FWP:
SETS == EK; WORDPLAY
BONDAGE: {1,5}
DESERT: {3,1}
Consider {1,5}, which is such a similar verse: in that one too, the first line asserts a general fact-- the lover's incorrigible restlessness even when physically chained up-- and the second line makes a related word/meaning play. In {1,5} the basis is fire: the speaker is 'hot-footed' with restlessness, so that each link of his chain is a burnt hair.
In the present verse, the basis is sheer roundness: there's no way to prevent the speaker from wandering or, literally, 'going round' in the desert. Because the chain on his feet, composed of round links that should fetter him, is really nothing but a chakkar , a 'circle' or 'round' (as in 'making the rounds'). But of course, it's ek chakkar too, with all the multivalent possibilities, dismissive or laudatory or particularizing, of that ek .
Both these verses are excellent, and very similar, examples
of vintage Ghalibian wordplay. There's nothing much else going
on in them except a classic ghazal theme (almost identical in both verses)
expressed in carefully chosen words that add conceptual richness. But in a
two-line verse, isn't such wordplay enough? The lines have a strong and multivalent
connection that is a great
source of pleasure to the mind, the eye, and (if they're recited) to the ear
as well.
Hali:
The same meaning that has already been expressed in the first line-- how excellently he has expressed it in a new aspect in the second line.... it is perfect rhetoric [balaa;Gat].
==Urdu text: Yadgar-e Ghalib, p. 146