Verse 11821aanii


G6

1
if flame wouldn't act as a guard of the coin of wounds of the heart
2
then coldness/grief is hidden in the ambush/blind of tonguelessness

'Prompt, or ready (payment); --good, fine, choice (articles or goods); --of a just standard (coin) --ready money, cash'.
'Frozenness; frigidity, coldness; numbness; dejection, melancholy, lowness or depression of spirits'.

References
Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali Ghazal# 144
Raza, Kalidas Gupta 348
Nuskhah-e-Hamidiyah 257
Hamid Ali Khan Open Image

For once I agree with Nazm. There's just too much going on in this verse, and the various domains of imagery aren't-- and perhaps couldn't really have been-- pulled together into a properly tight state of connection . Just look at the domains: the commercial ('coin'); the anatomical ('wound', 'heart', 'tonguelessness'); the martial ('wound', 'guard', 'hidden', 'ambush/blind'); that of temperature ('flame', 'coldness', 'tonguelessness' since flame has a tongue). Even for Ghalib, it would be a tall order to meld all these domains together in a way that would feel inevitable and indissoluble. The 'flame' is acting as a 'guard' of the 'coin' of a 'wound'? By the time we've struggled to put the whole thing into a kind of obscure, not very compelling assertion, we are likely to feel let down-- like someone who has just put together a complex but not captivating jigsaw puzzle. Or, of course-- to change metaphors-- it could be that a bus has just pulled out, and I missed it. With a poet like Ghalib it's never safe to write things off in more than a provisional way. graphics/fireice.jpg