In Islamic tradition, two Angel s called the 'honorable scribes ' [] sit on people's shoulders and record their good and evil deeds. Their presence is believed to be referred to in Quran 82:10-14. I thank Abida Vaqar Ripley for pointing out (July 2022) these references. There are also two terrifying angels named Munkar and Nakir , who interrogate each person in the grave and torment evil-doers, but they don't seem to be recording angels. The enjoyableness of the verse lies in the matter-of-fact, confident application of human legal procedure to divine justice. Everybody knows that a mere written statement by one party is insufficient for conviction. Proper form requires that we, the accused, be permitted to have 'our man' present during the proceedings-- normally, our advocate or representative. But in this case the stress falls not only on 'our' but also on 'man'. Not only was our advocate absent, but there wasn't even anyone of our own kind, an or 'child of Adam' present-- and what can Angels understand of human guilt or innocence, and who knows whether they're trustworthy or not? The triumphant tone of the second line is especially amusing-- it conveys the sense that we have found a huge hole in the prosecution's case, and are firmly driving a truck through it. This tone arises from the structure of the line, a rhetorical question of the yes-or-no kind with the introductory colloquially omitted. On the face of it, this line clearly says 'Even/also some man of ours was [there] at the moment of writing'. In the given context, this reading can hardly be applicable to the verse. Thus the verse becomes an extremely unusual, or perhaps almost unique, case in Ghalib's divan : a construction that can meaningfully be read only in a secondary way (by inserting a ), and not in the obvious primary way at all. There are dozens of verses that can be read in multiple ways, with or without an implied ; but I can't think of another case like this one, in which the literal, apparent, 'official' meaning is categorically ruled out. It certainly demonstrates, if demonstration is needed, that Ghalib intended to be a protean, powerful, constantly hovering possibility. Recently, Mushtaq Fadra has argued in our poetry reading group (July 2016) that the line could be read as an actual assertion-- 'We know that the angels wrote things down unjustly, because we had a 'man' there at the time, checking on them!'. This statement might be a bluff. (Or else the reference could even be to the person whom the Angels were interrogating.) This is an enjoyable reading, and an appropriately 'mischievous' addition to the basic interrogative reading. Maybe God won't accept it, but maybe he'll at least appreciate the chutzpah. This idea is fun to entertain, but doesn't create nearly as tight and enjoyable a ' connection ' between the lines as the primary reading does. graphics/angels.jpg