Ghazal 428x, Verse 6

Zamin:

That is, although desire/lust is impudent in the pursuit of its intention, still the lover prefers to drop dead in thirsting for her cruelty. A brick is senseless and motionless-- how much more so the brick of the grave! This is exaggeration upon exaggeration, for the representation of endurance and long-sufferingness.

== Zamin, p. 456

Gyan Chand:

jafā-shoḳh = someone who would, out of mischief, seek cruelty. havas-gustāḳh = insolent desire; that is, to be inclined toward insolence through desire/lust. havas-gustāḳh-e mat̤lab = one who would be insolent in the desire/lust for achieving his purpose; that is, one ardent for the achievement of his desire/lust and purpose. nafas duzdīdan = to hold the breath [sāñs band karnā].

The breath is held in its body, but the poet has insisted on holding it in the form/body of the brick of the tomb. Here qālib has two meanings. With regard to the poet, it means 'body'; and with regard to the brick, it means 'mould'. By qālib-e ḳhisht-e laḥad is meant the laḥad itself. The meaning becomes, 'Granted that the lover desires cruelty, and that he always has a mind to achieve his purpose, still he ought also to remain prepared to go into the grave and hold his breath-- that is, he ought to remain inclined toward oblivion.

== Gyan Chand, pp. 486-487

FWP:

SETS == IDIOMS; MAGAR; SUBJECT?

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.

If you find the word nafas confusing, see {15,6}.

The first line is awkward and grammatically unclear. Gyan Chand's reading, which he explains clearly, is reflected in the first translation (1a). The second translation (1b) reflects Zamin's reading, more or less. The first line is basically meant to establish the lover's mad, obsessive, masochistic behavior, and thus set up a context for the second line.

The second line has structural features that highlight several of Ghalib's characteristic devices. One such device is an often serpentine use of idioms. In Urdu, 'to steal the breath' [sāñs churānā] is an established idiom (see the definition above) meaning 'to hold the breath' or 'to pretend to be dead'. Here the verse does not use that idiom, but evokes it through the Persianized duzdīdanī -- which has been separated as much as possible from the nafas , and has been placed in the emphatic closural position, since it forms the interpretive key to the verse.

The other device is a somewhat īhām-like feature that I call 'double activation'; for discussion, see {120,3}. Rarely do the commentators mention such devices, but in this case Gyan Chand notes it very clearly: 'Here qālib has two meanings. With regard to the poet, it means 'body'; and with regard to the brick, it means 'mould'.' And by 'double activation' I mean that Ghalib compels us to recognize both meanings, without rejecting either one. For as we (ideally) hear the second line, we naturally take nafas dar qālib to mean 'the breath in the body'. But then when we go on to qālib-e ḳhisht , we can't fail to take it as 'the mould of the brick'. We are left with both meanings fully potentiated within the verse.

So apparently the radically mad lover would consider his own breath to be held (or holdable?) in the grave-- so that he might not really be dead, but only play-acting (for reasons we must deduce somehow from the first line). And/or, he would consider the 'brick of the grave-side' itself to be holding its breath (out of amazement, or admiration?). After all that analytical exertion, there's not much reward. 'The mountain has labored, and brought forth a mouse.' Still, even Ghalib's mice are intriguing in their own way.

The verse should also get 'fresh word' credit for the quite unusual and striking laḥad , which doesn't appear at all in the published divan.