mai-kash-e ma.zmuu;N ko ;husn-e rab:t-e ;xa:t kyaa chaahiye
la;Gzish-e raftaar-e ;xaamah mastii-e ta;hriir hai
1) to the wine-drinker of theme, what need of the beauty/excellence of the connection of (hand)writing?
2) the wavering of the gait of the pen is the intoxication of writing/'liberation'
la;Gzish : 'Slipping, sliding; stumbling, falling; shaking, tottering, trembling; a slip, slide'. (Platts p.958)
;xa:t : 'A line, a streak, or stripe, a mark; lineament; — writing, character, handwriting, chirography; a letter, epistle'. (Platts p.491)
ta;hriir : 'Setting at liberty, manumission; — writing elegantly and accurately; writing, description; a written statement or declaration, a document; fee for writing (anything for another); ornamental lines (on a drawing or picture), lines'. (Platts p.312)
The one into whose mind a crowd of themes would have come-- at the time of writing, when does he give any thought to beauty of writing? In the wavering of the movement of the pen (that is, bad writing) too, there is the 'mood' of the intoxication of writing.
SETS == POETRY
WINE: {49,1}
WRITING: {7,3}
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
What does it mean to be a 'wine-drinker of theme'? Is it something admirable, or something undesirable? Here are some possibilities:
=It is admirable, because the intoxicating onrush of themes shows the poet's creativity, and his haste to write them all down naturally outweighs any concern for fine handwriting.
=It is admirable, because then even in his disjointed composition there is, as Gyan Chand says, 'the mood of the intoxication of writing', and this mood is a poetic virtue in its own right.
=It is undesirable, because then he entirely disregards the fundamental poetic requirement of connection. The wavering movement of his pen shows that he is jotting down words as they come to him, rather than creating tight networks of relationship among them.
=It is undesirable, because he then becomes like a drunkard who is expansively sure of his own brilliance while he is actually making a fool of himself. A drunkard cannot walk a straight line, and the theme-drunk poet cannot write a straight, proper line. He foolishly feels 'liberated' by his own genius from all the formal requirements of poetry.
So, all you aspiring poets-- Ghalib here gives you whatever kind of advice you'd like.
Zamin:
The 'wine-drinker' of theme-- that is, the theme-creating poet-- what more does he need to make the theme of the beauty of writing connected? For the wavering of the gait of his pen is a cause of the intoxication of writing. That is, those themes that emerge from his pen have 'mood'. Whatever has been written seems to be the poet's intention; in reality, the words have no connection with that meaning; or one can say that the disconnectedness of the words has become a preventer of meaning.
== Zamin, p. 411