nah ;zauq-e garebaa;N nah parvaa-e daamaa;N
nigah-aashnaa-e gul-o-;xaar hai;N ham
1) neither relish/taste for the collar, nor care for the garment-hem
2) we are gaze-familiar with the rose and the thorn
nigaah (of which nigah is a shortened form): 'Look, glance, sight, view, regard; consideration; — look, aspect (of); — watching, observation, attention; — custody, care'. (Platts p.1151)
aashnaa : 'Acquaintance; friend; associate; intimate friend, familiar; ... — adj. Acquainted (with, - se ), knowing, known; attached (to), fond (of)'. (Platts p.58)
That is, we look at the state of the roses (we are gaze-familiar), and of the thorns too-- how the evil ones clutch on to the collars and garment-hems of the good ones. Thie experience has made us detached from the collar and the garment-hem.
We have no ardor for protecting the collar, nor do we care about the garment-hem. Because we recognize the gaze of rose and thorn. The rose is saying, 'Why do you worry about the collar? After all, it will have to be torn!'. The thorn is saying, 'Even if you would take a thousand-fold care of the garment-hem, I will tangle myself in it and lodge there!'.
SETS == A,B; LIST
CHAK-E GAREBAN: {17,9}
CLOTHING/NAKEDNESS: {3,5}
GAZE: {10,12}
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
The first line is a kind of verb-free negative 'list' (for more on these, see {4,4}), and thus remains uninterpretable. Once we're allowed-- after a mushairah-performance delay, of course-- to hear the second line, we're left with two separate statements: (1) The speaker has no regard for either his collar (on the lover's collar see {17,9}) or his garment-hem. (2) The speaker is on at least somewhat friendly or familiar terms with the rose and the thorn.
How are these statements to be connected? As so often, the choice is left entirely up to us. The structure of the verse-- 'not A, not B / instead, C, D'-- invites us to try 'A is to C, as B is to D'. That almost works-- but not quite. For the relationship between the collar (which will be torn) and the rose (which will have its petals 'torn' away as it withers) is one of a shared similar doom; but the relationship between the garment-hem (which will be torn, or at least draggled and stained) and the thorn (which might, or might not, tear the garment-hem), is harder to pin down.
Here are a few possible ways to make the connection:
=The speaker disregards his garments because he knows they are doomed to destruction-- just as the rose will shed her petals and the thorn will die with her.
=The rose with its doomed petals inspires the speaker to rip open his collar; the thorn inspires him to surrender his garment-hem to become torn and tattered in its turn.
=The speaker, in his mad passion, is entirely fixated on the rose and its thorn; he has no attention whatsoever to spare for trivialities like his own garments.
Asi:
Now there is neither relish for the collar, nor care for the garment-hem. We are a beholder of the rose and the thorn; the garment-hem became drawn into the thorns and was stuck there. And the flowers made us forget about the collar.
== Asi, p. 159