hu))e mar ke ham jo rusvaa hu))e kyuu;N nah ;Garq-e
daryaa
nah kabhii janaazah u;Thtaa nah
kahii;N mazaar hotaa
1) when/since/if/who having died, we became notorious/disgraced--
why were we not drowned/immersed in the sea?
2) neither would a funeral procession ever have arisen, nor would there
anywhere be a tomb
jo : 'Who, which, that, what'. (Platts p.393)
jo : 'When (= jab )'. (Platts p.393)
jo : 'If, if that, that; in that, inasmuch, since'. (Platts p.393)
rusvaa : 'Dishonoured, disgraced, infamous, ignominious; humiliated; open, notorious; accused; one held up to public view, as an example to deter'. (Steingass, p. 576)
;Garq : 'Drowned, immersed, sunk, overwhelmed; absorbed, engrossed, deep (in)'. (Platts p.770)
Not to speak of a single beloved-- the whole world learned that I couldn't endure the difficulties of passion. (51)
SETS == EXCLAMATION; JO; PARALLELISM
The verse has a four-part structure. Each line contains two parallel phrases that end in an internal rhyme and correspond exactly to the metrical quasi-caesura. This gives it unusual energy and a kind of exclamatory force.
It's also a showcase for the multivalences of the protean little jo . These are so conspicuous that Platts is careful to give it three separate definitions (see above). Try reading the first line with each of the four possibilities recommended in the translation; each is different in its own way, and each one works in the line, and also with the second line. Ghalib was lucky in the subtleties of the grammatical tools available to him. Some examples of jo used in a sense other than that of the relative pronoun: {25,5}, as 'if'.
Traditionally, Muslims especially fear death at sea, because if the body is lost one cannot have the proper funeral rites, nor can one lie in a suitable grave waiting for qiyaamat , the day when the dead are summoned to rise up for divine judgment. But for the lover, of course, all this is reversed. The lover's death was an occasion of disgrace to him, such that he wishes it all undone-- no funeral procession to generate fresh gossip, no tomb to remind people of his notoriety and shame.
Why was he disgraced? Because, as Bekhud Mohani says, he was shown up by death to be an inferior lover with limited powers of endurance? Because rumor reported the name of the beloved for love of whom he died, so that the beloved was angered by the publicity? Because he didn't have the beloved's permission to die, so that he was disgraced in her eyes by his disobedience, as in the similar situation in {9,3}? As usual, the answer could well be-- all of the above.
There's also the real pleasure of the wordplay: to be rusvaa is to be revealed, singled out, 'held up to public view'; only by obvious extension does the meaning of 'disgraced' develop. More examples of double meanings that include this literal sense: {95,4}; {126,3}; {130,4}; {139,7}; {148,3}; {149,5}. And to be ;Garq is not just to be drowned, but to be immersed, submerged, hidden. These two words in their modern standard Urdu usage have no special relationship, but in their root meanings they are each other's radical opposites.
This is a verse in which the dead lover somehow, from beyond the grave, still speaks; for others, see {57,1}.
Nazm:
That is, the forming of a funeral procession and the making of a tomb have disgraced us; it would have been better if we had drowned. (21)
Bekhud Dihlavi:
He says, after death, we remained the very essence of a suspicious character. If we had drowned in the sea, then neither would a funeral procession have formed for us, nor would the memorial of a tomb have remained.