;Gara.z : 'An object of aim or pursuit, or of desire, or of want; aim, end, object, design, view, purpose, intention; business; meaning; a want, need, necessity, occasion; interest, concern; interestedness, interested motive; spite, hatred, rancour'. (Platts p.770)
rasaan : 'Causing to arrive, conveying, bearing; — one who conveys, bearer (used as last member of compounds)'. (Platts p.591)
He says to the Messenger, 'When you take a letter and go, then please also look at the color and style of the gathering-- at what is happening! Your task is not only to convey a letter, it's also your duty to investigate. And my purpose is not only to send a letter, it's to learn about the company of the Others.
Oh carrier of letters, through sending a letter my purpose is that you would bring information about whether in the beloved's house there's the company of Others or not. I need not only a Messenger-- rather, I need a spy who would carry the letter.
SETS == REPETITION
GATHERINGS: {6,3}
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
The chief appeal of this verse is its special use of repetition. Ghalib had, after all, two shorter and more common words for 'messenger' available to him, qaa.sid and naamah-bar , and plenty of scope in the second line to fit either one of them in. Plainly he wanted the longest word, and then he deliberately repeated it, so that more than half of the second line is used up simply in that repetition of naamah-rasaa;N . The rest of the line too is full of long vowels, so that the line becomes very flowing, and even hypnotic.
The effect is to make the job-title very conspicuous-- and then of course to undercut it by requiring that the person with that job-title be something else, a 'spy'. And it's not an additional assignment, but a whole new one; the speaker's purpose in the first line doesn't include even a mention of a letter.
Asi:
The meaning is that he-- that is, the Messenger-- would see what kind of company she keeps with the Other, and how it happens, and come back. Oh Messenger, a Messenger needs to be a spy.
Or else this: a Messenger should be able to obtain entry into the company of the Other, and to learn about the conditions there; thus the Messenger ought to be a spy.
== Asi, p. 135