Meher Afshan Farooqi & naqsh faryaadi

 My book 'Ghalib, Gandhi & the Gita' came out some a dozen years ago. Nobody read it. Had Meher Afshan Farooqi done so she wouldn't write nonsense like the following-

Naqsh faryaadi hai kis ki shokhi-i-tehreer ka
Kaaghazi hai pairahan har paikar-i-tasveer ka

[Of whose mischievous writing does the picture complain?
Every figure in the picture wears a paper robe]

This verse had perplexed and ruffled many during Ghalib’s lifetime itself.

Because they didn't know that, in the Bible, Job (Ayyub) says he wishes he could clothe himself in his own petition and thus appear before the Court of the Judge of all created things. 

The Islamic account of Job has a story about his bathing naked when a shower of golden locusts falls upon him. He is restrained from picking them up by the reminder that God has given him and will give him all that he requires, or, indeed, desires- which is only to receive what God allots.

This is an 11th Century painting of Job from an Arabic manuscript.

 The second line, especially, was an enigma for those unaware of the supposed ancient Iranian practice of petitioners wearing paper robes when presenting complaints at the royal court.

The Book of Job may well have gained its present form after the Hebrews came under Iranian influence. 

Rendering thankless the rock Farhad last split... Must Loneliness, to mock, so task my wit?Manumitted by the mischief of Mastery's pen Rendering thankless the rock Farhad last split... Must Loneliness, to mock, so task my witIn a letter to Maulvi Abdur Razzaq Shakir, Ghalib explains this verse: “In Iran, there is a tradition that a plaintiff puts on paper robes when he goes to seek justice from the ruler. This is akin to lighting a torch in the daytime, or carrying blood-soaked garments on a bamboo pole.”

There were some European, Armenian and Indian Christian converts in Delhi and Agra. It is possible that Ghalib knew of the Book of Job through them. Perhaps he didn't want to mention this. 

For what it's worth, this was my translation of the first two couplets of the ghazal 

That the complaint of the cartoon turns cartoonish when That the complaint of the cartoon turns cartoonish when That the complaint of the cartoon turns cartoonish when
Manumitted by the mischief of Mastery's pen
Is what renders thankless the rock Farhad last split...
Must Loneliness, to mock, so task my wit?

Manumitted by the mischief of Mastery's pen

Therefore, the poet reflects, of whose impudent writing is the image a plaintiff — since the form of the image/picture is paper. That is, although existence, like the picture, is merely illusional, it is the cause of sorrow and regret.

The Book of Job is perfectly compatible with Ghazzali's occasionalism. There is no need for 'theodicy' when God is the only efficient cause. 

Poet and scholar Nazm Tabatabai

he translated Gray's country church yard elegy. Sadly, Urdu can't have a 'village Hampden' or a 'city Hampden'. It can only have greedy sycophants or Gandhian nutters who protest, not 'ship money'- which might make the monarch independent of parliament, and thus a tyrant- but the 'salt tax' without which the poorest would lose all protection of law. 

— who wrote the first complete commentary on Ghalib’s Urdu Divan — was learned in Arabic and Persian, had read a smattering of Western theoretical works, and was inclined to be more critical than laudatory.

But he didn't get the reference to Prophet Ayyub. To be fair, the Quranic account does not mention Job's complaint. 

 In Sharh-i-Divan-i-Urdu-i-Ghalib, he was quick to denounce verses that didn’t measure up to his exacting viewpoints.

He was a pedagogue- i.e. his profession made him stupider than necessary.  

Tabatabai put question marks on what he considered to be flaws in this verse. According to him, kaaghazi pairahan is a known istilah [expression, idiom] in Persian and Urdu, but the tradition of plaintiffs wearing paper robes is not substantiated.

How the fuck can you translate Grey's Elegy if you haven't even read the Bible? But, if you do so, how can you fail to be aware of the Shikva-e-Ayyub? 

More importantly, he writes that the Sufi devotional practice of fana fi Allah, or the high point of complete immersion in love for the Creator so much so that separation becomes pain and grief, is not obvious in the verse.

But those experiencing 'pain and grief' in love, like complaining. Hubby constantly complains wifey is neglectioning him. So does Baby. Being loved is a terrible burden on the woman of the house. Still, at least the lady isn't obliged to write ghazals- or comment on them. Small mercies too are from God. 

Thus, in Tabatabai’s opinion, the verse is too ambivalent to be assigned any meaning.

Because Tabatabai was ignorant of the Book of Job. My question is, why did Prof. S.R. Faruqi, or Frances Pritchett for that matter, remain ignorant of it? Surely, they read the King James Bible as part of their study of English literature? Why blindly repeat the cretinous comments of past 'scholars' instead of using your own brain? This type of 'taqlid' or blind worship of secular authority has no place in literature or hermeneutics. 

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s pioneering Tafheem-i-Ghalib offers a point for point, brilliant interpretation of this verse. According to Faruqi, the Iranian custom that Tabatabai questions is not unsubstantiated, but has precedence. He quotes a verse by Kamal Ismail:

a disciple of Suhrawardy who drew on non-Islamic scriptures and was put to death for heretical tendencies. 

Kaaghazin jamah beg posheed-o-ba dargah aamad
Zaadeh-i-khaatir-i-man ta beh dehi daad-i-maraa

[It wore the paper robe and arrived at the royal court

So that my poem would get better justice]

This just means that the poet sent his poem to the court. We understand that he is a humble man. He thinks his physical appearance or threadbare clothes would tell against him. This has nothing to do with the complaint of the lover of God against the cruelty of separation from Him. 

According to Faruqi, Tabatabai’s objection that there’s no word in the verse that attests the plaintiff’s despair at existence being a cause of separation from God,

presumably, the opposite is meant. Existence only sucks coz we don't get to give God lots of hugs and kisses. Also, he should buy us a pony. 

 is also incorrect. The picture is paper clad in protest; 

No. The picture hides the nakedness of the paper. Like Majnoon, the poet would be naked- but for being clothed in his own petition of complaint. 

it is protesting for two reasons: one, for being created in a transient world; 

Nonsense! Even if Islam had adopted the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world, this would not alter the mutability and contingency of human existence. 

and two, for separation from its creator. 

Which is cool because by then the idea had gained ground that separation-in-love is better because it causes love to become more intense. 

The big question of the first line is kis ki shokhi-i-tehreer [of whose writing] does the picture complain?

No. Tehreer means freedom. It came to mean 'writing' because of the association with a deed of manumission or court order for release from custody.  Shokhi means a passionate type of hobby. Whose is the passion-for-free-will? Is it implanted by God or something which develops in Man for some other reason? For poets, who seek to be free of the influence of other writers so as to create something fresh and unique, the two meanings of 'tehreer' are conflated in what the West would call cacoethes scribendi- the bad habit of scribbling nonsense which is all us Babus are capable of. 

 Why should we assume the Power is God?

Because we know Ghalib was a Muslim. God, not some Gnostic demiurge, created the Universe. True, everything may have happened by chance, but in that case it would be foolish to ask who caused this or that to be. 

The first line’s “whose” is more interrogatory than astonished. It is possible that, if the question “Of whose mischievousness of writing?” can receive a true answer, 

it can't if God is involved because only imperative (insha) not alethic (khabar) information is available.  

then the “figure in the picture” can seek justice.

Anything can be said to seek anything. But this is just a manner of speaking. We are talking about poetry not Quantum Physics.  

The “image” is, in truth, man, who is speechless like a picture,

would this were true! Sadly, it isn't.  

and who, in a language of speechlessness,

sign-language?  

is making the complaint “Who ensnared us in suffering?”

That isn't a complaint. It is a question. Who snaked my boo thus causing me to have to cook my own breakfast?  Oh. It was the milkman. Fuck you, milkman! Fuck you very much! 

It is also a cause for reflection that the image is speechless, and its very speechlessness is the proof of its being a plaintiff.

Very true. Judge Sahib says 'who is the plaintiff in this case?' I say 'it's me. Milkman fuckin' snaked my boo! He should pay me damages.' Judge Sahib says 'The plaintiff can't be you because you are speaking. It must be the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi hanging over my head because the fact that it can't speak proves that it is the plaintiff'. 

It occurs to me that Sir Syed Ahmed once demanded that non-STEM subjects only be taught in English because Urdu rots the brain.  

Ghalib was very fond of this kind of paradoxical utterance.

Very true. That's why he wrote 'out of the eggs of the buffalo is extracted the buffalo of the egg'. The odd thing is, people thought it was his brother- who couldn't speak- who was mad! 

Faiz Ahmed Faiz has an interesting, plausible explanation of this verse. By shokhi-i-tehreer is implied “intense writing” — the intensity of thought of the poet himself.

But plenty of people who love writing want to create something light and entertaining. True, Urdu writers had to pretend to be as love-crazed as Majnoon when they weren't pretending to be more Marxist than Mao. But, speaking generally, what they were really passionate about was Scotch Whiskey and galavati kebabs.  

Faiz’s explanation is: “There is so much intensity/passion in my thoughts that when I put them on paper, the pen and paper protest in pain.”

Also, if I try to read them aloud, my wife runs away screaming. Even the cat comes and scratches me.  

He quotes a Persian verse of Ghalib to strengthen his point:

Ghalib na bud shevah-i-man qaafiyah bandi
Zulmist keh bar kilk-o-qalam mi kunam im shab

[Ghalib, I am not a poet who only matches rhyming words
It is pain that I am inscribing with the pen tonight]

Sabak-e-hindi poetry was, it is true, a pain in the arse. Most poetry at most times is. Still, if the poet is genuinely crazy or was molested as a kid or has just had his entire family killed by a drone strike, maybe we should give the fellow some money so he can buy a decent single malt rather than settle for desi daru.  

Moving on, I found that verse two was modified into the maqta [closing verse]. Below are the original and new versions:
Atashin paa hun gudaaz-i-vahshat-i-zindan na poochh
Mu-i-atash didah hai halqah meri zanjeer ka

[My imprisoned feet are fiery from the heat of restlessness/ Every link in my chain is a fire singed hair]

There are two reference here. One is to Nimrod and Abraham and the other is ' is to Ahmed Ghazali’s ‘Savanih’ which, some 8 centuries previously, fixed the convention that the curl of the beloved’s tresses is the chain upon the madman who is also a moth to her flame.' convention that the curl of the beloved’s tresses is the chain upon the madman who is also a moth to her flame.

Bas keh hun Ghalib asiri men bhi atash zeri-i-paa
Mu-i-atash didah hai halqah meri zanjeer ka

[Ghalib, even in bondage I am so aflame with restlessness;

Every link in my chain is like fire-singed hair]

Which suggests the story of the phoenix (Anqa) and Zal. Ghalib compressed a lot of allusions into this poem he wrote as a teenager.  I suppose he changed the verse after adopting Ghalib as his takkhalus. 

Comparatively, I think the earlier version shows more anguish. The torment or anguish felt by the speaker in the poem is accentuated by vahshat-i-zindan, the desolation of imprisonment, and the personal plea, “na poochh” adds to the appeal.

No. It is lame. A guy held in solitary confinement doesn't have genteel visitors doing 'purshish'- i.e. politely inquiring about the guy's health and that of his Mummy and Daddy and puppy dog.  

The amended line in the maqta is more assertive in implying that even imprisonment hasn’t broken the spirit of rebelliousness. We can see that Ghalib has not merely moved a verse from position two to the end of the ghazal, but has changed the mood of the verse as well.

And has gotten his own takkhalus in -which is cool coz  'Wala ghaliba illa Allah'- there is no victor but God. 

In the earlier versions, the closing verse was:

Vahshat-i-khwaab-i-adam shor-i-tamaasha hai Asad
Juz mazah jauhar nahin aainah-i-taabeer ka

[Asad! The disquiet from dreaming of non-being lies in the tumult of watching/ The eye that doesn’t have the essence (jauhar) can only enjoy the show in the mirror of interpretation]

So, Ghalib moved from a hysterical type of speculative metaphysics to humble Faith. Good for him. Meanwhile our pedagogues are moving in the opposite direction. That's bad for us. 

Meher Afshan Faruqi mangling Ghalib's chasm-e-ghazaal

Consider the following rejected matla from Ghalib's ghazal 112

hoon bah vehshat, intizar aavarah-e-dasht-e khayaal
ik sefadi maarti hai dur se, chashm-e ghazaal

My translation is- 

 Maddened, my vagabond vigil sees me flee further into desert wastes where but Thoughts dwell

Till, from afar, a glitter of whiteness strikes me down- Ah! The eye of the gazelle!

This isn't very good. I think a pious Muslim would naturally associate this couplet not with the 'whiteness' of the Houris or the beauty of the beloved's eyes, but more importantly with the compassion the Holy Prophet showed a sleeping gazelle, which had been struck with an arrow, at al-Utayah. This was during the first sacred 'Hajj'. It is noteworthy that at this time the Prophet (pbuh) had reiterated that asking too many questions will impose greater and more unbearable burdens upon you. But this has to do with what is imperative, not what is alethic. Think as much as you like about factual matters- i.e. what is or isn't the case- so as to be more useful to the community. Don't pursue barren Thoughts about what should be the case and would be the case if the Universe didn't fucking hate you. 

I suppose, you could say that when an ignorant infidel, like me, tries to translate what is beautiful in the oeuvre of the pious, the result is bound to be ugly. 

Meher Afshan Faruqi offers this translation- 

'Crazed with waiting I roam the arid wilderness of the mind In solitary anticipation; The gazelle’s eye is a white speck In the distance'

Many of us get crazed with waiting in a queue at the DMV or, worse yet, a queue for the toilet. We may indeed 'roam arid wildernesses of the mind' while anticipating getting to empty our bladder or bowels- hopefully in the solitude of a toilet cubicle rather than on the pavement. But what has this to do with a gazelle's eye? The fact is, you can't see the white of its eye if it is really far away. I suppose, if you are a hunter, you may say to yourself 'I mustn't discharge my weapon till I can see the white of its eye. This is because it would be out of range.' But hunters aren't 'crazed with waiting'. Also they need to be alert. Their mind has to be focused on the task at hand- viz. killing a deer so as to eat it. 

Why is Farooqi's translation even uglier than mine? The answer is that she does not draw on her own Muslim heritage preferring to cite stupid commentators from a period when it was fashionable to be as atheistic as possible. 

Kantoori: Like a disappointed lover I roam in the wilderness of imagination; just as a hunter runs after a gazelle upon seeing a glimpse of the white of its eye.

No hunter has done any such thing. 

MAF: An extraordinary she’r with layers of meaning and evocative imagery.

Because being stricken by the whiteness of the gazelle's eye puts us in mind of the Holy Prophet's compassion upon the stricken, sleeping, deer his party encountered during the first sacred Hajj. Otherwise, the verse isn't particularly good.  It may be that there was some religious reason why it would have been considered indecent or inappropriate to make the connection I, being an ignorant kaffir, am making, and that is why this matla was rejected. However, why not draw the English speaker's attention to a particular episode which pious Muslims would be aware of and which inculcates a message of universal compassion? The fact is the conduct of God's Messenger enables even the crazy sinful nutter, or Socioproctologist, to have hope that God's Mercy will find him even if, struck by Cupid's arrow, he awaits death in some rocky defile in Thought's desert? 

Kantoori’s reading is appealing in that it paints a poignant picture of a disappointed lover.

Beyonce didn't come to my birthday party though I lurve her and want to be her bestest friend for ever and ever. What 'poignant picture' does this statement of mine paint? There's generally a good reason why particular lovers are disappointed. In my case, it is because I am ugly, stupid, and as poor as fuck.  

I prefer to go further with the dasht-e khiyal motif.

 Which references Majnoon, whom the gazelles flocked to, and the Hubb al Udhri tradition. 

The gazelle runs fast but the speaker of the poem has outdistanced the gazelle in the valley of imagination [dasht-e khiyal]

No, he hasn't. If he had, he would say 'when I turn and look back, I see the eye of the gazelle far away behind me'. Also why does 'whiteness' hit the dude like an arrow? If he really is so fast at running, surely he could outdistance it?  

so much so that only the whites of the eyes can be made out.

Very true. If a deer is very far away, you won't be able to see its legs or its neck. Only the white of the eye will be visible. Strangely, the same phenomenon does not arise with people. They have to come quite close before you can see the white of their eyes or the black hair growing out of their nostrils.  

The gazelle runs away because it is vahshi, or wild, scared, shy, unsociable, untamed etc.

Also, for some reason, it objects to being killed and eaten.  

The conceit is that whites of the eyes become prominent when one rolls the eyes, a sign of distress or vahshat, madness if you will.

Only if you are close to the person in question. If he is far away, you may notice that he is jumping around like a maniac. You won't be able to tell if he is rolling his eyes or squinting.  

Thus the gazelle and the speaker are both terrified, bewildered vahshatzadah creatures.

Because dudes who recite ghazals are actually deer. We wish they would just fucking run away already.  

The speaker is running in world of ideas.

Thoughts- maybe. Ideas- not so much.  

Ghalib the master poet has juxtaposed the two images, of thoughts running wild and the gazelle running wild.

But he has done so in a particular context. The eye of the gazelle is the arrow of whiteness which strikes down the demented poet. We are reminded of the wounded gazelle upon whom the Holy Prophet showed compassion during the desert journey that was the first sacred Hajj.  Majnoon too is associated with the wild animals of the desert who often turned up to his cocktail parties where they expressed their distaste for Neo-Liberalism. 

Safedi marna also means to see a spark at a distance. It can be compared to the spark of a new idea.

What is that idea? I think it has to do with the stricken gazelle the Prophet, peace be upon Him, safeguarded at al-Uthayah. Many Muslims may never be able to perform Hajj. Still they can hear the tale of the first such sacred journey and gain great consolation.  

Intizar avarah is a new expression.

Combining as it does the notions of vagabondage and vigil. We are reminded of Majnoon and the Hubb al Udhri tradition.  

The exact meaning of vahshat’s polysemy is difficult to capture in English.

If your English is crap- sure. Otherwise, the context supplies the mot juste.  

Its poetic potential is mined fully by Ghalib and ghazal poetry in general.

Not for these cretins. Why? They reject Islam as the source and foundation of all that is most beautiful and heart-purifying of the great works of art created by Muslims.  

Mehr Afshan Farooqi's new Ghalib book

Mehr Afshan Farooqi, the distinguished daughter of the great S.R Faruqi, has produced a second book on Ghalib. She writes

The title I selected, Flowers In A Mirror, is drawn from Ghalib’s hamdiya ghazal (poem in praise of God). This ghazal was my first introduction to Ghalib’s mustarad kalam.

Chaman chaman gul-i-ainah dar kinar-i-havas
Umeed-i-mahv-i-tamasha-i-gulsitan tujh se

 The gul-i-ainah is the flower of the mirror which becomes gardens upon gardens if desire is embraced. However, whereas such mirror flowers have 'color' they lack 'scent'- i.e. they have form but lack essence or being. Thus, the first line is saying that 'speculation' (which in European languages also has the meaning of a type of mystical meditation done in front of a mirror- a practice which came from the East) can show you the different 'colors' which represent the hierarchy of mystical states but can't endow or incarnate Love itself which is a fragrance. This is the 'claim' ( دَعْوَى) or 'dava' while the next line supplies the 'dalil' (proof). It is 'The hope of enchantment (but also 'erasure', i.e. the gaining of 'fana' or Sufi obliteration/enlightenment) in the grand spectacle of the flower garden is from Thou. In other words, Ghalib is confirming the orthodox Sufi position that the Rose from whose fragrance all other roses smile and laugh is indeed the Holy Prophet. Though we remain caught in a world of illusions- being fallible creatures- yet the existence of the impeccable One communicates itself to us as Hope. 

I offer this translation-

The mirror's flower erects garden upon garden, embracing Desire

For by Thy fragrance, tho' speculative, Hope's Rose takes fire.

Prof. Faruqi takes a different view. She translates the couplet as 

'There is an abundance of mirror-flowers in desire’s embrace

Do any of us believe that some horny guy sating his lust upon a bored prostitute is gaining a big fat bouquet of 'mirror-flowers'? No. Don't the silly. It is a different matter that while gazing in a mirror, or engaging in metaphysical or mystical speculation, we might embrace, or wish to embrace, a particular Desire- viz. that of gaining Union with One beyond all Duality and illusion. 

Hope is a spectator engrossed in the colourful garden, because of You

This is a possible reading. It takes one sense of 'mahv'- viz. being engrossed- but ignores another which is being erased (i.e. gaining fana). It is possible that Ghalib was saying God is a trickster who puts Hope into our hearts so we will remain engrossed in an illusory spectacle and thus never gain union with the All High. In that case the Holy Prophet wasted his perfume on those foredoomed to misread His Message. In this case, Sacred Religion is actually the deceitful trick of a devilish Demiurge who deludes us with a sinful type of hope- viz. that of gaining super-powers rather than a humble but secure path to salvation. 

In this verse, Ġhālib has crafted a unique image of illusions.

No. He has represented the orthodox, simple and decent, message of the Sufis who have helped countless sinful or, deeply distressed, or very simple people to traverse the path of piety and self-lessness which alone makes one worthy of giving and receiving Love.  

Gardens with mirror-flowers means an illusory garden,

No. A garden may have some mirrors so as to artfully increase the number of flowers. But there must be a real flower somewhere near by for there to be the image of a flower in a mirror.  

signifying that there are illusions within illusions.

A flower is not an illusion.  

A subtle irony is at play here.

Stupidity is not subtle. That is what is at play in this Professor's translation.  

‘Mirror-flower’ may mean ‘the mirror which is like a flower’,

I suppose a craftsman could take a ductile reflecting surface and shape it like a flower. But that is not what Ghalib is referring to.  

or it may mean ‘a mirror in which a flower is reflected.’

In the context of an artfully constructed garden- sure. But that is not the present context. Instead we have the notion of something blossoming within the depths of the mirror. Since this is ghazal is in a devotional, Sufi, register, the context is mystical meditative practices like 'mirror gazing'. I should mention Islamic 'color and scent' is different from Hindu 'name and form'. However, Hindus too have a notion of 'gandh' and the Hindu barzakh- which is the antarabhava or Tibetan bardo- is ruled by the Gandharvas and has to do with rebirth.  

In both cases, there is a profusion of illusions: mirrors in which flowers are reflected,

flowers are not illusions.  

or mirrors which are beautiful like flowers.

Flowers have a fragrance.  

Both ways, the havas or intense passionate desire (not necessarily lust or carnal desire, as is generally assumed) keeps itself happy by having in its embrace the illusion of flowers.

I suppose one could 'keep oneself happy' by masturbating. If you think Ghalib was an atheist satirizing Islamic devotional practices, then you will be happy with this interpretation. But pious Muslim savants and spiritual preceptors quote Ghalib because they KNOW he was, as he himself says, a devout man. True, he had some of the blameworthy (malamati) aristocratic traits of his times, but plenty of great saints, who lived austere lives, wrote in the 'malamati' Sufi vein. But the 'wine' and the 'Tavern' they refer to are merely metaphors. They were meditating in the khanqah, not carousing in the brothel.  

The flowers now become the pleasures of union, with God or with a human beloved.

This is horrible. The 'pleasures of union' with the beloved have to do with having children and thus fulfilling God's plan. We seek to return to our Creator in the same way that a small child, who is lost, craves to be reunited with her parents. There is nothing 'sexual' about this though, no doubt, when two people unite to fulfill God's plan, they come closer to Him.  

Hope is never stilled.

Yes it is. I no longer hope to be crowned Miss Teen Tamil Nadu. This is because evil Iyengars have poisoned the minds of the pageant judges against me.  

It enjoys the spectacle of a colourful garden, even though there is nothing but illusions in front of it.

In which case it will be happy enough imagining itself to be God- the creator and sustainer of the Universe. If illusions are so great, everybody should take drugs and live in their own make believe universe.  

Maulana Abdul Bari, an early commentator on Ghalib’s mustarad kalam,

which means 'rejected verses'- i.e. ones excluded from the published 'Divan'.  

and Wajahat Ali Sandilvi, who comes much later and has commented on a very limited number of verses, have taken havas to mean ‘lust or carnal desire.’ According to them, there is satire here on the divine scheme of things: the lustful have all the colourful things at their command, but the hopeful one gets nothing but illusions.

Perhaps this was because the new Imperial masters, confounded by Charles Darwin, had lost their own pious religious faith. To be 'modern' meant scoffing at Religion and pretending that all the Mullahs were pederasts- more particularly if they were known to be poor, pious, and more concerned with charity than sucking up to the Brits or the Bolsheviks or some 'Secular Socialist' Dynasty.  

The true lover watches this spectacle but does not give up hope.

True lover keeps masturbating but does not give up hope that suddenly a whole bunch of Super-Models will form an orderly queue outside his bedroom door.  

Gyan Chand Jain, in his remarkable commentary, Tafsir-i-Ghalib, seems to concur, more or less.

Some Hindus or Jains may be too ignorant of Islam to make a sensible comment. But Prof. Farooqi is from a learned, pious, highly educated and intelligent, Muslim family. I suppose, being an academic, she has to pretend to be a stupid Islamophobic bigot. After all, she teaches in a country which has just spent a lot of money killing 1.3 million Muslims and displacing tens of millions more.  

But all these commentators ignore the possible meanings of havas.

Why? That is the question. The answer is that, in England, Fitzgerald's translation of Khayyam had become popular at just the time when faith in Scripture had received a tremendous shock from new scientific discoveries. Islam, however, had a workaround for this. There is a distinction between the 'realm of command' and the 'realm of creation'. Since Scripture is wholly imperative (insha) rather than alethic (khabar) Faith, being founded upon the mystery that is the 'realm of command', stood in no danger from Scientific or Socio-political advances- or pseudo-advances.  

One can push the interpretation towards the principle of maya, which signifies the world as an illusion, with God as the only reality.

This is the Majazi/Haqiqi distinction. In reality, God is the only efficient cause though things appear otherwise. Nothing wrong with being an Occasionalist like Ghazalli, Leibniz, etc. 

Thus, the desirer and the spectator both are under their own illusions.

In this verse, the spectator is the desirer. We are not speaking of a voyeur jerking off while some other dude ploughs his wife. 

The mirror in Persian and Urdu poetry is a symbol or image (paikaar)

she means 'paikar'. Paikaar (پیکار ) means war. A mirror, in the poetry of any nation, can be either just a mirror or symbolize something else. 

loaded with multitudes of meaning.

But the context ensures only one predominates though it may be arrived at through another which is 'sublated'.  Ghalib's poetry relies heavily on meta-metaphors. But when we keep in mind that he was a pious and quite erudite Muslim who has written beautiful theistic verses, then we can easily find the right meaning- provided we consult the local kasai or cobbler rather than some Professor at a fancy-schmancy American University. 

A common meaning is that the heart is a mirror in which the beauty of God, or the beloved, is reflected. Conversely, a mirror is like the heart. It reflects whoever cares to come in front of it. Since the mirror remains silent, it means that it is wonderstruck. The cleaner the surface of the mirror, the sharper the image. The sharper the image, the greater the wonder of the mirror.

Professor Faruqi knows well the connection between Bedil and Ghalib and should have taken advantage of that knowledge to give a better, more Islamic, account of such verses. Sadly, like her late father, she feels obliged to genuflect to 'Secular, Socialist' ideology and pretend Ghalib was an antinomian who hated and derided his own ancestral religion. Also, because he was a fucking towel-head, sand-nigger, he was even stupider than the sort of cretins who get MFAs at pricey Liberal Arts Colleges. 

Again, when we look in the mirror, we can see ourselves as we are. The mirror doesn’t lie.

Unless it is misshapen.  

Then, the mirror produces illusions which can be magical even. What one sees in the mirror is intangible and, yet, it looks indistinguishable from the reality that it reflects.

At this point, Professor Sahiba should explain to her students that they should not start fighting with the person they see in the mirror because it has obviously stolen their clothes and is looking at them in a menacing manner. Also, she should issue 'trigger warnings'. White peeps may sometimes see White peeps in mirrors. This is not due to the University's failure to promote Diversity and Inclusivity. All is the fault of Neo-Liberalism. Also dicks cause rape and must be banned immediately. 

Another way of looking at the ‘mirror’ trope is that, since pre-modern mirrors were made of steel or bronze or similar metal, they could be affected by scratches, or rusting, or dust and so on.

Modern mirrors can get scratched or become dusty. Also if you punch the evil dude in the mirror who has stolen your clothes, the mirror may shatter and you may cut your hand.  

Thus, the mirrors always needed to be polished.

They still need to be cleaned- even in Amrika.  

This symbolism of the dust or blemish in the mirror is that the heart too can become diseased or corrupt and may need purification.

Why stop there? Why not say 'the symbolism of the heart is that our impulses too may require purification. Don't keep stabbing teechur just because teechur may have a dick even though dicks cause rape. The true fault lies with Neo-Liberalism. '

Ghalib always had a penchant for the mirror as a trope, or a symbol, or a metaphor.

Why? Part of the answer has to do with the Islam has a notion that God ordained that Alexander invent the mirror so he could see the one realm he could not conquer. Ghalib prided himself on being descended from Turks who had conquered vast territories though some now preferred to get a pension from the Brits who, not content to rule the waves, had created a larger Empire in India than even the Moghuls. There was some comfort in knowing that al-Khidr got the better of Alexander when it came to gaining the elixir of life. 

His early poetry especially abounds with the mirror in one or more of its many meanings. It has to do with his perception of the nature of things.

That perception was perfectly Islamic. That's why in explaining Ghalib, you need to quote relevant passages from Scripture, Hadith, etc.  

Individual perception of objects can be different. The objects themselves can be illusory. The reflection, the ‘aks’ in the mirror, is open to transformation or interpretation. We cannot see God,

if there is perfect agreement among us, He will be seen like the full moon in the night sky.  Such is the hadith. 

but we can see his reflection in objects around us.

only by His Grace because whatever be His Will it must, most indefeasibly, come to pass. However, Ghalib may have subscribed, at one time, to a 'possible worlds' ontology and thus his 'claims' may be supported by proofs from modal logic. There is nothing wrong with offering this alternative reading before giving the orthodox interpretation which, so far as I can see, is always superior. In other words, why not read 'malamati' verse in the manner intended? The aim, after all, was to bring people to the the true path by means of something entertaining or even risque. 

I hope this book which I have expressly written in English so that it can reach a wider audience, will bring into prominence some of Ghalib’s neglected poetry. It would have been easier to write such a book in Urdu, but it would have deprived many readers who are drawn to Ghalib’s poetry.

The problem here is that Urdu speakers generally have very good access to Sacred Scripture and commentary. However, English speakers are often wholly ignorant of the glories of Islamic thought and spiritual practice. By kowtowing to 'Secular, Socialist' ideology, people like Prof. Faruqi are doing ignorant kaffirs like me a great disservice.  

Mehr Afshan Farooqi's Ghalib

Urdu lovers, mourning the death of the great Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, will be delighted to get their hands on his daughter's new book- 'Ghalib- A Wilderness at my Door'- a work of painstaking scholarship which highlights the role of bilingualism on creativity. This may seem strange. After all, most Indians who write in English are bilingual. Their English style may, at points, be correct- albeit reliant on cliches. But, because the purpose is pedestrian, it is seldom creative. The opposite point may be made about writing, in the vernacular, by people who studied English at the College level. The purpose may be very elevated indeed. But what is perpetrated is devoid of life. Why? Imitation is not Creation. Mere juxtaposition, padded out with some empty talk of jetzteit- i.e. time detached from history when something stupendous might happen coz...urm... like the Angel of Aeon gets a b.j from the Prophet of the Pleroma or something of that sort- is not even critical, let alone creative, thinking. It is just bullshit of an adolescent or addled sort. In the short run, we may speak of 'Schools' or 'Movements' and peruse 'Manifestos' but that shite wasn't Modern or even Modernist. It was mad. It was stupid. It was shitting higher than one's arsehole. Having admitted this, what is left of the project of a universal literature? Only literature- writing well. Serving your market in a manner that it endows it with a value chain. This has nothing to do with bilingualism or cunnilingualism. It involves mere craftsmanship of a thoughtful and conscientious sort. 

Recent research suggests that where a bilingual person has a 'knowledge representation' of the second language of a utilitarian but deficient type this will  relate to lower creativity- which makes intuitive sense. After all, people seldom become bilingual for a creative purpose. More often, it is simply to 'pass' as a good enough speaker. To be creative is to call attention to one self and that may carry risks. 

More generally, where a person acquires a second epistemic frame of reference the likelihood is they will do so in a pro-forma manner. Shoddy thinking is the result. Citation cartels may turn this into academic availability cascades. The result is that a Professor reflexively affirms stupid lies while supplying factual information which contradicts them utterly. This isn't a 'double bind'. It is stupidity and laziness at best, but cowardice at worst. 

Mehr Afshan Farooqi, is a Professor at an American University. Thus she feels obliged to say silly things about Ghalib

Modern modes of conceptualizing belonging are based on pre-modern modes of doing so. First generation Muslim immigrants- like the great Reza Khan of Bengal- knew they were foreign and had a scruple of accepting land grants as opposed to money payment. Those born in the country accepted the designation 'Hindi' or Indian. But this was the norm in Britain itself. Karl Marx was a resident alien. Eleanor Marx was as British as the Queen. 

It is simply untrue that the 'British categorized Muslims as foreigners'. They made a careful distinction between foreign born Muslims who were sojourners in India but who retained their Nationality of birth and Muslims born in India who were as much 'natives' as Hindus or Buddhists or Sikhs. 

The British understood that some Muslim families were descended from Turkish or Iranian or even Ethiopian notables. But many others were of Rajput or Jat or other indigenous origin. 

Mughal India maintained a 'binary' between sons of the soil and immigrants from culturally prestigious countries. There was an assumption that those brought up speaking Persian in Persian lands would have superior taste and judgment in literary matters. A savant like Abu Fazl may have bitterly contested this presumption but it remained a fact that could not be gainsaid.

Ghalib's ancestors were Turkish, not Persian. The Shahnameh could be said to affirm a deep connection between Iranian and Turanian. But there is also a philosophical angle to this which has to do with Ishraqi mysticism and the 'Dasatir' invented language and scripture which intrigued many at that time . Thus, there was an esoteric, rather than 'vague cultural-biological' aspect to the heritage Ghalib was claiming. 

It is ignorant to say 'Persian was a classical language by (the end of the Nineteenth century). In the tenth century Persian was already classical- which is why the Shahnameh is important. It had been the language of administration over large parts of India for hundreds of years. Urdu, on the other hand, was much younger. Like 'Chancery English', it was an elite version of the vernacular which you picked up while studying Latin and Greek and preparing for employment in one of the learned professions. What the writer should have said was 'The Brits required civil servants working in Muslim districts to pass exams in Persian as well as Urdu or some other vernacular language.' Indeed, college students had to pass an exam in either Sanskrit or Persian in addition to exams in English and the mother tongue. Many lawyers- like 'Mullah' Sapru- learned both Persian and Sanskrit. Indeed, many Kayasthas and Kauls prided themselves on mastery of both.

Ghalib's relationship with Persian is easy to understand. He was like Celan or Kafka who were self conscious about their German because it was not the vernacular language of their native towns. However, Yiddish is a German dialect. Goethe himself studied it. Similarly, Persian was not exactly a foreigner to the soil of Delhi. It had been there long before the Mughals arrived. 

Prof. Farooqi takes a different view-

It seems Faruqi is herself struggling with a 'double bind' of some sort- but no 'linguistic paradox' is involved because though what is written is absurd, it has no truth value whatsoever. What I have quoted above looks like English but is actually nonsense. How can something be 'edifyingly trivial' more particularly when it is 'ineffable'? 

The relationship between 'circumstance' and 'choice' is not 'fraught'. Either, under such and such circumstances, a choice exists, or it does not. A biography is itself a biographical history. If it does not explain a person's choices then it is a crap biography. In this case, there is no great puzzle. Writing in Persian was prestigious just as composing Latin or Greek verse was prestigious in Europe at that time. It mightn't make you any money- save in the case of specially commissioned work- but it boosted your reputation. But writing in the vernacular could bring you money & patronage. Ghalib's Urdu was polished. It was Persianate, as Dr. Johnson's diction was Latinate, but it was not bloodless and abstract precisely because the virility of vernacular idiom gave it much needed bite. 

The couplet Prof Faruqi quotes utilizes Sufi terminology and relies upon our background knowledge of relevant collocations. Indeed, it is over reliant on Sufi terminology. Ghalib is throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at the wall. If something sticks, it is shayari. If nothing sticks it is tawhid. 

But this sort of Sufi mystagogy is not concerned with cogitation. It deals with a type of soteriological anxiety too inchoate to crystalize as thought. It seems Faruqi uses the word Thought so as to rhyme with 'Hot' though Indians did not drink any type of hot alcoholic drink. Gudaz means 'melting' but ice too melts. One may say that the redness of wine usurps its fragile container so that it has melted into what it mirrors. We can't say this is about the difficulty of putting 'thought' into words because, obviously, the thing has been put into words- that too of a poetic sort. The fact that the couplet is a bit shit is explained by the fact that Ghalib was a bit shit as a Sufi.

Even when writing about a somewhat shit Sufi poet, the greatest challenge is not to write nonsense. Faruqi fails at the first hurdle because she isn't interested in Ghalib's brand of esoteric Sufism however shite it might have been. The rest of us are interested coz we be equally shite ersatz Sufis with pretensions to literary culture and mebbe a teensy bit of a drinking problem. 

Why should a bilingual person- like Faruqi- face any such difficulty? The answer is because she does not understand and is not interested in understanding Ghalib. She has to write a book about him because he is important and she is important and important people have to do important things. But, she is obviously just phoning it in. Translatability is not an assumption. It is a fact about the world. If a thing can be understood it can be translated by a sufficiently competent speaker. Others may cavil but the fact that translation is multiply realizable does not mean it is deficient in any way. One may say 'I don't understand this. It is nonsense as far as I am concerned'. One can't say 'this is untranslatable'. If it is nonsense in a made up language translate it as nonsense in a made up language. Better still, leave the thing alone. Consider the 'Asmani zaban' of the Dasatir. One can't say this invented language is wholly meaningless. One could convey its meaning well enough by inventing something analogous. But one would have to engage with Ishraqi mysticism- which is something Ghalib himself did. Consider the Babi and the later Ba'hai movements in Iran. There were similar syncretic revolutionary movements in China and later on in Vietnam etc. But in Europe and America, too, there were curious developments- Mormonism, Theosophy, the mania for seances- indicative of a wider spiritual thirst for a Religion of Man in a Cosmos now known to be more full of wonders and possibilities. In many ways the foundation of the University of Virginia, where Faruqi teaches, reflected these new stirrings and sought to harness them to a work which Ghalib, for one, would have greeted with acclaim. 

Our use of Language can be lazy. It can be stupid. We often speak so as not to think. But silence too has these properties. Where, however, cognitive work has been properly done, everything turns out to be effable. Research Scholars of Literature, and Farooqi is a painstaking scholar, have no business whining about the inadequacy of Language. It is their job to identify who has overcome whatever inadequacies they themselves labor under. 

This is sheer nonsense. The ineffable can't have 'dimensions' because nothing topological can be predicated of it. Language does not have an 'authentic reality' separate from itself. It does not live 'in perpetual combat' any more than does any other faculty. The stupendous reality that is mathematics can't be understood unless we are smart and prepared to work really hard at difficult stuff. But anything in maths is also in language and vice versa. There is no 'equation' between 'manifestations' and 'silences'. Phonology is not Language and even in phonology no such formulae obtain. People speak in order to serve their own interests not because they are desperate to cover up something that should not be said. 

It may be that the sort of English language spoken by savants like Faruqi wishes  to pass over in silence the fact that I just farted but my Tamil language has no such well bred inhibition. But the challenge of translating Ghalib into English, for me, does not lie in transcending the silences of English with respect to my farting. It lies in the fact that as I grow older and my anal sphincter less reliable, I am not just farting, I am sharting. This means I have to get up and change my underwear. This is very challenging and the reason I translate less and less Ghalib.

Faruqi's book is well researched and Ghalib lovers will definitely buy it. However, probably because she is a Professor, she does say something remarkably silly things. But this is because her profession has made her stupid. Still, like her father, no one can doubt her integrity and capacity for work- albeit in a vineyard not much to her taste.