For discussion of , see 175,1 . I've discussed the larger question of Ghalib and 'meaningless' verses in 141,1 . As so often, the first line is uninterpretable in itself-- it has no verb or (human) subject. Under mushairah performance conditions, of course, we're made to wait as long as conveniently possible before hearing the second line. When we finally do hear it, we at once annex the first line to the utterance of the speaker of the second line, who is almost petulantly rejecting any desire to achieve the obvious, usual results-- praise, reward-- through his poetry. This attribution works well, and can be read as adding a wonderful note of 'sour grapes' to the disclaimer in the second line. But of course nothing in the verse formally dictates such a reading. The first line might also be an inventory of the kinds of (undesirable) meaning that might be latently or undetectably present in the speaker's poetry. On this reading, the speaker is congratulating himself on being doubly secure against any tendency to fawn or flatter or seek 'praise' or 'reward'. Not only does he try to banish these unseemly urges in his poetry, but since his poetry is considered meaningless in any case, his integrity is even more perfectly assured. Such an assurance might even be a fair compensation for the critical accusation (or actual audience experience) of meaninglessness itself. This reading correlates well with the emphasis on independence so prominent in Ghalib's ghazals; for more on this, see 9,1 . Note for grammar fans: The plural is used with 'meaning' not because the 'verses' are plural and have separate 'meanings'; in this case, I don't think that's even intended as a secondary sense. Urdu speakers and writers just normally use with plural verbs, even if the meaning is clearly singular. Contrast this with the case of , which is the plural of but is treated as grammatically singular; it is discussed in 57,4 . graphics/handwriting1.jpg