ai ;xayaal-e va.sl naadir hai mai-aashaamii tirii
pu;xtagiihaa-e kabaab-e dil hu))ii ;xaamii tirii
1) oh thought/idea of 'union', your wine-drinking is singular/rare!
2) your 'rawness' became the 'cookednesses' of the kabob of the heart
naadir : 'Singular, rare, uncommon, unusual; wonderful; precious; exquisite; choice'. (Platts p.1112)
pu;xtagii : 'The being cooked; ripeness, maturity; firmness, soundness, solidity, strength; experience'. (Platts p.231)
;xaamii : 'Rawness, unripeness, immaturity; inexperience; imperfection, defect, fault'. (Platts p.485)
That is, the thought/idea of union, the relish/taste of wine-drinking, turned the heart into a kabob and burned it up in the fire of union. Now the question is, the fire of the relish/taste that burned up the heart-- why did it become raw? With regard to its intensity and effort, why did it not become cooked?
A thought is called a raw/unripe thought when it would not be able to be completed. Along with wine, kabobs are eaten. Oh thought of union, you drank wine in a novel way. You remained raw/unripe, with the effect that the heart burned and became a kabob, and burned up entirely. What kind of wine is it? This the poet has not made clear. Probably the mood of intoxication that comes from the thought/idea of union, is what he has called 'wine'.
SETS
FOOD: {6,4}
‘UNION’: {5,2}
WINE: {49,1}
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
'Thought of Union' is a quite sufficiently abstract addressee in itself (for other examples, see 'Personifications' on the Names Index page)-- and then, how are we to imagine it as 'wine-drinking'?! To describe this behavior as 'singular, rare, wonderful' might be a compliment, or a sarcastic taunt. From the first line, we have no way of telling.
And even when we are finally allowed (under mushairah performance conditions) to hear the second line, it's still not clear. If this 'rawness' became 'the cookednesses of the kabob of the heart', is that something praiseworthy (since the lover is delighted for his heart to be roasted all the way through), or something unfortunate (since the lover suffers enough already, without having his heart actually burned to a crisp)?
Ghalib is very fond of what often seem to be unnecessarily pluralized abstractions (for more on these, see {1,2}). After all, in such an abstract context, can there be any real difference between 'cookednesses' and simple 'cookedness'? In {376x,5} too he has used pu;xtagiihaa (versus ;xaam ). In both cases, the real point of the verse seems to be the enjoyable wordplay. But the result is more like a sparkler than like real, potent fireworks.
Asi:
Oh, thought/idea of union, your wine-drinking too is a strange kind of wine-drinking, and in you are very strange things/ideas. Since you are raw, for this reason the hearts of lovers go on becoming kabobs. For cookedness to arise from rawness is a strange kind of thing/idea. Either the thought/idea of union is itself wine-drinking, or wine-drinking arises from the thought/idea of union; both aspects are possible.
== Asi, p. 278