Ghazal 4, Verse 2

Nazm:

That is, for me life was a single pain: passion became its cure, and it itself is an incurable pain. (4)

== Nazm page 4

Bekhud Dihlavi:

The style of expression [in the second line]-- upon whom, except for Mirza Sahib, has such extreme excellence been bestowed? (13)

Josh:

As if the pain without cure made our passionless life enjoyable, and this very pain without cure proved to be a cure for that former pain. (52)

FWP:

SETS == REPETITION; TRANSLATABLES

A lovely achievement, wry and amused and relishing its game of paradox. Although Nazm (followed by other commentators who echo his approach) unhesitatingly assumes that the verse is first-personal, there's nothing in the grammar to make it so.

It's also a lovely verse for mushairah performance-- the first line sets up a cheerful, optimistic assertion: passion provides the 'pleasure' or 'relish' of life. Then after a suitably suspenseful delay (under mushairah performance conditions), the second line starts out by supporting the affirmative first line: passion is, or brings, a cure for (other, ordinary kinds of) pain. Only at the last possible minute do we get the final, balancing assertion: passion itself is, or brings, a pain without cure-- and the 'punch'-word, be-davaa , is withheld until the last possible moment.

The i.zaafat in the second line is optional, but I can't manage to persuade myself that if we remove it the resulting meaning ('it found a cure for pain, it found that the pain was without cure') is a real addition to the verse.

The second line is also so full of non-connectors that I've always used it to encourage students who are learning the script. In fact I put it on my famous Urdu tshirts. For a parallel to the second line see {4,5}.

Also, note that this verse constitutes a second, supererogatory opening-verse for the ghazal. As a rule, this kind of display is just a flourish of virtuosity on the part of the poet. In this case, Ghalib grafted the opening-verse of one ghazal onto the first half (including the opening-verse) of another ghazal, to make the version he chose to publish in his divan.

Note for meter fans: The spelling of mazah as mazaa is to accommodate the rhyme. Such changes are permissible liberties that occur occasionally when it's convenient for the poet. In this ghazal, the same liberty, with the same word, is taken again in {4,7}.