S. R. Faruqi:

This verse is a masterpiece of sarcasm and freshness of style. When passion favors someone, it does not leave him until it has ruined him. This is an entirely commonplace theme. Mir's accomplishment is that he has devised for love the metaphor of the dast-e talat̤t̤uf , and in the first line he has said an absolutely homey thing, like an instance of everyday life: aḥvāl bahut tang hai . The omission of merā , apnā , etc. before aḥvāl brings the tone of the first line every closer to everyday life.

The phrase aḥvāl bahut tang hai is a superb example of lightness/swiftness of expression, and in the second line the word 'now' also suggests that when love would first have placed the dast-e takalluf on the speaker's head, then because of inexperience he was probably happy to receive such a fine thing. How would he know that the result of this talat̤t̤uf would be heart-lacerating?

The meaning of talat̤t̤uf is 'to bring pleasure/favor/elegance [lut̤f]'. [A discussion of additional meanings in Persian.] It's clear that this final meaning of 'friendship, guardianship, support' is very interesting-- that the one whom love would support, or to whom it would reach out a hand in friendship, is beyond all help, and comes to be in a very wretched situation.

Hafiz too has well versified [in Persian] this kind of sarcastic theme:

'I present my passion, in the hope that this noble art
Will not, like other skills, become a cause for despair.'

In Hafiz's verse, the result of passion has been said to be only 'despair'-- which is a commonplace idea. Mir, by saying aḥvāl bahut tang hai , has seemingly said nothing-- and has said everything. Indeed, in Hafiz's verse to call passion a fan-e sharīf and a hunar is very fine and, as with Mir's verse, introduces the 'affairs of passion' into daily life.

Now the questions remains, of what is meant by dast-e talat̤t̤uf . In Greece the blind god of love, Cupid, makes people's hearts a mark for his arrows, but here love is some venerable, kindly friend who cherishes/caresses people with his dast-e talat̤t̤uf . Thus the one whom love would cause to increase [in passion] every day , would cause to be absorbed in love itself-- on him will be the dast-e talat̤t̤uf .

Then, there's also the fact that in the Western imagination, the god of love neither sees nor hesitates; he simply shoots an arrow and takes his leave. By contrast, in Mir's verse the vision is that between love and the lover there's some personal relationship, a mutual action and reaction. That is, love is some especially human power, and acts among humans. In Mir's verse love has been personified, but in fact Mir has here given to love a human individuality. In this there's an immediacy and a 'dramaticness'.

Passion is some extraordinary power, but in the human world it is eager to act, the way humans are. This idea Mir has expressed with supreme beauty and excellence at the beginning of two masnavis. From shuʿlah-e ʿishq :

muḥabbat ne kāṛhā hai z̤ulmat se nūr
nah hotī muḥabbat nah hotā z̤uhūr

[love has drawn forth light from darkness
if love did not exist, there would be no manifestation]

The masnavi begins with this verse. In the introduction there are thirty-two verses. The last of this is this one:

zamāne meñ aisā nahīñ tāzah kār
ġharaẓ hai yih uʿjūbah-e rozgār

[in the age, there is nothing fresh like it
in short, this is the wonder of the era]

Right after this masnavi is [the masnavi] daryā-e ʿishq , which begins like this:

ʿishq hai tāzah kār tāzah ḳhayāl
har jagah us kī ik naʾi hai chāl

[passion has fresh deeds and fresh thoughts
in every place it has a new gait/movement]

It's entirely clear that the theme on which the introduction to shuʿlah-e ʿishq ends (the fresh deeds of passion and its action in the world of men) is the same theme as at the beginning of daryā-e ʿishq . In this second introduction too there are thirty-two verses. And the final three verses act, so to speak, as a commentary on the present verse:

kām meñ apne ʿishq pakkā hai
hāñ yih nairang-sāz yakkā hai

[passion is accomplished in its action
indeed, this wonder-worker is unique]

jis ko ho us kī iltifāt naṣīb
hai vuh mihmān-e chand-rozah ġharīb

[the one to whom would be destined its favor
he is a 'guest of a few days', a stranger]

aisī taqrīb ḍhūñḍh lātā hai
kih vuh nā-chār jī se jātā hai

[it seeks out and brings a means/contact
such that that wretch leaves his life]

A final point is that in the present verse, in the longing for the renunciation of love (that is, the breaking off of a relationship with love) he has created a fresh aspect-- that the speaker himself wants to do nothing, he wants the relationship to be broken off first by passion. He's composed a fine verse.

FWP:

SETS
MOTIFS
NAMES
TERMS == MASNAVI

'...and if there has been a fault, let the Hand of Friendship turn aside the Whip of Calamity', Kim writes to Mahbub Ali in Kipling's famous novel. Similarly, the dast-e talat̤t̤uf is part of a set of formal Persianized idioms with which Mir enjoys playing.

The locus classicus for such idioms in Mir is the 'foot of seeking' (which has gone to sleep!):

{441,7}.

Further discussion and more examples will be found there.

Even more fundamentally, however, the gesture of putting the hand on someone's head is an archetypal form of blessing in South Asia. It is done by older and senior people to younger and junior ones. Ideally the young person bends to touch the elder person's feet, and then is intercepted about halfway down by the elder person, who places a hand on the younger person's head (which is then at a convenient height) and says some suitable words of kindness and blessing (the simplest form seems to be jīte raho , beṭe ). In the present verse, 'Love' is behaving like a well-intentioned (?) elder, and giving a blessing (?) to the lover. But of course, perhaps it's a little too much of a good thing; the speaker ruefully wishes that the hand would be lifted up off his head as soon as possible.