;Gaalib z-baskih suukh ga))e chashm me;N sirishk
aa;Nsuu kii buu;Nd gauhar-e naa-yaab ho ga))ii
1) Ghalib, {to such an extent / although} the tears dried in the eyes
2) a tear-drop became an 'unobtainable pearl'
gauhar : 'Nature, essence, substance, stuff, matter ... — any hidden virtue; — intellect; wisdom; — a pearl; jewel, gem, precious stone'. (Platts p.928)
naa-yaab : 'Not to be found or got; undiscoverable; unprocurable; unattainable; — scarce, rare'. (Platts p.1111)
That is, the tear-drop, having dried up, became a pearl. The point is that not even a trace of tears remained in the eyes.
Ghalib, in the eyes the tears have dried up to such an extent that a tear-drop has become like an unattainable pearl.
SETS == BASKIH; IDIOMS
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
The phrase gauhar-e naa-yaab , as an idiom, refers to something greatly desired but unobtainable, something nowhere to be found (see the definitions above). The phrase is so well known that there even exists a Pakistani television serial called 'Gohar-e Nayab' (the heroine is named Gauhar). The phrase doesn't lead people to think of pearls, but of rarity. (Similarly, in English we say 'once in a blue moon'; there is such a thing as a 'blue moon', but users of the phrase are not thinking about it.) Thus the second line can quite well be read as 'a teardrop became impossible to find'.
But as is his wont, Ghalib has also invoked the literal meaning of gauhar as 'pearl'. A teardrop, like a pearl, is water-born and round and glistening. Who's to say that a teardrop can't dry out and turn into a pearl? After all, tears are powerful: a single unshed tear can turn into a typhoon, as in {6,6}. And {38,3} makes the 'pearl' possibility quite explicit: 'in the eyes is that drop that had not become a pearl'. So the second line can equally be read as 'a teardrop became a rare pearl'.
Here the two possible meanings of z-baskih come enjoyably into play. If we take it as 'to such an extent', we have the idiomatic meaning: the tears dried up to such an extent that a teardrop became unfindably scarce. And if we take it to mean 'although', we have: although the tears dried up, a teardrop became a rare pearl. Perhaps this happened only to one (special?) teardrop, or perhaps it happened to each one in turn. Might this have been some kind of reward for the lover, a mystical recognition of the value of his suffering?
Asi:
Oh Ghalib, since the tears dried up in the eyes, my condition has become such that now even a single tear-drop has the rank and value of an 'unobtainable pearl'.
== Asi, p. 282