asad baa-va.sf-e mashq-e be-takalluf ;xaak gardiidan
;Ga.zab hai gar ;Gubaar-e ;xaa:tir-e a;hbaab ho jaa))e
1) Asad, with the quality/virtue of the practice of unpretentiously/casually turning to dust--
2) it's a calamity/outrage, if you/he would become a disturbance/'dust of the mind' to the friends!
baa : 'With, possessed of, endowed with; worthy of; though, notwithstanding; to; at the expense of'. (Steingass p.135)
va.sf : 'Attribute; epithet; quality, property; — merit, virtue, worth'. (Platts p.1195)
gardiidan : 'To turn, become, return, change; to be inverted, converted'. (Steingass p. 1082)
;Ga.zab : 'Anger, passion, wrath, rage, fury, vengeance; wrong, impropriety, injustice, oppression, outrage; violence, force, compulsion; — a curse, calamity, affliction, woe, a fearful thing, an awful event'. (Platts p.771)
;Gubaar : 'Dust; vapour, fog, mistiness... — ;Gubaar-e ;xaa:tir , Disturbance of the mind, anxiety'. (Steingass p.880)
;Gubaar : 'Dust; clouds of dust; a dust-storm; vapour, fog, mist, mistiness; impurity, foulness; (met.) vexation, soreness, ill-feeling, rancour, spite; affliction, grief; perplexity'. (Platts p.769)
;xaa:tir : 'Whatever occurs to or passes in the mind; cogitation, thought, suggestion; memory, remembrance; mind, soul, heart; inclination, propensity;
The meaning is that when simply through weakness and helplessness he became dust, for him even then to be a 'disturbance of the mind' to the friends is a thing of great calamity/outrage.
Asad has made a practice of unpretentiously turning to dust-- that is, he has adopted extreme weakness. It's a calamity/outrage, if despite this he would become a cause of the creation of the dust of sorrow in the friends' hearts.
SETS == PETRIFIED PHRASES
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
The focus of the verse is the well-known petrified phrase ;Gubaar-e ;xaa:tir . The phrase was so well established that it was used as the title of a famous collection of letters written by Abul Kalam Azad while imprisoned by the British during World War II. The literal meaning of the phrase is 'dust of the mind/heart'; the allusion is to the ghazal-world image of the heart as a mirror, so that dust on the mirror suggests 'disturbance, anxiety', or other negative emotions (see the definitions above); for more on the heart as mirror, see {128,1}.
As is his wont, Ghalib has used the phrase in both its literal and its colloquial senses. In the literal sense, the speaker-- who may be talking to or about Asad, or may be Asad talking to himself-- is expressing dismay and outrage that after Asad has turned to dust, his dust might dim the luster of the heart-mirrors of the friends. And in a colloquial sense, the speaker is expressing dismay and outrage that even after Asad has died, he might somehow become a cause of 'disturbance, anxiety, rancor, vexation', etc., to the friends.
Why would 'the friends' feel all these negative emotions? Are they in fact not really Asad's friends at all (he tried to please them by dying, but even that didn't work)? Might they feel 'grief, affliction, anxiety' over his death (and perhaps guilt as well)? Apparently Asad is willing to die quite readily and casually-- that's not upsetting to the speaker. The speaker is only exercised by the possibility that 'vexation, spite, grief', etc., might be experienced by the friends. There's a story lurking behind all this-- of self-sacrifice? Of mutual loyalty and love? Of quarrels and resentment? As so often, we're left to invent the context for ourselves.
Asi:
Asad, notwithstanding the fact that through weakness he has turned to dust-- if even now he would become a 'disturbance of the mind' to the friends, then that's an extreme calamity/outrage! That is, despite his being so weak, if people are hostile to him, then it's a great cruelty.
== Asi, p. 302