../apparatus/txt_sets.html For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices . For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in 4,8x . As we hear the first line, the speaker presents himself as an admiring connoisseur-- he uses , the word for a particular ' selection ' of poetry, made from a larger body of material. And this 'selection' is based on 'style, manner' [], which too is often a literary term (see for example 155,3 ). Of course, it's also a more general term-- as in this case, for we then at once learn that the 'style' in question is a 'style of cruelty/oppression'. The speaker thus admires the quality and 'choiceness' of the beloved's 'style of cruelty', or else the elegance or appropriateness with which she has 'selected' that particular style from all the others in her reprtoire. He's really not a sucker, he assures us-- he's certainly not seduced by her notoriously and obviously empty promises of faithfulness! (For more on the idiomatic uses of , see 4,3 .) Rather, as a connoisseur he's beguiled by the elegance, appropriateness, charm, wit, etc., of the 'style' of her cruelty. That, he insists, is an entirely different matter: he's an accomplice, not a victim. Or does he protest too much? As so often, it's left up to us to decide. graphics/promise.jpg