mujhe raah-e su;xan me;N ;xauf-e gum-raahii
nahii;N ;Gaalib
((a.saa-e ;xi.zr-e .sa;hraa-e su;xan hai ;xaamah bedil kaa
1) in the road/path of poetry/speech, I have no fear
of losing the road, Ghalib
2a) the staff of a Khizr
of the desert of poetry/speech is the pen of {Bedil
/ a heart-less one}
2b) the pen of {Bedil
/ a heart-less one} is the staff of a Khizr
of the desert of poetry/speech
((a.saa : 'Staff, stick, rod, club, mace, sceptre'. (Platts p.761)
SETS == POETRY;
REPETITION; SYMMETRY
DESERT: {3,1}
LOSING/FINDING {4,6}
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices.
This closing-verse pays a compliment to the great Indo-Persian poet Mirza 'Abd ul-Qadir 'Bedil', whose convoluted, Persianized, i.zaafat -laden style Ghalib greatly admired. (Bedil has been called 'Ghalib's Ghalib'.)
Bedil's pen is equated with Khizr's staff-- they are, it seems, guides on the road of poetry. But it's also possible that Ghalib is imagining himself as Bedil's heir; on this reading, Ghalib wouldn't fear getting lost, because he himself now had the 'pen of Bedil' that would act as Khizr's staff, so that he himself was now a kind of Khizr of the 'desert of poetry'.
Alternatively, if we take bedil as a word, the pen of 'a heart-less one'-- of a lover who had lost or given away his heart, not of course with the English sense of 'heartless'-- might be the key to right guidance in the 'road of poetry'.
And Ghalib didn't in any case show much respect to Khizr: consider the patronizing view of {159,6}, or the denunciation in {234,3}.
Gyan Chand:
Travelers go along behind the staff of the guide. In the journey of poetry, I have no fear of losing the road, because Mirza Bedil's pen is guiding me. That is, I am imitating [taqliid karnaa] his style. (97)