karte hu))e ta.savvur-e yaar aa))e hai ;hayaa
kyaa faa((idah kih minnat-e begaanah khe;Nchiye
1) while making a picture/image of the friend/beloved, shame comes
2) what benefit, that one would incur/'draw' obligation to a stranger?!
ta.savvur : 'Imaging or picturing (a thing) to the mind; imagination, fancy; reflection, contemplation, meditation; forming an idea; idea, conception, perception, apprehension'. (Platts p.326)
minnat : 'Kindness or service done (to); favour, obligation; — grace, courtesy; — entreaty, humble and earnest supplication; — grateful thanks, praise ... minnat-kash , adj. Under obligation, obliged'. (Platts p.1071)
begaanah : 'Unknown, a foreigner, stranger, alien'. (Steingass p.223)
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)
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
This is one of only a handful of verses based on painting, drawing, or image-making; for others, see {6,1}.
This verse also belongs to a group that I call 'independence' verses, in which the speaker makes it clear that it is a source of shame and humiliation to borrow from others: use of one's own (perhaps inferior) resources is preferable to incurring obligation by relying on someone else's (perhaps superior) resources. Here, the someone else seems to be the 'picture, image' itself, which is a 'stranger'. The lover thus exhorts the addressee-- and perhaps he is talking to himself-- to think only and directly of the beloved, without any mediation from a 'picture, image' of her that would be a 'stranger' and outsider. For the image would thus do a kindness or favor to the addressee, for which he would then become humiliatingly indebted. Poor Ghalib! All his life he was in exactly this position of humiliating dependence-- and how he hated it! For more about the need for independence, see {9,1}.
There's the minor wordplay of 'friend' and stranger'. And of course 'draw' has a perfect affinity with 'picture'-- alas, that such a nice little tidbit of wordplay is only an artefact of translation.
Note for meter fans: For discussion of the 'contrived rhyme' of this verse, see {440x,6}.
Gyan Chand:
While thinking about the friend/beloved he feels shame, because a picture of the friend/beloved is other than the friend/beloved-- it is a stranger. Why would/should we become beholden [i;hsaan lenaa] to a stranger?
== Gyan Chand, p. 446