ai ;Gunchah-e tamannaa ya((nii kaf-e nigaare;N
dil de to ham bataa de;N mu;T;Thii me;N terii kyaa hai
1) oh bud of longing-- that is, hand of the beautiful ones,
2) if you would give the heart, then we would tell you what is in your fist
kaf : 'The hand; palm (of the hand); sole (of the foot); a handful'. (Platts p.839)
mu;T;Thii : 'The fist; hand; grasp (of the hand), clutch, gripe; — a handful'. (Platts p.1000)
He has called the hand of the beautiful ones a bud because a fist is closed. The meaning is clear. Compare this verse with Mirza's verse {4,1}. Now look-- is simplicity not better than artifice? 'Bud of longing' has created no pleasure in the verse; indeed, the construction has become unfamiliar/awkward.
The beloved has closed up the heart in her colorful hand. The poet calls it the 'bud of longing'. Oh hand of the beautiful ones, if you would give our heart back, then we would tell you what is in your fist. It's clear that it's my heart-- what else would it have been?
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
In my precious edition of Gyan Chand that Faruqi gave me so long ago, and in which he put the red-pencil check-marks for notable verses, he noted his own disagreement with Gyan Chand's reading of this verse: 'Her heart is what he wants.' That indeed seems an excellent reading, but surely the real charm of the verse lies elsewhere.
Just look at that first line-- so formal and elaborate, so pompously Persianized! It addresses not the beloved but the beloveds' 'hand' in general, and calls it a 'bud of longing' (since the closed fist resembles a tightly-wrapped bud). Zamin criticizes 'bud of longing' for its artificiality and awkwardness. Indeed, 'bud of longing' is so obscure that the line has to make an explicit point, with ya((nii , of identifying the reference.
Then in the second line, we suddenly get a total contrast in tone. The tone becomes playful, cajoling, intimate-- the way one would play a guessing game with a child. (In fact it seems that there's a modern Bollywood film song, from 'Boot Polish', called 'Darling little child, what is in your fist?' [nannhe munne bachche terii mu;T;Thii me;N kyaa hai].) The line slips in a quick, almost ignorable condition, dil de , and then promises to play an enticing guessing game that offers the child the pleasure of power (of knowing what is in the fist) and a possible treat of some kind (if the adult cannot guess, and thus loses the game).
Of course we in the audience know that what is in the beloved's fist is the lover's heart. Is that the one that the beloved is urged to give, as Gyan Chand maintains? Does the lover actually want it back? Faruqi is surely right to feel that the lover is proposing a trade: she will give her heart to him, and he will then 'guess' that what is in her closed fist is his own heart.
The good old Hindi-side word mu;T;Thii is at the heart of this special homey tone. While kaf appears in divan verses eight times, and many more times in the unpublished verses, mu;T;Thii appears nowhere except in this present verse. So it surely deserves the credit of being a 'fresh word'.
Asi:
The poet addresses the hand of the beautiful ones as 'bud of longing', and says, 'Oh hand of the beautiful ones, if you would give our heart to us then we would tell what is in your fist.
== Asi, p. 280