Who steals my purse steals solid cash: Speak for me, Shakespeare and Ghālib

 

Let me begin in a sombre mood, as very soon, it would be all inanities, and worse than that, profanities.

 

Sad jalva rū-ba-rū hai jo mizhgāñ uThā.iye

tāqat   kahāñ   ki  diid   kā  ehsāñ  uThā.iye

(Sad jalva: a hundred grand appearances, spectacles, rū-ba-rū: face to face, mizhgāñ: eyebrows, diid: sight, ehsāñ: obligation)

Dīvār bār-e-minnat-e-mazdūr se hai ḳham

ai  ḳhānumāñ-ḳharāb  na  ehsāñ uThā.iye

(bār-e-minnat-e-mazdūr: weight of the kindness of the labourers, ḳhānumāñ-ḳharāb: one whose home is ruined, ehsāñ: obligation) 

 

Hundreds of colorful spectacles (of her or his charisma) are visible once you lift your eyebrows, where is the strength to witness his immense power? Who has the strength to bear this obligation of vision and drink in all the moods and hues? A man goes on looking, and looking, and he gets tired but the marvels of her magnificence or his omnipotence are unending.

 

Interpreting this sher as a romantic one, as soon as he opens his eyes, he sees his beloved and he gets the feeling that hundreds of lights are illuminated in front of him. He is dazzled by the glow of these lights of her beauty. He is so happy that he feels very much indebted to his beloved for affording him such an appearance, but at the same time, he has no strength to carry this burden of her obligation. Another sense is that our sensitive mind is unable to bear the burden of the kindness of the gaze; we only enjoy the promenade and spectacle of the world if we keep our eyes closed. The first misra could well also be an offer of myriad of worldly temptations which ought to be refused.

 

The sher can be interpreted equally well for the supreme being. Metaphorically, bearing a burden of obligation in English roughly covers the sense of ehsāñ uThā.iye, with the burden being the magical sights bestowed upon you. You have no ability to unload this burden and you are destined to be indebted forever.

 

The beauty of construction and thought here are in the act of lifting, first one’s eyelids and then lifting the weight of the beneficence of the vision presented. Lifting of eyelids may seem easy but since that would lead to a display of something which would be a heavy burden, it in itself is a heavy weight to lift.

 

For the second sher, let us borrow some thoughts from the matla. The weight of obligation is so burdensome that even the walls of your house lack the toughness to support it and therefore it has become bent under this load of the kindness of the workmen who built the house. O, One whose home has been ruined, as long as you live in the world, don't carry the burden of anyone's kind favour, take a lesson from the walls of your wrecked house that even such strong objects get bowed keeping a stony burden lifted.

 

Talking more in terms of real-world, and not metaphorical debts, in The Merchant of Venice, the profligate Bassanio talks glibly of his heavy indebtedness to his friend, Antonio, who is also his bigtime creditor. He explains to the latter how he has been living in extravagant and frivolous ways, the ‘swelling port than my faint means’,  but now seeks an honorable settlement by paying the debts off. It would seem that now he does have a sense of propriety to be a responsible man although he has been behaving in an immaturely nonchalant manner:

 

“’Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance.
Nor do I now make moan to be abridged
From such a noble rate. But my chief care
Is to come fairly off from the great debts
Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most in money and in love,
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburden all my plots and purposes
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.”

 

Bassanio’s speech reminds one of this famous sher of Ghālib:

 

Qarz kī piite the mai lekin samajhte the ki haañ

Rang    lāvegī     hamārī    fāqa-mastī    ek    din

(fāqa-mastī: cheerfulness in starvation)

 

I used to drink wine on borrowed money even as I was fully aware of the consequences; I knew that that drunken and cheerful profligacy in the middle of abject poverty of starvation would certainly show its true colours in some severe comeuppance. Eff that, this is Ghālib, the genius, not an ordinary run-of-the-mill sinner or inebriate. I will not go with this simplistic repentant and moralizing meaning based on anecdotes about his drinking and look for tongue-in-cheek. Although it begins with a repentant tone, I will go with the positive meaning of rang layegi or brightening things up. The sher celebrates his habit of intoxication as a virtue, not sin, which would bring good cheer. Marvel at his aplomb and sang froid, which even in the face of a dire situation and deprivation, he drinks to his heart’s content and is buoyant in the firm hope that this reckless indulgence would bring prosperity and contentment as a result of his positive outlook even under dire conditions of need and deprivation in poverty. The sher is far from apologetic, but in fact, self-congratulatory.

 

Polonius in Hamlet, many times fashioned as a fool in speeches, gets this spot on, that imposing a debt burden on a friend is a bad idea because you will end up without money and friends. “For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” Really? Do we all not have great liberal friends? 

 

First Gaoler in Cymbeline, looks at the bright side for the condemned prisoner, Lenatus, and tells him that while he is not in a great situation, a great comfort is that he need not pay his drinks tab. “But the comfort is, you shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern-bills.”

 

Stephano in Tempest goes one step further than the said jailer and says that you do not have to pay back anything at all if you die, “He that dies pays all debts.” How’s that?

 

Friends, I am enjoying myself now from some serious ‘burdens’ to some flippant sayings from the two masters. Have some fun. I would say that you should read all about money and debts that Shakespeare and Ghālib bunged at you and choose what fancies you the best, and trust me, you will find exactly what you fancy, such is their pleasurable ambivalence.

 

Bazm-e-shāhanshāh meñ ash.ār kā daftar  khulā

rakhiyo yā  rab  ye dar-e-ganjīna-e-gauhar khulā

(daftar: office, scroll, registry, dar-e-ganjīna-e-gauhar: door of the treasury of gems)

 

Ignore the deeper meaning, going for the literal meaning as it suits us and wish that some bountiful dafter and its doors do open for you!

 

Ford, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, is my man. Although the bard’s works show nothing if not that money complicates things, this chap did catch the core and that is the fact that money does make life much easier, in oiling your car, handling concerns, purchasing respect and opening up opportunities. Hear him, “If money go before, all ways do lie open.”

 

The poet in the bard did make that villain Iago say in Othello, “Who steals my purse steals trash. 'Tis something, nothing:  'Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands.” Now, whatever be the metaphor, and Iago’s take on good reputation and invaluable gems, celebrate that money does have true and lasting value for its owner.  

 

Then you have Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, adding distinct wisdom to your life that one must make your money work for you. The word ‘on’ has been used weirdly as a verb, but where is the doubt that money can indeed be your fighter in life? So friends, remember, “Money is a good soldier, and will on.”

 

What better than Bastard’s wisdom, in The Life and Death of King John, that we modulate our actions to fit our finances. Consider today’s electoral democracy and its functioning on the ground, where many voters resort to curry favours towards their financial interests, with scant regard to consistent ideology and so lines between political left and right are blurred, bar the shouting. Lo behold, we all must accept the bastard’s philosophy. “Whiles I am a beggar, I will rail and say there is no sin but to be rich; and being rich, my virtue then shall be to say there is no vice but beggary.”

 

Let me end the shower of these pearls of wisdom from two masters with a complete negation of the philosophy of money being trash and with a clear assertion that, yes, when I bite the dust, I would go after it to safekeep or return all that was mine, when I was alive:

 

Maqdūr ho to ḳhaak se pūchhūñ ki ai la.iim

tū  ne  vo    ganj-hā-e-garāñ-māya kyā  kiye

(Maqdūr:ability, capacity, la.iim: sordid, miserly, vile, mean ganj-hā-e-garāñ-māya: strongly precious treasures.)

If had the ability, I would ask the miserly earth as to what it had done with all those precious treasures which were consigned to it along with me.

  (to be continued…)

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