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mīr kā ḥāl nah pūchho kuchh tum kuhnah ribāt̤ se pīrī meñ
raqṣ-kunāñ bāzār tak āʾe ʿālam meñ rusvāʾī huʾī
1) don't you ask anything about Mir's situation/'state'!-- from an old hospice/inn, in {old age / venerableness},
2) dancing, he came as far as the market; in the world/'state', disgrace/exposure occurred
ḥāl : 'State, condition, circumstance, case, predicament, situation; existing or present state... ; a state of ecstasy, frenzy, or religious transport'. (Platts p.473)
ribāt̤ : 'A building for the accommodation of travellers and their beasts, an inn, a caravansary; a hospice; a religious house'. (Platts p.586)
pīrī : 'Old age, senility, decrepitude; —the status or condition of a priest, or of a saint; —rule, authority, power, influence'. (Platts p.298)
ʿālam : 'The world, the universe; men, people, creatures; regions; kingdom (in comp., e.g. 'vegetable-kingdom'); —age, period, time, season; state, condition, case, circumstances; a state of beauty; a beautiful sight or scene'. (Platts p.764)
FWP:
SETS == GESTURES; INEXPRESSIBILITY
MOTIFS
NAMES
TERMS == RHYME; THEMEThe first line makes it very probable that the speaker is not Mir himself, but someone who is reporting to a friend (addressed with the familiar tum ) about Mir's behavior: 'As for what Mir has been up to-- don't even ask!'. It seems that the speaker is rolling his eyes, and is probably deploring such scandalous conduct. But of course, we have no idea at all what Mir himself might think, since the verse reports only a 'gesture' of his, devoid of any explanation from him.
But we do have a suggestion, in the form of pīrī meñ , which can mean not only 'in old age' (and thus perhaps in senility or even dementia), but also 'in the state of being a pīr ', or a venerable religious (and especially Sufistic) elder who may exercise considerable spiritual authority. Thus we're pushed toward noticing the ḥāl , with its heavy and explicit Sufistic possibilities so well elucidated by SRF, and also the ʿālam , which can mean 'state, condition, circumstances' (see the definitions above).
And it's impossible not to think of (who else?) Mansur, who created an even bigger scandal, and paid a worse price for it than mere 'disgrace'; though of course, he may not have considered his death a 'price' at all. Perhaps 'Mir' too was making a public demonstration of sheer ecstasy because he couldn't help it-- or was it to draw the market people toward Sufism, or to show the market people that he was absolutely outside their worldly concerns, or to demonstrate to his own disciples how far one in a mystical 'state' might legitimately (?) go? Perhaps he felt that concealing the mystical dance practices within a ribāt̤ was no longer desirable, or no longer necessary, or no longer possible? Since we have to imagine for ourselves what the 'Mir' figure may have thought, the possibilities are bounded only by our imaginations. An effect most elegantly created by the real Mir, the poet.