This verse is of course a classic example of Ghalib's advocacy in his ghazals of radical autonomy at all costs (for more such examples, and discussion, see 9,1 ). But in its intensity, and the directly hortatory tone of the second line, it also reminds me strongly of a famous passage from one of his letters (cited above). This passage first repudiates with almost violent indignation even a casual suggestion by one of his best friends that he might have composed a poem the way everybody else often did-- by starting with a famous exemplar and composing verses 'on' its verses. Such a suggestion was clearly not thought by his correspondent, his dear friend Taftah, to be an insult; but Ghalib obviously took it that way, calling down curses on his own head if he ever, even in his earliest youth, had done such a vile thing. He apparently didn't consider it vile for other poets to do this-- it would only have been so for himself. (Compare the two passages cited in 219,1 , in which he repudiates with abuse and actual obscenities the idea that other people's verses might be mistaken for his own.) After this tirade Ghalib concludes with his famous assertion that poetry is the creation of meaning, not the measuring-out of rhymes. He seems to take this remark as a kind of summing-up or culmination of what he has been saying. Thus his notion of meaning-creation seems to be strongly linked with that of poetic originality or autonomy, and with a passionate rejection of (direct or conscious) outside influences from other poets and earlier poetry. In the case of the present verse, the first line is so broad and abstract that, in good mushairah style, it remains uninterpretable until we hear the second line. Even then, the first line, combining as it does multivalent words like and and with the multivalence of the constructions, demands to be chewed on for a while by the mind. If we read A=B, as in (1a), we discover a radically disdainful reason for taking nothing from the world. For what is the world, or at least the age we live in? It is a bunch of cowardly, spiritless conformists: a 'gathering' or 'crowd' or collective mass of 'lowness/vileness of courage/spirit'. A gathering of such a kind is a disgrace, a 'shame', in itself; and it would be even more shameful for a proud, thoughtful person to lend his countenance to such an ignominious display. Better to leave the mob to themselves, and let them share their lowness and spiritlessness with each other; God forbid that one would take anything at all from such a useless crew! Even taking something as minimal as an example or admonition from them would be shameful: it would probably be worthless anyway, and even if by some accident it might have a bit of value, it would be hopelessly polluted by its disgraceful source. If we read B=A, as in (1b), we discover that shame itself is the problem. What is shame but a collection of fears and anxieties, a 'tumult' or 'confusion' that is full of 'lowness of spirit' and 'disgrace of courage'? If shame is to be endured at all, it must come from self-criticism alone, and one must wrestle with it privately and somehow endure or transform it. Why should a proud, thoughtful person let the vulgar 'example' or 'admonition' of the people of the world be a cause of shame or humiliation? Whatever shame or pride he might feel should be based only on his own judgments about himself. Rather than interacting with the world, the proud and spirited person should ignore the world entirely, should take nothing from it. Caring only for his own opinion of himself, he should cultivate a stoic 'friendlessness' and a radical moral autonomy. This is exactly the kind of behavior enjoined in 119,5 , and in 119,8 too (though with a bit of palliative courtesy enjoined as well). With three such broadly similar verses (perhaps initially sparked by the refrain ), this ghazal is a kind of locus classicus of Ghalibian exhortation to 'independence'. On , see 119,1 . graphics/globe.jpg