The commentators find this verse clear, and indeed it is. It can even be called a classic verse of the ' unattainably simple ' kind. But it has its own sort of subtlety too. The second line is partly natural (one could well look many times for something lost) and partly impossible-- for how could the beloved keep finding the same heart over and over? Was it constantly rejected and given back to the lover, each time running off once more to be found again by the beloved? Was it a different heart each time-- is it 'the heart' in the abstract sense, not just that particular lover's heart? Or have lover and beloved enacted their predestined relationship-- or at least their first encounter, at which the heart transaction presumably took place-- countless times? Josh complains of the apparent padding created by the presence of ; for discussion of this issue, see 17,9 . In the present verse, it's not easy to make much of a case for , though it doesn't seem obtrusively redundant either. It's fully appropriate where it is; it's just that the thought wouldn't be materially affected without it. The argument could be made that it helps prepare the reader for the shift of gears into a completely different kind of second line; but then, when did Ghalib ever hesitate to make his readers do astonishing amounts of work? For other studies in seeking and finding, compare 4,16x and 153,6 . graphics/strayedheart.jpg