((ar.z : 'Presenting or representing; representation, petition, request, address; s.m. Breadth, width'. (Platts p.760)
va;hshat : 'A desert, solitude, dreary place; — loneliness, solitariness, dreariness; — sadness, grief, care; — wildness, fierceness, ferocity, savageness; barbarity, barbarism; — timidity, fear, fright, dread, terror, horror; — distraction, madness'. (Platts p.1183)
andeshah : 'Thought, consideration, meditation, reflection; solicitude, anxiety, concern ... ; doubt, misgiving, suspicion; apprehension, dread, fear; danger, peril'. (Platts p.91)
That is, in expressing the pain of unfaithfulness, here there is shock and sorrow. Oh God, now the tongue of complaint becomes dumb-- it has turned the heart and liver to blood; because of shock and sorrow, thought has withered away. In laal the meaning of 'color' is also mixed in, through an affinity with blood.
The pain that your unfaithfulness caused in our heart and liver-- from even thinking about expressing it, in the thought and the mind wildness is created. To what extent can we express so much pain? From the heart to the liver has become entirely blood. How good it would be, if the complaining tongue would become dumb!
SETS == MUSHAIRAH; WORDPLAY
JIGAR: {2,1}
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
This is a classic 'mushairah verse', and is entirely based on a single instance of wordplay-- which of course, in true mushairah-verse style, is withheld till the last possible moment. The first line is broad, abstract, vague; it's impossible to tell where it's going. The second line is carefully setting things up, but we can't tell for what: its first clause sets up an abundance of blood, the second clause sets up the possibility of expressing complaint.
And then comes the verse's single sudden burst of potency and delight: the word laal , which perfectly finishes off both ideas. The 'tongue of complaint' is 'red', because of all that inner blood. And it is 'dumb' because it cannot express the inexpressible-- the wildness and anxiety of its pain.
It's not as if the verse has any other charm. This sudden culminating punch of wordplay is really the only reason that anybody who heard the verse would be moved to exclaim 'vaah vaah!'. And yet among the three commentators, only Zamin even mentions it. I ought to be used to the commentators' attitudes by now, but sometimes they still astonish me.
For more on the relationship of the heart and the liver, see {30,2}.
Compare {5,4}, which makes excellent use of both ((ar.z and jauhar-e andeshah .
Asi:
The expressing of the pain of unfaithfulness is because of the wildness and horror of my suspicion and thought. When a wild thought occurred, then the expression of the pain of unfaithfulness came to the tongue. In this grief, from the heart to the liver became blood. Oh my Lord, may the tongue of complaint, or the tongue that complains, become dumb, for it destroyed me.
== Asi, p. 152