Ghazal 108, Verse 14x

Asi:

Those people who bind up medicine in paper-- that is, medicine-sellers-- they too feel sorrow and plaintiveness over your sick one. Or else this: that [other] beloveds themselves feel pity.

== Asi, p. 166

Zamin:

'Those who tie up medicine in paper'-- that is, they cause medicine to wear a paper robe, and a paper robe is the symbol of a plaintiff (see {1,1}). If in the mind of the poet the meaning of this verse is that the complaint against your sick ones is because they drink whole pharmacies dry but don't get well, then it's all right; and that too, if the medicines are taken without payment and by force. And if the meaning is that they weep and beat their breast for your sick one, then the usage of faryaadii is not appropriate in Urdu idiom. In any case, there's some reason for which he omitted the verse [from the divan].

== Zamin, p. 243

Gyan Chand:

Those druggists who tie up [packets of] medicine for those sick with passion are making a complaint. They have become annoyed with tying up packets of medicine day after day. Or else, they can see that these sick ones are not destined to be saved. Thus they heave sighs of lamentation.

== Gyan Chand, p. 269

FWP:

SETS

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 For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.

The commentators can do no more than guess at the cause of the druggists' becoming plaintiffs about the one who is 'sick' with love. Perhaps they complain because he exhausts their remedies and his health never improves. Perhaps it's because he ignores them and disdains their remedies. Perhaps it's because they feel sorry for him and thus are 'plaintiffs' on his behalf to the beloved. Zamin even sees an echo of {1,1}, with the paper packets of medicine evoking the 'paper robes' attributed to justice-seekers.

The chief pleasure the verse offers is the pleasure of cudgelling our brains to figure it out. But in this case, the game hardly seems to be worth the candle.