===
0386,
1
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{386,1}

achchhii lage hai tujh bin gul-gasht-e baa;G kis ko
.su;hbat rakhe gulo;N se itnaa dimaa;G kis ko

1) a flower-stroll in the garden-- without you, to whom does it seem good?
2) that someone would keep company with roses-- who has that much of a mind/nose for it?

 

Notes:

gul-gasht : 'Walking in a garden; an evening walk; recreation; a pleasant place for walking or recreation (esp. one blooming with roses and other flowers)'. (Platts p.911)

 

dimaa;G : 'The brain; head, mind, intellect; spirit; fancy, desire; ... — the organ of smell'. (Platts p.526)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

S. R. Faruqi:

This verse is commonplace; it's been included in order to create the shape/aspect [.suurat] of a ghazal. Ghalib said it much better:

G{27,4}.

But Ghalib in his verse didn't use the word dimaa;G as excellently as in Mir's verse. By mentioning gul , Mir has also included the aspect of dimaa;G as meaning 'nose'. A detailed discussion of both these verses is in shi((r ;Gair-shi((r aur na;sr . And indeed, there's certainly the fact that Ghalib basically adopted one of Mir's lines from the first divan [{468,3}]:

hame;N to baa;G kii takliif se mu((aaf rakho
kih sair-o-gasht nahii;N rasm ahl-e maatam kii

[consider us excused from the bother of the garden
for strolls and tours are not the custom of the people of mourning]

And indeed, Nasikh has made the theme entirely new, and has composed a peerless verse:

kyaa shab-e mah-taab me;N be-yaar jaa))uu;N baa;G ko
saare patto;N ko banaa detii hai ;xanjar chaandnii

[as if, on a moonlit night, I would go to the garden without the beloved!
the moonlight makes all the leaves into daggers]

See:

{693,1}.

FWP:

SETS == MULTIVALENT WORDS ( dimaa;G )
MOTIFS
NAMES
TERMS

The use of dimaa;G is perfect here; everybody knows that it means 'mind' and so on, but not everybody knows that it also means 'nose' (or, as Platts genteelly puts it in the definition above, 'the organ of smell'). Obviously, in the present verse both senses are fully activated, which gives the verse much of whatever charm it has. I would cite for comparison a different Ghalibian verse, which too is-- like SRF's example-- more punchy and effective than the present verse:

G{11,2}.

Another Mirian example: {1213,1}.

Note for grammar fans: In the second line, rakhe is a future subjunctive ('that someone would keep company...'). In the first line, lage might look the same, but it's not-- lage hai is an archaic form of (here) lagtii hai . And lage hai can't be read as present perfect, because here that would be lagii hai .