O Asad, do not ask about the promise of life's brief span; even the two days that were lived, were spent enduring immense hardships and torment.

We often comfort ourselves with the thought that life is fleeting and only lasts a couple of days, but Ghalib unpacks the bitter irony hidden inside this idea. He tells his heart not to speak of life's promised brevity, because enduring even those few short days felt like living through the prolonged agony of Doomsday itself. The emotional depth lies in how suffering distorts time: even if life is momentary on paper, carrying relentless grief makes every single breath stretch out into an unbearable eternity.