bah paa-e ;xaamah-e muu :tay rah-e va.sf-e kamar kiije
kih taar-e jaadah-e sar-manzil-e naazuk-;xayaalii hai
1) with the foot of the reed-pen of a hair, the road of the description/praise of the waist would be traversed
2) for it is the thread of the path of the halting-place of 'delicacy of thought'
va.sf : 'Describing; declaring; praising; — description, expression of qualities; praise, encomium; attribute; epithet; quality, property; — merit, virtue, worth'. (Platts p.1195)
kiije is an archaic form of kii jaa))e. (GRAMMAR)
manzil : 'A place for alighting, a place for the accommodation of travellers, a caravansary, an inn, a hotel; a house, lodging, dwelling, mansion, habitation, station; ... — a day's journey; — a stage (in travelling, or in the divine life); — place of destination, goal; boundary, end, limit'. (Platts p.1076)
[His text has ... ;xaamah-e :tuu:tii rah-e ... ; his commentary is devoted to complaining about the problems with this phrase.]
;xaamah-e muu = It does not mean a paintbrush, but to make a single hair into a pen. The waist is delicate; its description/praise will be expressed through making a hair into a pen. The thread that reaches from the waist to the head is like a path. This path is a place of great 'delicacy of thought'; thus it will be expressed with the pen of a hair. To 'traverse the road with the foot of the pen' means to express by writing with a pen.
Asi has believed sar-manzil to be one word. It's also possible that there will be meaning in this aspect.
SETS == IZAFAT; POETRY
ROAD: {10,12}
WRITING: {7,3}
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
It's well known in the ghazal world that the beloved has essentially no waist; on this see {99,4}. The present verse adds to her phantom 'waist' more bodily imagery as well: 'foot', 'hair', 'head' [sar]. I go with Asi in taking sar-manzil to be a single word, since Gyan Chand's reading seems to reduce the beloved's whole torso to a hair.
The pen can be said to have a 'foot' because it has the shape of a leg, and it moves over the paper the way feet move over the ground. The pen can also-- though hardly at the same time!-- be imagined as made from a single hair, because brushes made from a single hair were used for the finest details in Mughal miniature paintings. Since the pen has a 'foot' it can traverse a road, and since it is made from a single hair it can traverse the smallest, subtlest road.
This extraordinary pen can thus traverse the 'road of the description/praise of the waist'-- a road that is so tiny that it is the 'thread of the path of the halting-place of delicacy of thought [naazuk-;xayaalii]'. Ghalib often conflates threads and paths; on this see {10,12}. The word manzil works particularly well here, since it can mean either a temporary alighting-place or stage of a journey, or else a final destination (see the definition above).
Ultimately, it is a 'road of description/praise'-- a poetic road. The abstract imagery doesn't invite or enable us to travel over the beloved's body. And this 'road' is also (or leads to?) the thread-like 'path' of the (temporary or permanent) halting-place of 'delicacy of thought'-- which is of course a literary term, and also evokes the extreme delicacy (to the point of nonexistence) of the beloved's waist.
Thanks to the versatility of the i.zaafat , this 'halting-place of delicacy of thought' can mean:
=the place where 'delicacy of thought' halts, either temporarily or permanently.
=the place called 'delicacy of thought, where the pen halts, either temporarily or permanently.
And in either case, the reason for the halting is left for us to decide-- does it involve modesty? literary judgment? mystical discernment? some kind of helpless amazement? As so often, we are left to put the verse together for ourselves.
Asi:
It's necessary that we would traverse the road of the description/praise of the beloved's waist, with the foot of the hair of the pen, because her waist is one path to the halting-place of 'delicacy of thought'. Thus without the foot of the pen it's impossible for it to be traversed.
== Asi, p. 228