The Luster of the Mirror - आब-ए-आईना

आए जौहरी क्या आप ने एक मोती गुम कर दिया
इत्तिफ़ाक़न हमें यह हमारे लुग़त में मिला
- Bill Howard ‘फ़ानूस’

(इत्तिफ़ाक़न=सांयोगिक, अकस्मात से; लुग़त = शब्दकोश; फ़ानूस = Lantern, Bill Howard का तख़ल्लुस या उपनाम)

اے جوھری کيا آپ نے ايک موتی گم کر ديا
اتفاقا ہمیں يہ ہمارے لغت ميں ملا

' فانوس 'Bill Howard -

Quite by chance I stumbled across a sweet pearl of an expression in my Urdu dictionary. It goes quite well with our chain of shers, Reflections on Mirrors. The phrase is आब-ए-आईना (آبِ ائنہ), which I think is a beautiful metaphor. In Urdu and Hindi, if the gender of the word आब is masculine, it means water. If its gender is feminine, it means luster or brightness. When I think of the phrase आब-ए-आईना, however, to me it is a metaphor drawing on the different meanings of आब. I get a picture in my mind of the reflections off of the smooth surface of a pond formed by the frame of the mirror.

As I wrote in The Sweetness of Urdu, “हर एक लफ़्ज़ (शब्द) मोती होता है! हर एक शेर हार होता है!” !ہر ايک لفظ موتی ہوتا ہے! ہر ايک شعرہار ہوتا ہے

The metaphor of the pearl is used by Firaq Gorakhpuri in an anthology of his work that I am currently reading:

आब-ओ-ताब-ए-अशार न पूछो तुम भी आँखें रखो हो
यह जगमग बत्तियों की दमक है या हम मोती रोले हैं

- फ़िराक़ गोरखपुरी

(आब-ओ-ताब = beauty, grandeur; अशार = plural of शेर)

آب و تابِ اشعار نہ پوچھو تم بہی آنکہيں رکھو ہو
يہ جگ مگ بتيوں کی دمک ہے يا ہم موپی رولے ہيں

فراق گورکھپوري

Certainly, in great अशार, we should be impressed by the मोती की आब.