Interpretation-Ghazal-67





1.

In this verse Ghalib has addressed "Arif". You should have died with us,
Since you made such haste, now remain alone.
(Arif was Ghalib's wife's brother. He was creative and died young.)
(This whole ghazal is an elegy for Arif. Thus even in an elegy, the mood of sarcasm and mischief is present for example, which is extremely eloquent and pain-evoking.)
(It is one of his simplest ghazals, but it is also unified and energized by a powerful human emotion.)
2.
In grieving for you my bitterness of mind is such that I constantly beat my head on your tomb,
And I am confident that if the stone of the tomb does not wear away, then I would not remain alive.
(This grief does not permit to live.)
(My forehead wearing away at your tomb is not for always. In a few days either the stone will wear away or there would not be a head left at all.)
3.
How much time has even passed since you came into the world, it is as if you came yesterday, and today you are saying that you are going,
I agree that you would not stay forever, but stay a few days more.
(Why you are in such a hurry to die.)
(Out of an excuse of grief, he has imagined this verse, as if Arif is still alive and is about to take his leave.)
(The tone of this verse is entirely colloquial and thus impossible to capture in English.)
4.
At the time of taking leave of me, you promise to meet on Doomsday,
From your saying this it seems that Doomsday has not come today, but rather will come some other time.
(The day of your death itself is Doomsday.)
(Informality of language and simplicity of expression, with their natural effect, penetrate the heart.)
5.
He wanted to make to the sky the complaint that one dying was young, he had not reached his natural life span,
If he had remained alive for some days more, what harm would it have done to you.
(The sky's ancientness and Arif's youth are juxtaposed as forcefully as possible.)
6.
For my house you played the part of the full moon, through you my house remained illuminated,
If my words are false, then why, has that state of my house not remained.
(Why did darkness spread in all four directions.)
(The full moon slowly, gradually declines and hides itself away. You vanished all at once from before my eyes, what cruelty is this.)
(Beautiful beloveds are frequently called moon.)
7.
Since when were you so scrupulous about clean give and take,
If the angel of death presented his claim on your life so what, you should have gained some time, he would undoubtedly have come back another day.
(It was only the first reminder. You did not have to pay him at once. But instead you showed an appalling degree of honesty, all too quickly you accepted his claim, and gave your life into his power.)
8.
You have not hated me, nor you fought with Nayyar, even if those impossible things should be supposed, at least your innocent children had committed no sin,
You could not hate them, nor was there any possibility of quarrel with them, so why did not you watch them playing a few days more.
(Nayyar is the Ghalib's devoted pupil.)
(Again, the bitterness and irremediableness of grief, the reproaches that endlessly well up, even with no one present any longer to receive them.)
9.
The way up to now you spent your portion of life in the happiness and grief of the times,
In the same way you should have spent more days in the world, why did you die in your youthfulness.
(The reproaches in this whole ghazal ring so true to the mood of loss and mourning. Since when is deep grief reasonable.)
10.
You people are surprised that after sustaining the wound of Arif's early death, Ghalib lives on, but you are very foolish,
To keep longing for death for a few days more is written in my fortune, how could I die so early.
(Ghalib always lamented his domestic responsibilities in his life, he always strove to fulfill them.)
(Living should not be equated with enjoying life, especially when that life has so much of its meaning.)

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