya “hai kya” that can be read as question, exclamation or declaration. In the verse quoted above, the idea of tukhm-e khvahish, or seeds of desire that could grow and branch into a tree, is brilliant and original to Mir. The seeds will not take root because the heart is perhaps barren, but the protagonist keeps trying as is artfully implied in the first line, “sabz hoti hi nahin”. Notice the use of the intensifier ‘hi’. Mir was an expert in the nuanced use of intensifiers such as ‘si’ or ‘hi’ just as Ghalib was with his masterful ‘ek’.

The marks from loving, they remain, always

Why wash the scars from your heart?

There is a beautiful concordance between nishan (mark, legacy) and dagh, a stronger, more powerful word that means scar, a deep blemish. Both verses produce vivid images of the impact ishq has on the lover. Ghazal verses can be simultaneously connected and independent in the meaning they encapsulate.

In this ghazal, it seems that there is a progression of meaning. The opening verse poses a question or declaration: let us see what happens as love progresses. The verses quoted above seem to provide an answer: love demands stifling desire and produces a legacy of scars. The answer is ominous, yet the verses do not evoke despair because the mood is both questioning and ironic. Mir has been accused of being steeped in sorrow, pain and anguish. Yes, there is anguish in his poetry but the anguish is vindicated, even mitigated, because of the irony embedded in it. Here is another verse to illustrate my point:

Dejection flutters around him like a moth

But he keeps lighting lamps of longing

People light lamps and candles at sacred places praying for wish fulfilment. Sometimes lamps are lit to celebrate the fulfilment of a prayer. In this shair Mir paints a picture of a lover-protagonist who shrugs off the dejections that follow him like moths attracted to a lamp. Notice Mir’s brilliance in juxtaposing the tropic image of shama-parvanah (moth and candle) with chiragh-e murad (lamps of wishfulness). Moths are drawn to the candle in a frenzy of love that ends with the immolation of the moth and the ultimate extinguishing of the candle.

In Mir’s version the protagonist is a complex character, a frenzied lover, tragic but indefatigable and irrepressible. There is a double bind here: the dejected one replicates the shama-parvanah scenario by lighting more lamps thus creating more frustrations. Mir’s soul-stirring tone is often confused with tragic. Here is another example:

A heart is not a city that can be peopled again

Listen! You will regret desolating this homestead

Picturing the heart as a city is an endearing metaphor that Mir uses often with great effect. The contrast between a populous city and a desolate one is striking. The heart’s city is the home of the beloved. Destroying it is symbolic not just for the one lover but all lovers. Notice the direct address used here, ‘suno ho’. The beauty of this verse is that it can be read from the perspective of the beloved as well. The beloved is bent on destroying the heart’s city. The poet-bystander offers a word of caution. The heart is a repository of desires and longings associated with the lover. Destroying it would mean the end of desires. For example look at the verse quoted below:

I didn’t die, but my being knows

How hard it was to bear the loss of my heart

The heart’s separation or destruction is an unbearable loss. I want to draw attention to the irony in the first line, “I didn’t die”. There is a fine subtlety in the use of ji, or inner being as contrasted with dil. Glossing the Indic ji is not easy. Ji, derived from the Sanskrit jiva has many meanings: life, soul, self, spirit, heart, and disposition are some. Is ji separate from heart? Here Mir is making a distinction between life and heart. The lover- protagonist is not dead but is lifeless without the heart. It is not surprising that this verse is hardly ever quoted by Mir lovers and admirers. The theme or mazmun here is understated and ironic. To be honest, this shair was not among my favourites. My preferred verse used to be:

There were troubles, but losing the heart

Is a calamity like no other

Muhammad Hasan Askari has quoted the above verse as the ultimate example of Mir’s sensitiveness, the accessibility of his poetry. Askari has rightly argued that Mir’s casual style in delivering deep emotions is unparalleled in Urdu poetry. The two verses under discussion are on a similar theme of losing the heart, but very different in the density of meaning packed in them. Askari’s example evokes profound emotional response or kaifiyat in the listener-reader. My example produces thoughtful head scratching! My poetry notebook has so many remembrances associated with the verses inscribed in it. It shaped my intellectual growth in ways I was not even aware of until much later when I began to think about the poetics of reading. It is amazing how the same line can be read in different ways across time and space. Ghazal poets are wordsmiths. They craft tightly coiled metaphor intensified levels of meaning, enhanced with word play. Listening to ghazal poetry is enjoyable but mulling over every word is delectable.

If you don’t have a poetry notebook, I suggest you get one today.

MEHR AFSHAN FAROOQI is Associate Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia. She is currently writing a commentary on the mustarad kalam of Ghalib.