bah rang-e gul agar shiiraazah-band-e be-;xvudii rahye
hazaar aashuftagii majmuu((ah-e yak ;xvaab ho jaave
1) with the style/'color' of a rose, if one would remain binding-thread-bound by self-lessness
2) a thousand perturbations/disorders would become the compendium/collection of a single dream/sleep
aashuftagii : 'Distraction, perturbation, uneasiness; misery'. (Platts p.57)
aashuftagii : 'Perturbation, consternation, confusion, contention, disquietude, disturbance, tumult, commotion, disorder'. (Steingass p.65)
majmuu((ah : 'The collective mass (of), the whole (of), the aggregate (of); the sum (of); a crowd, an assembly; a collection; meeting; a compendium'. (Platts p.1003)
For the collection of the perturbation of the rose to be dream/sleep, is its condition as a bud. The meaning is that if you would not bloom like a rose and would control your life-breath, then it is ease upon ease. Compare the verse to this verse of Mirza's: {155,2}.
Because of its numerous petals, a flower is disordered/perturbed, but it is bound with a binding-thread. Along with this, it also seems to be self-less and intoxicated. If like a flower we too would remain self-less-- that is, would not maintain an excessive sense of our own individuality-- then even a thousand anxieties will remain for us a dream/sleep of ease.
SETS
BEKHUDI: {21,6}
DREAMS: {3,3}
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
On the nature of book-binding and the 'binding-thread', see {10,12}.
It's clear that the addressee (anyone, or the speaker himself) is being advised to emulate the behavior of the rose. This behavior is suggested with imagery drawn from the domain of book-binding. The rose has many petals that are like loose pages, but these are held together by the binding-thread of 'self-lessness' (on this spelling see {21,6}). But what exactly does this mean? Zamin thinks it refers to the rose's condition when it is a tightly-compressed bud (as if bound with a binding-thread). Gyan Chand thinks it refers to the rose's careless, intoxicated quality of self-forgetfulness.
The second line develops the book-binding imagery in more detail: a thousand 'perturbations' would all become integrated into one book-like 'compendium' or 'collection'-- and this in turn would be 'a single dream'. This does sound pretty much like the way dreams seem to assemble themselves-- out of a thousand fragments left over from waking life, which are then loosely strung together into a 'dream/sleep'. Does the verse imply that self-lessness is a form of dream/sleep, or that a dream/sleep is a form of self-lessness, or is there perhaps some other relationship between the two? As so often, we're left to decide for ourselves.
A dream/sleep that's made up of a thousand bound-together pages or leaves of 'perturbation', 'disorder', and the like (see the definitions above) is would seem destined to become a patchwork of nightmares. Or has the rose somehow turned pages of vexation into an anthology of calm dream/sleep, through the power of its self-lessness?
Another verse that plays (far more memorably) with 'collectedness', dream/sleep, and the rose is, as Zamin notes, {155,2}.
Asi:
The rose is in truth self-less, and self-lessness is hidden in its every vain, but what has happened is that it has gathered its self-lessness, and made through this collection the aspect of being bound with a binding-thread, and created a singular beauty. Thus if you too would make from anxieties/disorders a single collection, and keep it bound, then from a thousand perturbations the collectedness of a single dream/sleep of ease/rest can come to exist.
== Asi, p. 302