;xvud-parastii se rahe baa-ham-digar naa-aashnaa
bekasii merii shariik aa))iinah teraa aashnaa
1) through self-{regard/conceit}, we remained non-friends
with each other
2) my forlornness/friendlessness-- a partner/ally/friend; the mirror-- your
friend/acquaintance
;xvud-parastii : 'Doggedness in one's own opinion; self-sufficiency; self-conceit; self-indulgence'. (Platts p.495)
bekasii : 'Forlorn state, friendlessness, destitution'. (Platts p.203)
shariik : 'Confederate, united, joint, concerned (in); --a sharer, participator, partaker (with); a partner, co-partner, an associate, a colleague, comrade, ally, a confederate, an accomplice, accessory; a member (of a community); a friend'. (Platts p.727)
Raza p. 225. S. R. Faruqi's choices. Ghalib originally composed a ghazal of eleven verses, from which he chose six for publication in his divan. In the original eleven-verse ghazal, this verse was the first one.
My 'partner, ally, confederate' was 'forlornness'-- or more piquantly, my 'friend' was 'friendlessness'. (See the definitions above.) What does it mean to have 'friendlessness' as one's (only) friend? This is an enjoyably paradoxical problem that Ghalib has posed for us to think about. But then, what does it mean for one's (only?) 'friend' to be a polished metal object like a mirror? Is the beloved really that much better off than the lover? She's as fetishistically absorbed in her beauty, as he is in his misery.
The first line diagnoses them both as self-absorbed and solipsistic. Is the lover as proud of his suffering, as the beloved is of her beauty? Does his cult of suffering prevent him from seeing her, as surely as her absorption in the mirror prevents her from seeing him? The lover seems to embrace his own lover-like sufferings, to the point of (culpable?) self-regard or even self-conceit.
But of course, he's located all this in the past, so perhaps he's now seen the error of his ways. And he's explaining to her the error of her ways, too. (But is she really listening?)
Compare this verse with its more fortunate, published cousin, {42,5}; and with its companion in rejection, {42,11x}.
Gyan Chand:
We two remained lost in our individual beings, thus we could not become familiar with each other. I had only forlornness. The meaning of forlornness is not to belong to anyone else. When there won't be any other sympathizer, then one's whole attention will remain fixed on his own individual being. You always remained absorbed in mirror-gazing, and this is exactly self-regard. In this way we both remained far from each other. (103-04)