vaa-maa;Ndagii bahaanah-o-dil-bastagii fareb
dard-e :talab bah aabilah-e paa nah khe;Nchiye
1) fatigue/lagging-- an excuse/pretense; and affliction/attachment/'heart-boundness'-- a trick/deceit
2) don't endure, with blisters on the feet, the pain of the search/quest
vaa-maa;Ndagii : 'The remaining or lagging behind (esp. from fatigue)'. (Platts p.1177)
bahaanah : 'Excuse, pretext, plea, pretence; shift, evasion, subterfuge'. (Platts p.180)
dil-bastagii : 'Affliction or anguish of mind; attachment, friendship, love'. (Platts p.523)
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 drag out, to endure, suffer, bear'. (Platts p.887)
Don't endure the pain of the search of passion to the extent of blistered feet. To have blisters on the feet is a sign of very extreme speed. To attach the heart is a trick/deceit, and in this connection to wear oneself out with desert-wandering is an excuse, it is false. No one does such a thing. Someone has misled you by claiming that in passion you should run around and exhaust yourself, you should attach your heart. Don't fall into the dizziness of searching, and don't endure the pain of blisters on your feet.
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
On the face of it, this verse appears to be a piece of cynical advice-- which is exactly how Gyan Chand reads it. Perhaps a crusty old lover, a burnt-out veteran, is crankily warning a newcomer against the perils of the road ahead (the way he warns against the fleeting charms of the gathering in the verse-set that starts with {169,6}).
This verse also reminds me of the brilliant {230,7}; one reading of it has a voice every bit as disillusioned and cynical as that of the present verse. But since {230,7} is a much more powerful and complex verse, it's open to a variety of other possible readings as well. By contrast, the present verse seems unusually straightforward and prosy. The only ambiguity is one that emerges in the second line: Should the addressee go on the search or quest only if he has no blisters on his feet, or should he not go at all?
Zamin:
One meaning is 'Why are you wandering around, on your blistered feet-- can true heart-attachment be found anywhere? What you consider to be heart-attachment is only a trick and a deceit. It's better for you to make the excuse of lagging/fatigue and sit quietly.' The words vaa-maa;Ndagii , dard , aabilah-paa have an affinity.
Another meaning can also be that first the seeker made a claim of heart-attachment (that is, love). But since the seeker was not sincere, from the traversing of stages of the journey his inner-self was defeated, and he sat down with the excuse that he was constrained by blistered feet. Thus the poet says, 'Why do you make the excuse of fatigue/lagging and give up the difficulty of the search, and use the excuse/pretext of blistered feet? The truth is that your love itself was not sincere; otherwise, is a sincere seeker ever prevented by blistered feet?'
== Zamin, p. 434