tangii rafiiq-e rah thii ((adam yaa vujuud
thaa
meraa safar bah :taali((-e chashm-e ;hasuud thaa
1) narrowness was a companion of the road, [whether]
it was nonexistence or existence
2) my journey was with the rising/star/fortune of a jealous eye
:taali(( : 'Rising, appearing (as the sun), arising; --s.m. Star, destiny, fate, lot, fortune; prosperity; --the (false) dawn'. (Platts p.750)
SETS
EXISTENCE/NONEXISTENCE: {5,3}
EYES {3,1}
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices.
A jealous eye is of course proverbially narrow; for another example, see {3,1}. The idea that the speaker's journey was always accompanied by the :taali(( of a jealous eye lets us know that his fortune was always 'narrow', grim, inadequate, grudging, rather than being wide or open like a smile. In fact, this 'narrowness' followed him around everywhere, and was always his companion on the road.
Even more enjoyably, the term :taali(( reminds us of the astrological sense in which one's fate is governed by the 'rising' of a star (from which the sense of fate or fortune is an extension). The round eyeball (like a star) of a jealous watcher would be 'rising' in the sense that it would be low on the horizon, that it would be in the ascendant (with its power increasing), and that it would follow the wretched speaker 'narrowly' wherever he went, even apparently on his journey into nonexistence.
Gyan Chand:
:taali(( : a doer of :tuluu(( . In astrologers' terminology, the constellation that would show on the horizon at birth, or at the time of asking [some question]. Ghalib here ought to have written :tuluu(( , but through the coercion of the meter he composed it as :taali(( . The narrowness of the jealous eye is well known. His destiny, or presiding constellation, too will be narrow. Whether I remained in nonexistence or in existence, narrowness stayed with me-- as if I was traveling inside a jealous eye. The meaning of 'narrowness' is 'to be narrow'-- that is, anxiety. (66)