zamaanaah sakht kam-aazaar hai bah jaan-e-asad
vagarnah hum to tavaqqau ziyaadah rakhte hain
Line 1/2 - The age is rigidly lacking in torment, on the life of Asad I swear. Otherwise, we were expecting for more. The poet says, I swear by my life - the torment and the tyranny is lacking the hardness. Otherwise I was hoping for more. The age has delivered rigidly less torment. The juxtaposing of sakht (rigid or painful) and kam-azaar (less of pain) makes it a nice figure of contrast (an oxymoron) - 'painfully painless'. Such is the misery of the poet, even after seeing all this and going through all this, he swears that he was expecting more pain in his life but the life seemed like painfully painless. Coming this far in life and seeing the apathy and rebuke of the beloved (earthy or supernal), I swear I was expecting much more pain.
Meaning of difficult words -
zamaanaah = age, period
sakht - hard, rigid
kam-aazaar - lacking in torment, less annoyance
bah jaan-e-asad = on life of asad
vagarnah = otherwise
tavaqqau = expectation
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