nafas ho nah ma((zuul-e shu((lah-duruudan
kih .zab:t-e tapish se sharar-kaar hai;N ham
1) may the breath not be displaced/deposed from flame-reaping!
2) since from the restraining of heat/agitation, we are spark-sowing
ma((zuul : 'Removed, deposed, displaced, dismissed (from office); degraded; dethroned'. (Platts p.1048)
duruudan : 'To reap, mow, cut down'. (Steingass p.515)
.zab:t : 'Keeping, taking care of, guarding, defending, watching over, ruling, governing; regulation, government, direction, discipline; restraint, control'. (Platts p.748)
tapish : 'Heat, warmth; distress (esp. that caused by heat); affliction; agitation; palpitation'. (Platts p.309)
kaar : ' ... sowing ...'. (Steingass p.1002)
That is, may the breath keep on collecting the harvest from the field of flames. Because when we sowed only/emphatically sparks, then in our field what else will be created except flames?
shu((lah duruudan = To reap a harvest of flame. sharar-kaar = One who sows sparks. We have restrained our writhing and burning, and sowed sparks in our breast. The result of this will be that we will cut down a crop of flame. May this crop of flames not push aside our breath! That is, may the intensity of the flames not cause life itself to gradually take leave.
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
If you are confused about nafas vs. nafs , see {15,6}.
Usually a metaphor like this would have ominous overtones: think of the Biblical 'For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind' (Hosea 8:7), or the Greek story of Cadmus, who sowed a dragon's teeth and reaped ferocious warriors. Here, however, the imagery has been framed in just the opposite way. The speaker sounds like a farmer claiming the right to his harvest, and hoping not to be deprived of it.
For after all, the sparks he sowed were his own: they were generated by his practice of restraining his inner 'heat' and agitation. (This practice sounds intriguingly close to the widespread Indic concept of tapas.) And having done the spark-sowing himself, with spark-seeds that he himself generated, how unjust it would be if he were denied the chance to reap his harvest of flames!
The verse only hints at the nature of his concern: ma((zuul implies a decline in status (see the definition above). Gyan Chand suggests that the intensity of the flames might deprive the speaker of the ability to breathe, and thus kill him; this is certainly a possible notion. But the general thrust of ma((zuul is to convey a kind of social, positional, status-based concern (more like a worry about being kicked out of the country club, than like a worry about dying). Like any farmer, he hopes for a fine harvest (of flames!)-- one that will do him credit, and will support him in the future. Perhaps we are meant simply to consider him a madman?
Asi:
The breath ought to be continually doing flame-reaping, and ought never to be dismissed from flame-obtaining. Because from the restraint of heat, we have become spark-sowing, and have become a spark from head to foot. Thus to some extent the breath would keep doing spark-scattering; no harm can come to us.
== Asi, p. 159