Ghazals Of Ghalib

The Almighty Of Rekhta

Mirza Asadullah Khan (Ghalib)-27-12-1797(Agra) To 15-02-1869 (Delhi)

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Indian Classical Music
 

Interpretation-Ghazal-35



1.
She saw the lines on my forehead and understood the anxieties,
The way from the disarray of the title the theme of a letter can be learned.
(He has used the metaphor of the envelope of a letter for the wrinkles on the forehead.)
2.
In reality it is not an mirror polishing tool but just a collar,
Now I consider it a useless thing,and I am tearing it up and am sorry for my error.
(Man's life is not sufficient for mystical knowledge.)
(Kurta's neckline is like Urdu alphabet "ALIF",and lover is tearing his collar.)
3.
Do not ask me the detailed account of the confinement of temperament,
Neither can I tell it,nor can you listen it.
(Sharh-E-Asbab=Confinement of temperament=Name of a famous book on medicine.)
(A multivalent excursion of wordplay. Narrow heart described as prison cell.)
4.
My beloved is so suspicious of me that she even does not like to be eager for an excursion,
Because she considers every drop of sweat to be my astonished eye.
(I do not want her to show herself in public,even the drop of sweat on her brow seem to me be the eyes of the rivals.)
5.
From my own abjectness I considered that the beloved must be an effigy of fire,
The effects of my burning in the fire of passion had already come into being.
(He has envisioned weakness as straw,and ill-temper as flame,and used for straw the simile of a vein with a pulse-----This verse should be read in a tone of sarcasm and reproach.He blames himself---due to my weakness and incapability,I thought that she must be ill-tempered.I must avoid this.As if the heat of the flame can be burned from the pulse of the straw.)
6.
Since my journey is the journey of passion,here the shadow of tree or wall is not available to rest,
I consider my own shadow as a bedchamber,wanted to rest and moved on.
(In the absence of hope of beloved and deprivation human being makes friend with despair and seeks comfort from them alone.)
7.
Until the time of death my heart fled from the beloved's eyelashes,and always feared them,
It is surprising that I had considered the warding off of the arrowhead of fate to be so easy.
(Look at the simplicity of the heart and thought.)
(The confrontation was to come when death was to come.Thus, to keep fleeing or not to flee was the same thing.)
8.
Oh "Asad",Why did you consider that faithless one to be faithful,and give your heart,
To consider her faithful is just the same kind of error as to consider an infidel to be a Muslim.
(This is another verse that is hard to interpret as applying to a divine beloved.)
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