kyā hai gar bad-nāmī-o-ḥālat-tabāhī bhī nah ho
ʿishq kaisā jis meñ itnī rū-siyāhī bhī nah ho
1) what is there, if there would not be even/also ill-repute and ruination of condition?!
2) what kind of passion, in which there would not be even/also this much disgrace?!
The verse's qalandar-like dignity, or the obstinacy/insistence of the tone, is worthy of praise. In this tone the informal way that bad-nāmī-o-ḥālat-tabāhī mixes Urdu and Persian is also greatly effective. There is an extraordinary carelessness; and the carelessness with which he has used language works as an 'objective correlative' [maʿrūẓī talāzumah] for the carelessness and freedom of the speaker's temperament.
The refrain has also been incorporated with extreme excellence in both lines. Usually it's difficult to maintain such a refrain, and in the opening-verse it's even more difficult. But for the poet, who was in his prime in years and in temperament, nothing was difficult.
In the first line kyā hai , and in the second line ʿishq kaisā , work excellently to strengthen each other. Otherwise, with regard to the theme of the first line, instead of kyā hai this would normally have been a place for kyā fāʾidah or kyā ḳhūb . Now, the insha'iyah style of ʿishq kyā hai (that is, is that passion even a passion at all?) becomes a cause of additional beauty in both lines.
