A Ghazal is like an assortment of flavors. Each sher stands alone, yet in a great Ghazal, every flavor is memorable, and the ash’ār resonate with an underlying coherence. Let’s explore a Ghazal and try to discern its theme.
arz hai:

ibn-e-mariyam huā kare koī
mere dukh kī davā kare koī

This is a matla (opening sher of a Ghazal) by Ghalib (b. 1797).
ibn-e-mariyam: son of Mariyam
Here’s a translation:

let someone become a son of mariyam
let someone cure my sorrow

ibn-e-mariyam refers to Jesus Christ, who, in religious tradition, is the Messiah. He is known for compassion, and miraculous healing.

One possible reading gives the sher a snarky, almost defiant tone. The phrase “hua kare” has shades of challenge, skepticism, and irony. So, the narrator is saying: Someone claims to be a messiah? Let him try to cure my pain! My sorrow is so vast that even a miracle worker can’t heal it.

Another, perhaps deeper, reading is:
if only someone could become Christ
if only someone could cure my sorrow

Here the tone is one of longing and helplessness. The suffering is so deep that ordinary human remedies feel inadequate. The speaker wishes for a miracle worker like Christ who could heal it. The dukh is not necessarily physical pain. It can be emotional anguish, unfulfilled love, or existential despair.

The sher suggests that the world lacks the compassion or power to alleviate human suffering. At an even deeper level, it questions the very idea of salvation itself.

bak rahā huuñ junūñ meñ kyā kyā kuchh
kuchh na samjhe ḳhudā kare koī

junūñ: madness, frenzy

what nonsense I am babbling in madness
O God, may no one understand anything

First, savor the sounds. The dense alliteration of k/kh/chh sounds makes this sher a pleasure to recite. It also creates a sense of fragmentation and breathless urgency, appropriate for a state of junūñ.

On the surface, the sher reads like an explanation, almost an apology, for the defiant tone of the opening sher. The speaker claims he is merely babbling in madness and prays that no one understand him. But the irony is palpable. The madness is a pretext. He pretends to be a madman because what he is saying is dangerous, heretical, or socially unacceptable. Don’t take me seriously, he seems to say, I am only babbling.

The next two ash’ar almost seem like proverbs:

na suno gar burā kahe koī
na kaho gar burā kare koī

rok lo gar Ghalat chale koī
baKhsh do gar Khatā kare koī

Rough translation:

if someone speaks ill, do not listen
if someone does wrong, do not respond

if someone goes astray, restrain them
if someone errs, forgive them

On the surface, these couplets sound almost didactic. The speaker calmly lays out ethical rules – ignore insults, refuse retaliation, restrain error, forgive mistakes. Why this abrupt shift from the defiant and ironic tone of the earlier couplets?

One possibility is that the speaker has concluded that the world is broken, and salvation is impossible. The response to suffering, then, must be self-discipline. One cannot control the world, but one can control one’s own response to it.

Another possibility is that Ghalib is quietly mocking simplistic moral formulas.

kaun hai jo nahīñ hai hājat-mand
kis kī hājat ravā kare koī

hājat-mand: needy

who is there that is not needy
whose needs can anyone fulfill

Everyone is needy. No one’s needs can be fully met. Read sincerely, this is a pessimistic view of society. There are too many people in need, how many can one possibly help? The ethical impulse to help becomes an emotional burden.

Alternatively, the sher can be read as a commentary on human greed. Everyone claims need, even when they are not truly needy, making it impossible to distinguish genuine suffering from manufactured desire. How can one know whom to help?

The word koī in the radīf of this Ghazal is brilliantly used. Because koī suggests both “someone” and “anyone”, each sher oscillates between the particular and the universal.

In that light, this sher can also be read as self-criticism. The speaker realizes that he is demanding healing for his own dukh, but so is everyone else. How can any healer fulfill everyone’s demands?

kyā kiyā Khizr ne sikandar se
ab kise rahnumā kare koī

Translation:

what did Khizr do with Sikandar
now whom can anyone take as a guide

The allusion is to a famous legend found in Persian and Urdu tradition. Khizr is a wise saint, possessing mystical knowledge, renowned for guiding travelers. Sikandar is Alexander the Great. Alexander sought āb-e-hayāt, the Water of Life – a spring that grants immortality. Khizr acted as his guide on this quest. They reached the spring, but Alexander failed to drink from it, either because he missed the moment, because Khizr drank it himself, or due to some other twist in the tale. In any case, the result was that Alexander, the greatest conqueror of his time, failed to achieve eternal life.

So, the sher is saying that if even Khizr – the most perfect, divinely inspired guide – could not (or did not) lead Sikandar – the most powerful and ambitious man – to success, then whom can anyone trust as a true guide anymore? Even the best guides fail the greatest seekers. So who can we possibly follow?

Finally, the maqta (closing sher), with the poet’s taKhallus:

jab tavaqqo hī uTh ga.ī Ghālib’
kyuuñ kisī kā gila kare koī

tavaqqo: expectation, hope, desire
A translation:

when expectation itself is gone, Ghalib
why should anyone complain against anyone

This is the devastating but pragmatic conclusion. Expectation is the hidden source of grievance. If no one can truly save, guide, or fulfill another’s needs, then expecting anything from others is an illusion. Once that illusion collapses, complaint becomes meaningless.

The Ghazal began with defiance and ends with understanding. It is not despair, but a form of freedom: when nothing is expected, nothing can disappoint.