S. R. Faruqi:

The opening-verse is ordinary, but ;Gu.s.sah has two meanings: that is, it can mean 'overthrownness, disorderedness' [barhamii], and also 'grief and sorrow'. The meaning of talaash is 'wrestling' or 'battle'.

Jalil Manikpuri has, with the warrant of one other verse of Mir's, taken ;xaraash to be masculine; although the reality is that from after Mir's time, it has been versified as feminine. Afaq Banarsi, in his mu((iin ul-shi((r , entered it as feminine, and noted in his remarks that same verse of Mir's that Jalil Manikpuri in his essay ta;zkiir-o-taanii;s has used as a warrant for its being masculine. Sauda has a whole ghazal of which the refrain itself is kaa ;xaraash . It's possible that in early Urdu ;xaraash might have been only masculine. Nowadays, for quite a time it's been only feminine. Thus Afaq Banarsi has noted a verse of Zauq's [containing kii ;xaraash].

FWP:

SETS == A,B
MOTIFS == SWORD
NAMES
TERMS

The beloved might well have given the hapless lover a (literal) 'tongue-lashing' that would have cut like a sword. But alternatively, could the lover have given himself one? It's possible, but the idea doesn't really commend itself. For the image of the 'tongue' cutting like a sword suggests that a voice speaking aloud is being used for the painful tirade. And would the lover really scold himself by speaking out loud to himself?

We could say, of course, that the beloved has given the lover such a tongue-lashing that in grief he has gouged his own face with his fingernails. Since this is an 'A,B' verse, with the relationship of the two lines left for us to figure out, that's quite possible.