aashuftagii ne naqsh-e suvaidaa kiyaa durust
:zaahir hu))aa kih daa;G kaa sarmaayah duud thaa
1) distractedness fixed up the shape of the 'suvaida'
2) it became apparent that the property/wealth of the wound/scar was smoke
suvaidaa : '(dim. of saudaa ) ...The black part or grain of the heart, the heart's core; --original sin. (Platts p.704)
Ultimately, suvaidaa is a diminutive form of the word saudaa , which means literally 'blackness', but in Urdu, metaphorically, 'madness'. In the ghazal world, it takes the form of a small black spot at the center of the heart that can be interpreted almost at the poet's pleasure. The term appears in {6,10x} in connection with Majnun's passion. For a (relatively) straightforward use of suvaidaa , and further discussion, see {93,1}. There's a mystical use in {96,2}. And then, Ghalib also compared it to a betel-nut; see {95,1} for the amusing evidence. In {113,8}, he plays explicitly with its relation to saudaa . Then {229,2} involves it with a bouquet of flowers.
This is one of Ghalib's most difficult verses, because it carries abstraction and metaphor to such extremes. The commentators' views are all over the map, and some of them express themselves so obscurely that I'm not even able to translate their thoughts with confidence. (I'm not sure if it's their fault or mine, but probably both.) Faruqi's analysis is the most lucid one that I've found, which in this case isn't saying as much as usual.
Sometimes I think I understand this verse pretty well, and then I lose my grip on it again. I figure that every commentator is allowed to be at a loss occasionally, so this can just be one of my occasions. At least I can claim the merit of knowing that I don't know!
Vajid:
Urdu text: [page one]; [page two]
Faruqi:
I have worked out this meaning: aashuftagii (that is, anxiety of temperament) erased from the heart the scar of passion, naqsh-e suvaidaa . It became apparent that the state of the scar of passion was only that of a stain of smoke, which becomes clean through scrubbing and scouring.
[Naiyar Masud has argued that durust karnaa means to fix up or adorn, not 'to erase' or 'to clean'. In a dictionary sense he is right, but Shaukat Merathi and Agha Baqir support my reading.]
The tone of the second line is disdainful and sarcastic: when you look at the scar it seems very solid, but in truth its property is only smoke, it has no substance, it has no stability.... Ghalib's point is that the scar of passion, or the scar of the smoke of sighs, is a commonplace thing without any stability or necessity. If we reflect on the relationship between the scar of smoke and the smoke of sighs, the meaning of the verse becomes apparent: if the essence of something is smoke, how can it have any stability? Smoke in its nature is something that swiftly diffuses and vanishes, so how can its scar have any substance?
The accomplishment of the verse is that 'distractedness' and 'smoke' have an affinity of meaning [of movement and dispersedness]. In addition to this, Ghalib is saying that distractedness erased the scar. After all, the scar for which he uses distractedness as a metaphor was made by smoke. Here, Ghalib is labelling that very distractedness as a cause of the scar's vanishing. This kind of impossible metaphorical speech is Ghalib's special style. (1989: 27-29) [2006: 27-31]