ham ne sau za;xm-e jigar par bhii zabaa;N paidaa nah kii
gul hu))aa hai ek za;xm-e siinah par ;xvaahaan-e daad
1) even/also from a hundred liver-wounds, we did not create a tongue
2) the rose has become, from a single/particular/unique/excellent breast-wound, a seeker of justice
gul honaa : 'To be extinguished; to go out (a lamp or candle)'. (Platts p.911)
;xvaahaan : 'Wishing, desiring; desirous; — desirer, seeker'. (Platts p.495)
That is, 'Our liver has received a hundred wounds. Even so, we never uttered a groan. Look at the rose, who is seeking justice for a single wound in the breast.' His hundred wounds are deep (in the liver); the rose's wound is superficial. He has considered the 'laughing' of the rose to be a complaint, and has called the 'smiling' of the rose a cry for justice.
In our liver are hundreds of wounds, but we didn't open our mouth to complain. The red, full-blooming flower, which is open like a wound in the breast, is complaing about only a single wound. Since it is continuously displaying that wound, it was considered to be a justice-seeker.
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
The speaker seems to consider his own stoic behavior as exemplary, and to contrast it with that of the rose. But is the rose's behavior necessarily culpable? After all, the full-blown red rose, with a deep cavity in its 'heart', is mortally wounded (in the sense that in a few days it will be dead). This cavity has more often been construed as a mouth opened in 'laughter' or a 'smile' (in contrast to the tight, 'narrow' confinement of the bud); but it certainly makes a very plausible wound-- and of course, a wound also creates its own 'mouth'. So the tough silence of the lover may be one response to deep wounds, and the vivid self-display of the dying rose may simply be another. For they are responses to two different kinds of wounds-- one kind seemingly endurable, the other kind hopelessly mortal.
But it's also possible to go with Zamin, and invoke the heart-versus-liver contrast (on the nature of their division of labor, see {30,2}). On Zamin's reading, that 'single' or 'particular' or 'unique' or even 'excellent' wound in the breast or heart is more 'superficial'-- not to mention the sheer weight of a hundred liver-wounds versus one heart-wound. Thus on Zamin's reading, the rose seems to be something of a whiner, or at least incapable of the speaker's lover-like endurance.
Asi:
Comparing us to the rose, he has said, look at us-- we who were wounded a hundred times in the liver and never uttered a groan; and look at the rose-- who has been wounded once in the breast, and is restless/agitated from that. For this he is seeking justice from the world.
== Asi, pp. 110-111