The Hidden Garden by Gopi Narang (phonics books txt) 📕

moulded it metaphorically into a ‘deep structured’ and creative language. He was using conversational usage, but at the same time he chiselled it as a fine-cut diamond that made it distinctive. What is the secret? Let see how Mir has alluded to this question:

shaa’yir nahien jo dekha tu to hai koi saahir

do chaar she’r parh kar sab ko rijha gaya hai

Not seen a poet like you.

You are a magician.

You read a few couplets,

and everyone was moved.

she’r mere hain sab khwaas pasand

par mujhe guftagu a’vaam se hai

My artistry is liked

by the sophisticated.

But I address

the common folks.

The spoken language of the time, Rekhta, was an imperfect hybrid language, created by the forces of social synthesis and history; it was a language in the making. How did Mir overcome those deficiencies and turned it into an art form? He addresses this question with some pride:

dil kis tarah n khenchein ash’aar rekhte ke

behtar kiya hai main ne is a’ib ko hunar se

Poetry written in Rekhta—

there wasn’t much to like there.

I have made it lustrous—

something imperfect reshaped

with my ingenuity.

And also:

kya jaanun dil ko khenche hain kyon she’r Mir ke

kuchh tarz aisi bhi nahien iihaam bhi nahien

I can’t say why Mir’s verse attracts one’s heart.

There is nothing on the surface that explains it.

No play of words or brassy craftiness,

yet it is fabulous and creates an effect!

Conversational Creativity

If Mir speaks in a simple conversational language and there are no special devices that he uses, then what is the secret behind the ‘pearls in his poetry’? This question draws attention to a critical aspect of poetic language—although conversational language by itself is not poetic language, poetic language can be conversational. The way it is done entirely depends on the poet’s ingenuity. It is true that Mir adopted a conversational style, but he didn’t use it at the level of ordinary conversation. The difference between the two rests on a fundamental distinction: ordinary language operates at the surface. Words mean other words. They communicate the message, then fizzle out and vanish. In the poetic language, words communicate at the surface level and at a deeper metaphoric level; there are also other levels of association, denotation, and connotation in which meaning is conveyed. Poetic language hides within itself a deep structure, sometimes even layers of deep structures.

Mir touched upon only the prevalent rhetorical aspects while discussing his andaaz in his Tazkirah Nikaat-us Sho’ra but, as we know, good poetry goes beyond any rhetorical system and, in fact, its deep structures often create new forms of associated sub-structures. It is not necessary that a poet is conscious of all the aesthetic or innovative aspects of what he has created. It often opens new doors of feelings and impressions, emotions and modes of thinking which are outside the range of the surface structure. The latter describe only physical aspects of reality. Words are limited, but meanings have no boundaries. Or one may say, the words are finite while the meanings are infinite.

Jaques Lacan, a French philosopher, who followed in Freud’s footsteps, but differed from him significantly, held that structures of language are in fact structures of human unconsciousness. This indicates that darker zones of language are more compelling than the brighter zones. The limits of the darker zones can’t be known. The scope of the spoken language, as we know, is limited to a few hundred pages of a dictionary. The real artistry of an artist is to create something extraordinary with the limited lexicon of commonly used words.

Words per se are neither ordinary nor extraordinary. It is their usage that makes them so, including a touch of creativity such as ‘He beads pearls in his poetry’. What Mir is claiming in the couplets mentioned above is that he feels intuitively. He himself is wonderstruck at what he has achieved. He is proud of the effect, of what has been created in a gush. Undoubtedly, the author himself is the first private reader, that is why he may revise, chisel or refine the text, sometimes more than once. But the sum total of the readers over the years form the reception of the writer. The French literary critic Roland Barthes was of the opinion that the writer and their work can only propose meanings; it is the reader who disposes them. Criticism itself is nothing but reading. But all the readers are not at the same level. There are sophisticated and informed readers as well as non-critical readers. Firaq Gorakhpuri is reported to have said that in the case of Mir everything ordinary becomes extraordinary. Ordinary language does not remain ordinary language; it is transformed into a magical poetic language that has multiple meanings.

Function of Deep Structures

sahl hai Mir ka samajhana kya

har sukhan us ka ik muqaam se hai

It is not easy to grasp Mir’s work.

Each verse is from somewhere—

unknown and unknowable.

zulf sa pechdaar hai har she’r

hai sukhan Mir ka a’jab dhab ka

Every she’r is like the ringlet

of the beauty’s curly tresses.

Mir’s verse is of a different class.

What is the true significance of the ringlets of curly tresses, or putting pearls into a string, or creating magic that astounds the reader? One process of the transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary is relational. Relationships between words and their meanings are created with the help of some already available poetic devices and modes. But Mir creatively makes use of additional modes which have no given name. Mir’s special ability lies in the fact that he brings to surface deeper structures to mesh with the ordinary speaking language. He does this with an incredible skill without making the reader conscious of this change.

kaha main ne kitna hai gul ka sabaat

kali ne y sun kar tabassum kiya

I asked the rose bud,

‘How long is the life of a flower?’

The bud listened and smiled.

At the surface, the language of the couplet above is quite ordinary. But if we look closely there is a world of meaning hidden behind it. The reference to rose, bud, or the flower itself is not extraordinary as such references