S. R. Faruqi:

In this verse there's such a 'hot market' for affinities and wordplay as would scarcely be found anywhere. Thus ʿalāqah means 'relationship', but ʿalāqah likhvānā also means 'to record a land or realm, etc., in someone's name'. Thus ʿalāqah has an affinity with likhvānā , and they both have an affinity with daftar (because when there's an ʿalāqah , then there will also be a daftar with an account of its papers, notes, income and expenses).

Then, tere hāth se likhvāʾegā -- that is, it will compel you to write, to go on writing. The meaning of tajarrud is 'solitude', and the meaning of jarīdah is daftar , or a journal or newspaper. But tajarrud also means 'unmarried'. Thus 'solitude' is of two kinds. And in the records [daftar] of solitude too, you will be fard (that is, 'single, alone', and 'unique'). But daftar also means 'list', and a solitary verse is also called fard , and a piece of paper too is called fard , and then fard also means 'individual person'. (For example, us makān meñ chār fard rahte haiñ .)

Then, with regard to the affinity of likhvānā , daftar , jarīdah , and fard itself, there is qalam . And there's an affinity too between tajarrud and qalam , because a pen is straight like the letter alif , and alif is a symbol of ek , which is usually alone. (For this reason, alif is also a symbol of oneness.) If we take qalam-sā to be Persian, then the meaning emerges [from sāyīdan] as 'rubbing/rubber of a pen'. That is, 'in the offices of solitude, you alone will be pen-rubbing'.

In short, it's a singular picture-gallery, in which the intellect is stupefied. To call the pen 'solitary' is Mir's invention. For in [the dictionary] bahār-e ʿajam there's no mention of it. Why he has called the pen 'solitary', I have already explained above. Then, there's also the point that the pen goes on moving forward, and its written words go on being left behind. This too is a proof of its solitude.

In the third divan, Mir himself has said [{1227,4}]:

uns agar un nau-ḳhat̤ān-e shahr se manz̤ūr hai
apnī parchhāʾīñ se bhī jūñ ḳhāmah tum vaḥshat karo

[if you seek affection from those newly-downy-cheeked ones of the city
show wildness/panic toward your own shadow, as a pen does]

This verse is not very good. He has brought in the pen because of the affinity with nau-ḳhat̤ān [since ḳhat̤ also means 'line, handwriting, letter'], that's all. But at the present verse, Shakespeare himself would have been entranced.

FWP:

SETS == WORDPLAY
MOTIFS == COMMERCE; WRITING
NAMES
TERMS == AFFINITY; WORDPLAY

SRF considers this to be a 'continuous' ghazal; for discussion, see {910,1}.

This verse indeed demands to be part of at least a 'verse-sequence', if not a 'continuous ghazal', because within the verse itself we have no subject for the first line. Who or what will 'cause you to write'? Only from verse {910,2} can we learn that the subject is 'passion' (or perhaps, technically, the 'practice of passion'). And only from verse {910,1} can we learn why 'passion' will be able to do this.

Here's a verse so utterly criss-crossed with fault lines of wordplay that you could break it almost anywhere and take it in several directions, for various permutations of meaning. It makes my head spin! It's almost entirely untranslatable, as you can see from my clumsy and overloaded-- but still very incomplete!-- attempt above.