Ghazal 29, Verse 6x

Zamin:

The beloved said, 'Versify the themes of the thirst of ardor'. At once we unrestrainedly versified even the ocean as a shore; that is, we used exaggeration. On that, see {29,9x}.

== Zamin, p. 41

Gyan Chand:

We guessed that the beloved was inclined to listen to words about the intensity of passion and the thirst of ardor. With great eloquence we expressed them. We showed that everything is absorbed in the thirst of longing-- for example, the shore is thirsty and the sea is wet. We achieved even this: that we showed that even the sea was thirsty like the shore. That is, the sea too is absorbed in the thirst of desire for the beloved.

== Gyan Chand, p. 87

FWP:

SETS == POETRY

For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices. This verse is NOT one of his choices; I thought it was interesting and have added it myself. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.

Raza doesn't include this verse, nor does the Hamidiyah, but Gyan Chand does. It's of course a cousin of {29,4}, the one that was selected for the divan.

For more on the literary sense of baa;Ndhnaa , see {29,2}.

It's worthwhile to compare the present verse with {29,4}, its more fortunate, published cousin. (And {29,4} was deservedly selected for the divan, since it encases the same kernel in a far cleverer shell.) Both verses contain the same operative element: the literary activity in which the speaker dil khol ke daryaa ko bhii saa;hil baa;Ndhaa . To drive home the theme of the 'thirst of ardor', the speaker says that if the whole paradigmatically wet ocean is imagined as a 'dry-lipped', perpetually thirsty shore-- that is, that even having as much water as the ocean does, it is still as insatiably thirsty as the shore-- the result might be a dim glimmer of how thirsty ardor is.

And why does he do this dil khol ke ? Idiomatically, the sense is 'unrestrainedly, uninhibitedly', which is appropriate to the creation of such hyperbole. But literally, of course, the meaning is 'having opened the heart'. Physically speaking, it's possible that once the floodgates of the heart have opened, a huge torrent of ardor, passion, longing, desire rushes forth, like an ocean-- like, in fact, the ocean that's just about to be described as an endlessly thirsty shore.

Or else the sense could be that the beloved asks the lover a technical literary question-- she wants some examples of the poetic 'themes' of the thirst of ardor. But he replies only after 'having opened the heart'-- so that his reply is personal and emotional, as well as literary.