go mai;N rahaa rahiin-e sitamhaa-e
rozgaar
lekin tire ;xayaal se ;Gaafil nahii;N rahaa
1) although I remained mortgaged/pawned/pledged to
the cruelties of everyday life
2) but/nevertheless I did not remain heedless/negligent of {the thought
of you / your thoughts}
rahiin : 'Pledged, pawned, given as a hostage; a pledge; (met.) dependent, subject'. (Steingass p.600)
;xayaal : 'Thought, opinion, surmise, suspicion, conception, idea, notion, fancy, imagination, conceit. whim, chimera; consideration; regard, deference; apprehension; care, concern'. (Platts p.497)
Nazm:
That is, in any situation, I didn't forget you in my mind. (39)
Bekhud Dihlavi:
He says, despite the fact that I remained ensnared in the grief and sorrow of the world, your memory never left my heart at any time or in any situation, and I never neglected your memory. This verse and the previous one are in an especially Sufistic style. (77)
Chishti:
With regard to construction and theme both, this is a verse of a very high level. For this reason it's become proverbial. (376-77)
FWP:
SETS == WORDPLAY
SOUND EFFECTS: {26,7}
Note for grammar fans: In English, we have both 'your thought' (located in your head) and 'the thought of you' (located in somebody else's head). In Urdu, however, teraa ;xayaal has to do duty for both. And the normal, 'least marked' usage is for 'your thought' to mean the thought of you, the thought that is located in somebody else's head. This usage is not invariable, but it seems to be primary; the 'thought that's in your head' tends to be conveyed in a different, carefully marked way (see for example {116,9}). This kind of cross-linguistic difference in usage extends to related words like 'picture', 'image', 'sight', 'memory', etc., and is a common source of confusing, misleading, or just plain wrong translation. It's something to be alert for, when translating or when reading translations. Sometimes, of course, it's used with deliberate doubleness, by poets like Ghalib. For more examples and discussion of such usages, see {10,6} (with the interesting mirii ta((miir ), {11,5x}, {16,7x}, {19,1}; {75,5}, {157,7}, and {229,2}.
In the present verse, the primary thing that I remained attentive to was surely 'the thought of you'. But it's also possible that I remained attentive to 'your thought/idea/fancy/whim' so that I could humor it in every way. For the inclusion of the idea of 'cruelties' in the first line opens up the clear possibility that what's being contrasted is not everyday life versus (the thought of) the beloved, but the 'cruelties' of everyday life versus those of (the thought of) the beloved. So perhaps in addition to the cruelties of everyday life, I also experienced the exquisite pain inflicted by your 'conceits' and 'fancies' and 'delusions'.
This is a characteristic verse of wordplay with sound effects (which characteristically the commentators ignore). Just look at-- or rather, listen to-- rahaa rahiin in the first line, juxtaposed with nahii;N rahaa in the second. They are not only complementary opposites in the semantic realm (although I rahaa rahiin , nevertheless I nahii;N rahaa ), but also wonderful permutations of each other to the ear and eye.
In fact, without the wordplay, why should this verse have much appeal at all? It's a verse that demands to be recited slowly, so the long vowels can be savored. Chishti describes it as 'proverbial'; it is still used in conversation as an answer when one is reproached for neglect, as Vasmi Abidi has pointed out.