FWP:
SETS == DISRUPTION
HOME: {14,9}
MADNESS: {14,3}
SOUND EFFECTS: {26,7}
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices.
The first line offers a strange pattern of imagery. The 'foot-between' idiom seems to be based on the idea of intervention or hindrance, as though some meddlesome person would insert himself where he wasn't wanted, as in English we talk about 'sticking your nose into somebody else's business'. (For another example of this 'foot-between' idiom, see {91,2}.) But of course a 'flood' is the very opposite of something with a foot: it's the least established, least enduring, least 'foot-possessing' [paa))edaar] thing imaginable. And since afflictions or disasters are bodiless things in any case, to desire that a 'flood of afflictions' would intrusively stick its 'foot' into one's house is to move way beyond any situation that we can even metaphorically visualize. Compare {15,15}, with its well-grounded (so to speak) 'flood of weeping'. For more on this trick of setting up and disrupting metaphors, see {21,10}.
In fact, it's almost an insane use of imagery. Which, as we suddenly realize from the second line, is (part of) the point. Madmen would seek to make a home exactly there-- exactly where a home can't be made, and where even the description of the place sends the language into fits of incoherence.
There's also a virtual 'flood' of aa;N sounds: darmiyaa;N in the first line, then in the second line diivaanagaa;N and vaa;N and ;xaan-maa;N . They work together with jaa , paa , and balaa , and with the two occurrences of nahii;N , to create a remarkably resonant and recitation-inviting verse.
Gyan Chand:
Mad ones will want to make their house only in a place where there would be the possibility of a flood coming, so that it would be able to knock down the foundation of the house. After all, madness is precious to the mad ones-- where there wouldn't be a torrent of difficulties, there the mad ones will not wish to make a house. They are difficulty-lovers. (263)