Verse 13after 1847aahotaa hai


G5

In this meter the first long syllable may be replaced by a short; and the next-to-last long syllable may be replaced by two shorts.


1
Ghalib, please hold me, in/for this bitter-voicedness, excused--
2
today the pain in my heart is [habitually] somewhat extra/beyond

is a metrically compressed form of , the future imperative for ( GRAMMAR )
'Forgiven, pardoned, absolved, excused, condoned, remitted; spared; dispensed with; exempted (from)'.
'But, besides, other than, over and above, further than... ; -- adj. Additional, more; better'.

References
Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali Ghazal# 218
Raza, Kalidas Gupta 403-04
Hamid Ali Khan Open Image

It's a strange closing-verse to put right after a verse-set of fulsome praise to the King. Of course it can always be read broadly, to apply in a general way to the whole group of verses that he's been reciting; but the 'this' does tend to invite our attention toward the verse-set. It makes you wonder, once again, how such a verse really seemed to its composer, and to its audience. Would they be so used to such ghazal commonplaces of 'pain in the heart' that this particular juxtaposition would hardly even register? Would they be deeply conditioned by a lifetime of stylized ghazal language to eschew all personal interpretations? After all, if Ghalib expected the Emperor to take it personally, then to present it, even in the form of a private conversation with himself, would be a very foolish move on his part, since it would undo all the good that he might have hoped to do himself through the eulogistic verse-set. So perhaps we notice it more than the original audience did. That wonderfully idiomatic gives the whole second line an easy, colloquial flow. It makes for an effect of judiciousness: he doesn't complain because of pain in his heart, he's used to that. But today the pain is somewhat worse, somewhat excessive, beyond the normal bounds. And the heart seems to have its own direct connection to the voice-- perhaps 'normal' pain makes the voice merely pain-filled, while this 'extra' pain adds the effect of bitterness. graphics/bitterness.jpg