haa;N vuh nahii;N ;xudaa-parast jaa))o
vuh bevafaa sahii
jis ko ho diin-o-dil ((aziiz us kii galii me;N jaa))e kyuu;N
1) sure, she's got no fear of the Lord!
all right, granted-- she's faithless!
2) whoever values religion and heart-- why would he go into her street?
Since the Advisor has described the evils of passion and the beloved's irreligiousness and faithlessness, in reply to this Mirza Sahib, in a tone of anger, says... oh benevolent Advisor, please don't take the trouble of going there. We can neither leave her, nor refrain from going to her street. (175-76)
From this it necessarily also follows that she is so beautiful that if anyone goes before her, neither can his heart remain within his control, nor can his faith remain secure. Before the excellence of this verse, Purity [va.zaa;hat] prostrates itself. (234)
What a ravishing verse! I can see why the commentators adore it, and I join them. Yet this time I can't blame them too much for not being very analytical, because it's all in the tone; it's an example of the perfect pitch for idiom and colloquial speech that Ghalib had when he wanted to.
The lover's friend, or the Advisor, is concerned for the welfare of the lover, who is rashly throwing himself away for an unworthy beloved. The friend points out, offering ample proof, the beloved's tricky, untrustworthy, faithless behavior. He then pauses, waiting with satisfaction for his irrefutable arguments to sink in. He knows the lover can't deny the evidence.
The verse is the lover's reply. The tone of the first line is unmistakable: it's a careless, throwaway concession. The speaker is almost laughing at the anxious concerns that have been urged upon him. Far from denying the truth of the charges, he's indulgently and amusedly conceding them all. The little idiomatic touches-- that 'sure' [haa;N], the 'all right' [jaa))o], the 'granted' [sahii] (for more on this see {9,4})-- establish a tone that's impossible to capture fully in translation. He's heard it all before; he's a bit bored; he's amused that anyone could take such reasoning seriously. (For another such careless, casual use of haa;N , see {188,2}.)
And the effect of his indulgent concession works delightfully with the inshaa))iyah second line. When we put the two together, and allow for their rich power of implication, here are some of the possibilities. Since we all know what she's like, the lover says,
= then if I enter her street, I accept the risk to my faith
and heart
= then if I enter her street, I've thrown my faith and heart away already
= then you, as a prudent person, would be foolish to enter her street
= then nobody with any prudence would enter her street
= then why in fact might a (formerly) prudent person enter her street?
The question can be either rhetorical (and even an implied insult) or genuine (meditative and thoughtful); it can apply to the speaker, the listener, or some generalized other(s). The underlying effect is to say, I'm a daredevil, and probably you're not.
The lover here seems to be an old soldier of fortune, briefly returned from his constant venturing into terrible battles of passion (remember {7,1}), indulgently listening as a friend lectures him on the folly and rashness of his life. But the very evils he lists (danger, trickery, unpredictability, constant threat) are exactly what the adventurer long ago learned to live with. By now, he's utterly inured to them; or perhaps he even craves them.
This is a verse in which the beloved seems not to be God; for more such examples, see {20,3}.
Nazm:
He has taken the beloved's side: come on, if she has no fear of the Lord, then so be it; if you consider her faithless, then very good, let her be faithless! So why would you go into her street? This verse alone is the 'high point of the ghazal' in this ground. It gestures toward the fact that people are expostulating with him, and he is cutting off their words. (124)