Ghazal 92, Verse 3

Hali:

For jaadah, that is, 'path', he has given the simile of the edge of a sword. The meaning of the verse is that there is such pleasure in the pain and trouble of passion that one wants to open the heart to it fully and enjoy it; but since the path to oblivion is entirely the blade of a sword, at the very first step death can be seen. Thus, it’s a pity that the longing for the pleasure of pain remains only within the heart. (146-47)

Nazm:

The poet regrets that the path of the road of faithfulness is nothing other than the blade of a sword. That is, this is that path that is crossed in a moment/breath [dam], and the pleasure of pain is not obtained to one's heart's content. (91)

Bekhud Mohani:

Alas, that the footpath of faithfulness is like the blade of a sword! If only it were an even more difficult and harsh road, then the longing for the pleasure of pain would not remain in the heart. We would be able to endure pain to our heart's content. (188)

FWP:

SOUND EFFECTS: {26,7}

As in the previous verse, {92,2}, jaadah, 'path', is used in a context of extreme abstractness. This seems to be a pattern: for more examples, see {9,4}. The whole phrase jaadah-e raah-e fanaa has already occurred in {10,12}.

I've translated the striking verb rahii jaatii hai as 'stays as it goes', to try to capture its paradoxical feel. This doesn't really do the job to my satisfaction, but it's the best I can come up with. Grammatically, I interpret the verb as rahii hu))ii jaatii hai, 'in a state of having stayed, goes'. In several ways, it provides a wonderful pivot around which the verse turns.

First, its paradoxicalness goes well with the 'pleasure of pain' in the first line. Since the 'pleasure of pain' is complex and contradictory-looking anyway, it's not surprising that the longing for it should simultaneously stay and go. And equally conspicuously, there's a lovely wordplay between rahii and the raah, 'road', in the second line.

One more bit of elegantly implicit wordplay can be seen operating, consciously or unconsciously, in Nazm's commentary. The word dam means the edge of a sword-blade. But it also means 'breath' and 'moment' (see Platts p. 525 for its remarkably extensive range of meanings). In a verse like this, about things that are all too short-lived, that we long to extend beyond their intolerably brief lifespan, how can we not also enjoy the penumbra of associations around dam? For Ghalib's own clearly multivalent use of dam as both 'sword-edge' and 'breath', see {1,3}.

There's striking sound-play in the verse as well. Each line begins with a conspicuous sequence of three nouns joined by two i.zaafats. And these two long noun phrases both have no vowels except short a and long aa. By contrast, the second part of each line is dominated by long ii sounds. The effect is to create a sort of 'phonetic parallelism' between the lines that makes them somewhat echo each other and calls attention to the grammatical and semantic parallels between the two lines. And contrasts too-- the first line ends in almost too many verbs, while the second ends without one.