Here are two charming and cleverly crafted shers. The first one plays with words, the second plays with numbers.
arz hai:
nukta-chīñ shauq se din rāt mire aib nikāl
kyūñ k jab aib nikal jāyeñ hunar bachta hai
The poet is Rehman Faris (b. 1976).
A rough translation:
fault-finder, please do find my faults night and day
because when faults are gone, virtue will stay
A nukta-chīñ is someone who likes to find faults in others. It refers to a person who is hypercritical, and tends to raise petty objections. The word nikālna, as in the phrase “aib nikālna”, means “to pick out”. nikālna also means to extract, or remove. The sher cleverly exploits these two meanings of the word. The nukta-chīñ is being critical, and is finding faults in the speaker. But instead of being offended, the speaker thanks him for doing him a favor by removing his faults. There is a playful irony here: the speaker invites the critic to continue his fault-finding, turning what is normally an insult into a form of assistance.
The thought behind the wit is also sound: criticism, though unpleasant, can lead to self-improvement.
Here’s the maqta of the Ghazal, containing the taKhallus (poet’s name):
ishq vo ilm-e-riyāzi hai k jis meñ ‘faris’
do se jab ek nikaleñ to sifar bachta hai
ilm-e-riyāzi: mathematics
sifar: zero, nothing, void
ek: one
do: two
love is that kind of mathematics where
from two when you take away one, what remains is zero
Love is described as a kind of mathematics in which ordinary arithmetic fails. The axioms of love are different. If two lovers become one emotional unit, then removing one leaves the other as nothing. Separation equals annihilation.
Interestingly, both shers hinge on the idea of removal (nikālna). In the first, removing faults leaves virtue; in the second, removing one lover leaves nothing. In both, subtraction leaves an unexpected result.
