Ghazal 123, Verse 4

{123,4}

jaan kar kiije ta;Gaaful kih kuchh ummiid bhii ho
yih nigaah-e ;Gala:t-andaaz to sam hai ham ko

1) knowingly/'having known' let negligence be practiced, so that there would be even/also some hope
2) this gaze of wrong measurement/estimation is poison to us

Notes:

kiije is an archaic form of the passive, kiyaa jaa))e (GRAMMAR)

 

ta;Gaaful : 'Unmindfulness, heedlessness, forgetfulness, neglect, negligence, inattention, inadvertence, indifference, listlessness'. (Platts p.328)

 

andaaz : 'Measure, measurement; quality... valuing, valuation, value; rough estimate; conjecture... elegance, grace; mode, manner, style, fashion, pattern'. (Platts p.90)

 

samm (of which sam is a variant): 'Poison, venom'. (Platts p.671)

Nazm:

That is, if having known me as your lover you practice negligence then there would also/even be some hope of mercy coming. But such a glance of non-acquaintance is poison for me. (132)

== Nazm page 132

Hasrat:

In 'knowingly practice negligence' too a kind of pleasure is hidden. (103)

Bekhud Dihlavi:

'Having known'-- that is, having understood-- if you avert your eyes from me intentionally, then hope for mercy can be maintained. But to look with such a glance of unfamiliarity is, for me, not less than poison. (185)

Bekhud Mohani:

You neglect me; I don't forbid this. But do it after having considered me as your lover, so that I can hope that if not today, then sometime mercy might come. But a glance like that of strangers is, toward me, poison. (248)

FWP:

SETS == BHI
GAZE: {10,12}

There's a three-way wordplay and meaning-play in this one: between knowing [jaan'naa]; neglecting or ignoring [ta;Gaaful karnaa]; and [making] erroneous judgments [;Gala:t-andaaz]. And as Hasrat points out, the juxtaposition of 'knowingly to practice negligence' [jaan kar ta;Gaaful karnaa] makes an enjoyably paradoxical effect.

In particular, ;Gala;t-andaaz has an elegant range of meanings. Perhaps the beloved doesn't recognize the lover at all; her eye passes over him as if he were a stranger. Or perhaps she sees him as vaguely familiar, but thinks he is somebody else. Or perhaps she recognizes him, but has a mistakenly low opinion about him, and thus ignores him.

What the lover begs for is the reassurance of knowing that she's ignoring or neglecting him knowingly, deliberately, with malice aforethought, because if she's taken that much trouble, she's at least not indifferent. She's at least aware of his identity and value, even if she refuses to acknowledge it. Another verse along the same general lines: {148,2}.

This verse is really pretty much one-dimensional and prose-paraphraseable. The sam doesn't have any affinity with the rest of the verse. That's the real deficiency. It feels as though the rhyming elements am hai ham ko , and above all the need to find suitable words ending in the rhyme-syllable am , may have proved to be a bit of a constraint in this case.