har-chand : 'Although, even if, notwithstanding; --how-much-soever; howsoever; as often as'. (Platts p.1222)
muqaabil : 'Fronting, confronting; opposing, contending; opposite; --comparing; collating; --corresponding, matching; resembling, like; --in opposition (to, - ke ); in front (of), over against; face to face (with), in the presence (of); --in comparison (with)'. (Platts p.1053)
Gyan Chand:
The technique for teaching a parrot to speak is that a man places a mirror before the bird and sits behind it. When the man speaks, the parrot considers its reflection to be the speaker, and it too, in imitation of it, begins to speak. Ghalib says, although I am, because of my poetry, a parrot who speaks good things, nevertheless, alas that now no mirror remained before me! That is, there remains no connoisseur who would listen to my poetry/speech. (111)
FWP:
SETS == POETRY
MIRROR: {8,3}
Raza p. 126; Raza p. 127. S. R. Faruqi's choices. Ghalib originally composed a ghazal of twelve verses, from which he chose eight for publication in his divan. In the original twelve-verse ghazal, this verse was the eleventh one.
For a discussion of other parrot and mirror verses, see {29,2}.
What it might mean for a 'parrot of sweet speech' to be now (though apparently not formerly) deprived of a mirror? Here are some possibilities:
=I am no longer able to practice and refine my 'speech', the way a parrot would be able to practice before a mirror
=my 'speech' is so potent that no mirror (with a parrot-trainer behind it?) could long endure to confront me
=no living poet is capable of confronting me as an equal, so I don't get a chance for the real exercise of my 'speech'/poetry
=there is no longer any connoisseur who could appreciate and encourage my 'speech'/poetry
The parrot is alone, with no 'mirror' or sounding-board, no listener, no sympathizer or connoisseur. For another verse about the crucial importance of such an interlocutor, see {60,7}.