naqsh : 'Painting; colouring; drawing; designing, &c.; — delineation; — embroidery; — a painting, a picture; portrait; drawing; a print; a carving, an engraving'. (Platts p.1145)
khichnaa (of which khi;Nchnaa is a variant): 'To be drawn, dragged, or pulled, &c.; to be attracted; to be absorbed, be sucked in; to be drawn out, be extended, be stretched; to stretch; to be extracted; to be drawn tight, be tightened; — to draw aside or away (from), to hold or keep aloof (from), to fight shy (of); — to be drawn, be delineated, be sketched, be traced; — to be borne, be endured, or suffered'. (Platts p.872)
khe;Nchnaa : 'To draw, drag, pull; to attract, to draw in, suck in, absorb ... to draw out, to stretch; ... to draw tight, to tighten; ... — to draw away or aside (from), to hold aloof ... to withdraw, withhold; ... to delineate, to sketch; to paint; — to drag out, to endure, suffer, bear'. (Platts p.887)
That is, if a picture of the beloved's curls cannot be drawn by you, then draw a picture of a comb, since it will be the form/image of someone's hundred-fissured heart.
The second line has two meanings. Bihzad, make a picture of a fissured heart. (1) The hundred-fissured heart is ensnared in the beloved's curls. Grasp the beloved's curls, and draw out the heart from within them. If it would not be possible to 'draw' the curls, then run a comb through them-- the heart will emerge, and then make a picture of it.
(2) Two things have a similarity to a hundred-fissured heart: the beloved's curls, and a comb. Both are, like the heart, fissured. If it would be difficult to make a picture of the curls, then draw a picture of a comb. The fissured heart will be represented.
SETS == MUSHAIRAH
CURLS: {14,6}
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
Bihzad was a legendarily famous Persian painter. For Ghalib's few verses about drawing or painting, see {6,1}.
The first line is simply obscure; even when-- after the usual mushairah-performance delay-- we're allowed to hear the second line, the punch-word shaanah is withheld until the last possible moment, so that its closural effect is as thrilling and almost explosive as possible.
The verse plays with the multivalent possibilities of khe;Nchnaa (see the definition above). It's a piece of rare good fortune that we have something of the same in the English 'draw', which can refer either to the making of a picture or act of pulling or dragging ('a horse-drawn cart'). In fact a definition of 'to comb' is 'to untangle or arrange (the hair) by drawing a comb through it'. The obvious reading of the second line instructs Bihzad that if the beloved's curls cannot be 'drawn' ('delineated, sketched, traced'), then he should evoke them: he should 'draw' ('delineate, sketch, paint') a picture of a comb. Only in retrospect can we recognize the 'hundred-fissured heart' in the first line as resembling, or even constituting, such a comb.
Moreover, there's a truly rakish reading, in which Bihzad is told that if the beloved's curls cannot be 'drawn' (either 'delineated, sketched, traced' or 'drawn out, extended, stretched'), then he should 'draw' ('draw, drag, pull') a comb through them!
Asi:
Oh Bihzad, capture and show such an image of the heart-- one that has become hundred-fissured with grief and sorrow. If it's not possible for you to draw a picture of the beloved's curls, then-- well, all right, then it's not. It's possible for you to draw a picture of a comb-- that is, of a hundred-fissured heart. That is, if you cannot reveal the secret of the beloved's beauty, then express the secret/mystery of your own passion.
== Asi, pp. 302-303