MIRZA GHALIB

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MIRZA GHALIB

By:Shikoh Mohsin Mirza

How Ghalib's genius took ghazal to new heights and depths:

AATEY HAI(N) GHAIB SEY YEH MAZAMEEN KHAYAL MEE(N)
GHALIB SAREER E KHAMAH NAVA E SAROSH HAI

(These ideas visit the imagination from the beyond: in the scratchings of the reed pen (I hear) the angel’s song.)

In this couplet, Ghalib expresses the age-old belief that the provenance of poetry is divine and mystical. The sound of the reed pen, substituted metonymically for poetry, is likened to the voice of an angel to emphasise the role of inspiration in a poet’s vocation.

The grating sound of a reed pen scratching on paper suggest the exacting efforts of creativity — ‘I was sentenced to the hard labour of writing prose and poetry,’ laments Ghalib in a letter. Through all this, Ghalib references the artist’s perennial struggle to mirror and embody in the earthly world the sacred essence of the beyond.

The couplet is vintage Ghalib – lyrical, dense, polysemous, metaphysical, and endowed with universal content. Ghalib wrote countless Urdu couplets of this kind, in which the sheer microcosmic intensity of his ashār captivates the readers’ mind and heart. He owed this accomplishment as much to his unique imagination and mastery of Urdu language as to his access to two traditions of ghazal form.

Comprising a series of closed couplets, similar to heroic couplets in English, the ghazal form’s natural tendency is to craft either an epigram or an aphorism — a fact that was exploited by Ghalib in all its varied possibilities. The ghazal’s sher, being syntactically and thematically an independent entity, compels the poet to cultivate a style that is allusive, symbolic, and, most importantly, resonant with images and metaphors found in the tradition of ghazal poetry reaching as far back as the seventh century CE in Arabic, and to the eleventh century in Persian. The form poses a creative challenge to poets, spurring the more ingenious to extend the boundaries and possibilities of the ghazal, both thematically and structurally – and Ghalib did exactly that.

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib was born in 1797 at Agra at a time when the British were strengthening their hold in north India, particularly in Delhi and Agra. In such turbulent times, life was chaotic and uncertainties prevailed. The Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II was already reduced to a titular head: in 1803 General Lake captured Delhi and pensioned him off.

These conditions were hastening the decline of the feudal nobility to which Ghalib belonged. His ancestors had always held important positions in army or court, and Ghalib could do no better. As a member of the gentry, Ghalib could either choose to follow his ancestors into the army – now under the British an impossibility – or be a man of letters.

For centuries, in Delhi, a rich literary culture prevailed at court and at large – particularly symbolised by the popular custom of mushaira (poetry readings). Literature served not only as a cultivated pastime and entertainment, but also a means to earning esteem and prestige in society. When a poet’s artistic accomplishments caught the eye of a rich and powerful nobleman, he earned rewards as well as patronage, ensuring economic security.

But now literary culture was beginning to serve another purpose. It provided a refuge from the loss and humiliations of real-life disempowerment, and, as a consequence of nostalgia for the past, hyperbole, contrived language, and an obsession with rhetorical devices became paramount – all signs of escapism and decadence.

Around 1812, Ghalib had shifted to Delhi, a city supposed to provide better avenues in life. Ghalib had already started writing poetry in Urdu, but as Persian was the literary language of the cultivated elites, he taught himself the language. Soon, he was writing poetry in Persian and winning praise. He followed as his model the poetry of Mīrzā Abdul-Qādir Bēdil (1642–1720), an accomplished Indian poet of sabk-e hindī (the characteristic Indian style of Persian poetry).

Ghalib’s first collection of Persian poetry was published in 1845 as mayḵāna-ye ārzū. He maintained that he chose Persian as it provided better opportunities for self-expression, and always considered his Persian poetry to be superior to Urdu. Whatever his opinion of his Persian poetry, he had published the first version of his Urdu divan in 1841, which established him as the foremost Urdu poet of his era, only matched by Sheikh Muhammad Ibrahim Zauq (1789–1854), the poet laureate at the Mughal court.

By 1850, Urdu was the language of court, where Ghalib regularly participated in mushairas. Eventually, emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, an accomplished poet himself, acknowledging his talent and achievements, appointed him as his poetry mentor at the death of Ibrahim Zauq.


Though he was ridiculed and condemned by contemporary rival poets for writing incomprehensible poetry, Ghalib was experimenting and innovating – in both style and content – in his ghazals. His letters, collected and published during his life time, provide evidence that he was a conscious innovator, compulsively refining his expression and drawing out new meanings from the restricted thematic world, thereby continuously expanding poetic possibilities.

He enriched Urdu poetry with images and symbols with wider philosophical appeal, and his best ashar throb with sincere and profound sentiments that succeed in raising ghazal to a higher level than the frivolous and superficial depiction of love.

It is impossible to appreciate Ghalib’s genius and uniqueness till we read his ashar closely, by entering the world of their associations and allusions. The following brief analyses of four of his couplets illustrate Ghalib’s characteristic style and technique:

AAGAHI DAAME SHUNEEDAN JIS QADAR CHAAHE BICHHAAYE
MADA ANQAA HAI APNEY AALAMEY TAQREER KA

(However intelligence casts its net of reason: the meaning of my poetic world will ever elusive be.)

The couplet was written in defiance of the rival poets who ridiculed Ghalib’s recondite poetry as meaningless and beyond comprehension. Ghalib uses original metaphors and conceits to transcend a simple rebuttal of his detractors. It requires some explaining.

The mind may spread its net of reason striving to understand the meaning of the poet’s words, but as the mythical bird anqa can’t be caught, the sense of his words would never be grasped. Ghalib invariably described abstract ideas and thought in concrete images and symbols for greater impact – here, the net of reason and the allusion to the anqa, the mythical bird, serving that purpose.

The word anqa is used in Urdu idioms to suggest rarity, and a sense of elusiveness. However, there are other nuances of meaning that must be unravelled. Since anqa is an imagined bird, it represents imagination and contrasts with the reason of the first line, thereby implying the traditional conflict between reason and imagination. The poet’s ‘alame taqreer’—literally, ‘world of speech’, and figuratively, poetry – requires imagination to understand, and not the rigid and abstract reasoning which seems helpless before it.

ASAL E SHUHUD WA SHAHID WA MASHAHUD EEK HAI
HAIRAAN HU(N) PHIR MUSHAHIDA HAI KIS HISAAB MEE(N)

(The essence of what is seen, (the one) who sees, and all seen is one and the same
At a loss I am, (not knowing) how to account for the act of seeing.)

Indeed, the couplet is about the mystical philosophy of wahdatul wajūd (unity of existence), but Ghalib nuances and twists the conventional theme to pose a question that is simultaneously sceptical and profound. Despite the idea in wahdatul wajūd that the essence is fundamental, it’s the act of perception that creates all discrete entities that we see around. While essence exists in a timeless domain, the perception of things exists in the temporal realm.

Ghalib destabilises this understanding by asking a subtle question: in which of these realms does the act of seeing exist? For if the act of seeing did not occur, neither would there be discrete differences, nor the need for speaking about discovering their essence.

By asking this question, Ghalib seems to indicate that essence and its diverse manifestations are inextricably tied to each other. This highlights the paradoxical nature of existence, where we are bound to perpetually strain to appropriate the many as the one.

LIKHTEY RAHEY JUNUUN KI HIKAYAT E KHUN CHAKAAN
HAR CHAND ISS MEE(N) HAATH HAMAREY QALAAM HUEY

(We persist in writing blood-soaked chronicles of passion (obsession)
even though our hands are repeatedly cut off.)

The key word junūn stands for revolution, the sense made obvious from the words – blood-soaked chronicles and the cutting off of hands. Writing the history of revolutionary acts is essential, despite the attendant perils, to keep their memory intact for future generations. Qalam here has two meanings. The first refers to a reed pen, which requires a constant sharpening of the writing end with a knife to make them it write again.

The other, linked meaning is decapitation. By implication, the more the hands of poets – by synecdochic application, suggestive of the heads of revolutionaries – are cut off, the more they redeem their real purpose – turning into reed pens that write about and usher in revolution for posterity to emulate.

HAI GHAIB E GHAIB JIS KO SAMAJHTEY HAI(N) HUM SHUHUUD
HAI(N) KHWAAB MEE(N) HUNUZ JO JAAGEY HAI(N) KHWAAB MEE(N)

(What we take as manifest (just) points to the (inscrutable) mystery of the beyond;
those who wake up in a dream are still in a dream.)

This couplet is a genuine forebear of the Borgesian logic that describes the relationship between metaphysical reality and the illusion that this world is. We take shuhūd (signs) as the manifestations of essence, as perceptible signs of God’s realm and being, yet the terrifying fact is that we see them existing in an unreal, illusionary world. By living in this world, where we make do with arbitrary signs, how can we know the essence and the transcendent reality we yearn for? We are condemned to live within an illusion (majaz) from which it is impossible to know the transcendent reality (haq).

As these ashar reveal, Ghalib revelled naturally in delving into the complexities of ideas, reinvigorating thought with original images and symbols that strain towards new horizons.

Generally, it is less known that Ghalib contributed to the development of Urdu prose also with the publication, just before his death in 1869, of two collections of his letters, Ud-i-Hindi (The Indian Lute) and Urdū-ye moallā (The Urdu Sublime).

Published at the behest of his friend-publisher Munshi Shiv Narayan, these letters are written in a conversational tone and the colloquial idiom of Urdu, thus supplanting the ornateness of the prevalent style. The spontaneity and warmth of prose and the range of subjects, from the gossipy to the philosophical and the aesthetic, single-handedly helped transform the idiom of Urdu from the stilted style of his compatriots into a versatile instrument of expression.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1509524/how-g ... and-depths

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Mirza Ghalib was a Shia and has praised Murtaza Ali wa Ahl Bait in his poetry.

GHALIB NADEEM E DOST SEY AATI HAI BU E DOST
MASHGUL E HAQ HUN BANDAGI E ABU TURAB MEY
MIRZA GHALIB

Galib says, From friend's friend I feel fragrance of friend. I am involved with Haq, through remembrance of Abu Turab.

Abu Turab is one of the titles given by Prophet Muhammad to Mowla Ali. Literary Turab means earth or dust in Arabic. Abu Turab means 'father of dust'. Earth, planets, stars, and heavenly bodies in universe are made up of dust particles. Agriculture products come out of fertile dust, minerals are buried under dust, all kind of sand is dust. In other words Ali is one who controls and balances the earthly bodies in universe.
In Ismaili terminology turab is equated with iman, faith.

It is interesting to note that Ali Muhammad Jan Muhammad Chunara in his Urdu translation of Ismaili history NURUN MUBIN quoted the above couplet in the beginning of preface.

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hindustantimes
Saturday, Oct 12, 2019

Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, popularly known as Mirza Ghalib, was a celebrated poet of his times. His work is much-loved by poetry lovers all over the world and today on his 221st birth anniversary.
BOOKS Updated: Dec 27, 2018 19:17 IST
Saumya Sharma

Hazaaron khwahishein aisi ke har khwahish pe dum nikle,

Bahut nikle mere armaan lekin phir bhi kam nikle

Penned by the celebrated Urdu poet of his times, Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, popularly known as Ghalib, we’ve heard these lines in several renditions, in films, as a film’s title, a song by Jagjit Singh and so much more. The theme of this ghazal is understood in terms of Ghalib’s love interest. In near-direct translation, it means all of Ghalib’s thoughts and desires are never enough. Even if some of those desires and thoughts are fulfilled, all of them can never be attained.

Born in Agra on 27 December 1797, Ghalib’s first love was always Dilli (Delhi) about whom he writes, “I asked my soul: What is Dilli? She replied: The world is the body, and Dilli is its life.”

This love was beautiful and most definitely reciprocated. The city and its residents have loved him as much, and even nearly 150 years after his demise. Ghalib’s work remains alive in the hearts of the lovers of Urdu and poetry in general.

In the words of Gulzar Sahab, “Ghalib is very important for everyone. You should know about him even if you are not familiar with his language. His poems, his lifestyle, his behaviour everything is a great inspiration. At a time when people used to carry their religion on their shoulders, Ghalib talked about humanity. The man lost seven children and carried a huge sadness inside him but despite that he was known for his sense of humour".

Quotes courtesy: Rekhta.org

https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/mo ... 1CiDJ.html

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GHAZAL

How the Ghazal traveled from 6th-century Arabia to Persia, India and the English-speaking world. The literary form has been adopted by many different cultures and adapted for a variety of languages.

This is an excerpt from the Preface to 'Hazaaron Khwahishein Aiesi': The Wonderful World of Urdu Ghazals, selected, edited and translated by Anisur Rahman, HarperCollins India, detailing the journey of the Ghazal across time and space.

The trajectory of the Ghazal is unlike that of any other literary form that has had a history of traversing beyond its spatial confines. A brief tour through the passages of this poetic form and its diverse routes would reveal both its uniqueness and universal appeal.

When the Ghazal moved out of the Arabian Peninsula, it found a hospitable space in medieval Spain where it was written both in the Arabic and the Hebrew languages.

In yet another instance, we have the Ghazal reaching out to west African languages like Hausa and Fulfulde.

Even while these Ghazals developed their own marks, they also kept close to the Arabic model by retaining the traditional Arabic metres and forms.

It was only when the Ghazal reached Persia in the middle of the 8th century that it started developing its own contours even while it did not entirely disengage from the formal patterns of the Arabic Ghazals.

Later, the Persian Ghazal acquired its definite character when it developed its own stylistic marks in refurbishing the matla, the first line (sher)of the Ghazal, and evolving a pattern of refrains (radeef) as the last unit of expression in the second line of each sher.

It also defined the length of the Ghazal from seven to 15 shers, and made way for the poets to use their signature in maqta, the last sher of the composition.

Abdullah Jafar RUDAKI (Ismaili poet), the first canonical Ghazal writer of Persia towards the end of the 9th century, was followed in chronological order by other major poets like Sanai Ghaznavi and Fariduddin Attar in the 12th century, Sadi Shirazi and Jalaluddin Rumi in the 13th and Hafiz Shirazi in the 14th century.

The Persian Ghazal matured further after the classical models in the subsequent centuries but it always distinguished itself for two of its most distinctive qualities: its acute mystical preoccupations and its keen philosophical concerns.

The Ghazal written in Persian, the dominant literary language of central Asia and India, made remarkable impact and proved quite consequential in the development of the Ghazal as an archetypal form of poetic expression in the East.

Even the poets who wrote in other languages looked towards Persia for mature models. Turkey, for example, being another destination of the Ghazal, offered yet another variation on the Persian Ghazal.
Ali Sher Navai of Afghan descent, who was supposed to be the founder of Uzbek literature, brought it closer to new linguistic habits and exposed it to the extinct Chagatai language of Turkey in the mid-15th century, and Fuzuli brought the Ghazal to Azerbaijani Turkish in tone and tenor at the beginning of the 16th century.

Outside Arabia where it originated, and Persia where it matured, it was in India that the Ghazal found its most hospitable destination.

Even though the Ghazal in India is sometimes traced back to the 13th century in the works of Amir Khusrau, its Urdu incarnation is rightly identified in Mohammad Quli Qutub Shah towards the latter half of the 16th century, and Vali Deccani in the succeeding century.

Looking back, one may clearly notice that it has passed through several stages of development in form, content and language, ever since its first flowering in the Deccan and its subsequent branching out in various directions of India.

While prominent literary centers like the Deccan, Delhi and Lucknow created competitive conditions for the development of the Ghazal, several others spread over the length and breadth of the country championed their own features of style.

All of them contributed together in constructing a larger and comprehensive tradition of Ghazal writing which has kept growing ever since.

The most remarkable feature of the Ghazal in India which stands out quite prominently is that the poets of various linguistic, regional and religious affiliations joined hands to broaden its thematic and stylistic frontiers and impart to it a unique resilience that has stayed with it through all the phases of literary history.

The Ghazal, as a literary form which has no other approximate form in any of the literature, has long elicited the attention of poets writing in several Western languages.
When the Orient lured Germany in the 19th century, the Ghazal reached there with the translations of Persian works.

Friedrich Schlegal, an Orientalist who studied Sanskrit, chose to make his bold experiments in this form.

His contemporary, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, imitated Persian models, translated Ghazals, and wrote under the Oriental influence and published his collection, West-ostliche Divan.

We also have, in the same line of descent, Friedrich Rückert, another Orientalist, writing his Ghazals and publishing them in Ghaselen.

August Graf von Platen, a master of 12 languages, is yet another example who practiced this form, adhered to the Persian form of rhythm and rhyme through his qaafia and radeef, and published his collections Ghaselen and Neue Ghaselen.

In modern times, the Spanish poet Frederico Garcia Lorca wrote his Ghazals, called gecelos, and included them in his last collection of poems, Divan del Tamarit, which also reflected his ever-abiding interest in Arab Andalusian culture.

The appeal of the Ghazal traveled in other directions as well, which is exemplified by compositions in languages as diverse as French, Italian and English.

In modern times, the Ghazal found its larger acceptance in the English-speaking world.

Adrienne Rich, John Hollander and Robert Bly in America, Jim Harrison, John Thompson, Phyllis Webb and Douglas Barbour in Canada, and Judith Wright in Australia are just a few of the many poets who brought the Ghazal to new literary spaces, as they experimented with this form and made way for many others to emulate.

On being introduced to Ghalib during the death centenary year of the poet in 1969, and on translating his Ghazals, Adrienne Rich developed an instant liking for the form. Later, she wrote her Ghazals independently and published 17 of them in Leaflets as “Homage to Ghalib” and, subsequently, nine more in The Will To Change as “The Blue Ghazals”.

In her Collected Early Poems, she acknowledged her debt and wrote: “My Ghazals are personal and public, American and Twentieth Century; but they owe much to the presence of Ghalib in my mind: a poet, self-educated and profoundly learned who owned no property and borrowed his books, writing in an age of political and cultural break-up.”

Similarly, the Ghazal caught the imagination of John Hollander to the extent that he defined its poetics and wrote a Ghazal on the Ghazal, a kind of definitional piece, following the strict discipline of the form with its qaafia and radeef falling in place.
At a remove from Rich and Hollander, we have quite a few Canadian poets making their forays into this form.

Jim Harrison, who published 65 of his Ghazals in Outlyer and Ghazals, was aware of the Arabic and Persian Ghazal tradition and knew of Rich’s excursion into this form.

He is one of the more prominent poets to discover the Ghazal and find space for all that he considered crude and queer to write about, along with all that was normal and natural.

“After several years spent with longer forms,” he said, “I’ve tried to regain some of the spontaneity of the dance, the song unencumbered by any philosophical apparatus, faithful only to its own music.”

Another poet, John Thompson, in his carefully crafted Ghazals in Still Jack also valued the freedom that the Ghazal afforded, but he did not mistake it for surrealist or free association poems violating a sense of order.

Instead, he valued them as “poems of careful construction performing controlled progression” with no deliberate design upon the reader. He found in it a way to test the limits of imagination that might lose the track of reason, if left unguarded.

Yet another variation in the writing of the Ghazal may be seen in Phyllis Webb’s Sunday Water and Water and Light. She evolved the concept of “anti Ghazal” and found in them a space for “the particular, the local, the dialectical and private”.

She degendered the form and resorted to a subversive way by de-valorising the female figure, which the Ghazal had been traditionally valorising ever since its inception.

A much more radical position was adopted by Douglas Barbour in his Ghazals included in Visible Visions and Breathtakes.

He chose to try the limits of sound and form by modulating breath as a mode of expression and bringing it closer to performance poetry.

With this entirely new mode of apprehension, Barbour added yet another facet to the fast emerging body of the North American Ghazal.

“Indeed, a very particular sound, for example, caught my imagination,” he said, “when I thought of Ghazals, the sound of breathing itself. There was a form and there was a breath. And there appeared what I call the breath Ghazals.”

Compositions by Douglas Lochhead in Tiger in the Skull and Max Plater in Rain on the Mountains may be read alongside the compositions by the North American poets.

The prominent Australian poet, Judith Wright, who began as a traditionalist, turned quite experimental towards the end of her career when she too experimented with this form in a section, “Shadow of Fire”, containing Ghazals in her collection, Phantom Dwelling.

In her departure from the traditional Ghazal, she maintained thematic continuity in her couplets and gave her compositions a title.

Like all other poets, she too executed a variety of experiences in her couplets like the experiences of warfare, birth, growth, decay, contemporary life and the inevitability of the human fate.

In the hands of all the poets mentioned above, as also many others who practiced this form, it may be marked that they treated the Ghazal with great respect and curiosity.

It was an immigrant form for them in which they saw the prospects of simulation and assimilation to enrich their own poetic capital. They saw in it the possibility of exploring newer areas of experience that could be expressed in manners hitherto unknown in the European tradition.
Carrying the argument further, I should like to assert that the Ghazal in English acquired its definite face and form with Agha Shahid Ali who wrote his own Ghazals, but more importantly, he created a condition for the poets to write their Ghazals, observing its formal requirements.

He despaired over the way poets treated this form as a way of writing free verse, which he thought was a contradiction in terms if one wanted to write a real Ghazal.

Considering their efforts “amusing”, he brought them face to face with the rigorous demands that the Ghazal made.

Compositions by Daine Ackerman, John Hollander, WS Merwin, William Matthews, Paul Muldoon, Maxine Kumin, Keki N Daruwalla, to name just a few, included in his Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English, amply show how far the Ghazal had moved towards meeting the rigorous demands of the form after Ali’s intervention.

This article was originally published on Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.
www.dawn.com/news/1457703/how-the-ghaza ... king-world

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TODAY'S PAPER | OCTOBER 15, 2019
COLUMN: GHALIB’S FAVOURITE GHAZAL
Mehr Afshan Farooqi

In the course of my journey with Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib’s Divans, I noticed how he carefully chose verses from his ghazals when he made the selection for publication. For example, the very first and extremely powerful ghazal in his Divan, ‘Naqsh Faryadi Hai Kis Ki Shokhi-i-Tehreer Ka’ originally comprised nine verses. There were seven in the 1821 Divan (Nuskhah-i Hamidiyyah), and two more were added in 1826. But when the 1841 Urdu Divan was published, this ghazal had five verses. Indeed, the verses that Ghalib dropped were no match for the ones he retained. To clarify my point, I will present the dropped verses from this famous ghazal; they are intricate and adorned with unfamiliar phrases which makes them difficult to read:

“Shokhi-i-nairang sayd-i-vehshat-i-taoos hai

Daam sabze mein hai parvaaz-i-chaman taskheer ka”

[Vividness of illusion makes the timid peacock captive

Grass becomes the net that holds back the peacock’s flight]

In the first line, what could be “vehshat-i-taoos”? How is it related to “shokhi-i-nairang”? What is meant by “shokhi-i-nairang”? The second line makes us stumble on “parvaaz-i-chaman taskheer”. Ghalib likes to use the peacock imagery, especially in his early verses. Here he gives a unique meaning to the well-known fact that the peacock does not like to fly. In this verse, the peacock, because of his vehshat [timidity] does not go far and is deprived of the colourfulness of the garden. If the peacock were to fly (parvaaz) high over the garden, he would be free of the limits imposed by timidity and see the colourful world.

The beauty in this verse lies in the play with reversal of colours. The peacock is vividly coloured, but cannot fly and misses the colours of the garden. He becomes a captive of the net hidden in the green grass (daam sabze mein hai); that is, he likes to stay on the ground. Perhaps such a complex verse in the opening ghazal might have thrown off readers. We can tease more meanings from this verse and delight in its complexity, but I’ll move on to the next verse:

“Lazzat-i-ijaad-i-naaz afsun-i-arz-i-zauq-i-qatl

Naal aatash mein hai tegh-i-yaar se nakhcheer ka”

At first, I quite disliked this verse. How can this even be regarded as Urdu, I thought, as I stumbled while reading aloud. The string of izafats [possessives] in the first line make it sound more Persian than Urdu. In any case, this verse embodies the acme of restless anticipation expressed through the idiom ‘naal aatash mein’. This refers to a practice followed by enchanters or sorcerers of writing the name of the one who was to be tormented on a horseshoe (naal) and putting it in fire. Ghalib says that the beloved’s prolonged, flirtatious coquetry, which involves inventing new ways of teasing, exquisitely protracts the poor lover’s eagerness to die. The poor lover and victim of the beloved’s charms, who is craving for his head to be chopped (zauq-i-qatl), is burning like metal in fire.

“Khisht pusht-i-dast-i-ijz-o-qaalib aaghosh-i-vida

Pur hua hai sail se paimana kis taameer ka”

This verse is about the poignancy of emotions at the time of parting (vida) narrated through the metaphor of brick-making (khisht). Bricks are set in containers that hold them. Thus, the brick is in the embrace of its container and doesn’t want to be parted from it. The brick’s heart is filled with pain when receiving the last embrace before being placed for construction (taameer). The building’s foundation made from these bricks will be filled with water (sail).

This ghazal does not have the maqta [signature verse] Ghalib first wrote:

“Vehshat-i-khwaab-i-adam shor-i-tamasha hai Asad

Jo mizhah johar nahin ainah-i-taabeer ka”

Ghalib’s verse exemplifies a preferred theme in ghazal poetry: the mystique of the mirror. Mirrors were made of iron or steel and their surface was polished to improve their reflective capacity. The polishing created very fine lines that were known as the mirror’s jauhar. Jauhar can be described as the motes or particles of the mirror that constitute the vision inside the mirror. Eyelashes are compared to the fine lines created by polishing; thus, they can be jauhar, too. Persons who do not have the jauhar-like eyelashes cannot claim to have seen the vision (of existence or creation) in the mirror. What they see are the terrifying dreams in the state of non-existence. There is a lot to contemplate in this verse. There is an obvious play between khwaab [dream] and taabeer [interpretation]. Although this verse does resonate the ontological theme of existence and non-existence, perhaps it is too complicated to be parsed. Maybe Ghalib made the right choice by excluding this one?

The longest ghazal in Ghalib’s Divan is of 17 verses, each one as beautiful as the one preceding or following it. It was written after 1821, appearing for the first time in the 1826 Divan. When Ghalib published his Urdu Divan in 1841, he made very careful selections. This ghazal in its entirety is the last one in the ghazal section. In the course of my study of Ghalib’s manuscript Divans as well as published Divans, I noticed that the arrangement of ghazals within the broad category of radeef [refrain] was not the same except for the fact that ‘Naqsh Faryadi...’ was always the first ghazal and ‘Muddat Hui Hai Yaar Ko Mehman Kiye Huay’ was invariably the last.

Ghalib has a formidable reputation of being a cerebral poet who deliberately seeks to complicate themes with far-fetched metaphor. This is true; yet, Ghalib has given us some of the most achingly beautiful verses that capture desire in so many colours. Every verse in the following ghazal, by the young Ghalib, invokes longing for the beloved. I guess it was also his favourite because he kept it in its entirety, not pruning a single verse. I close with my favourite verse from this brilliant ghazal to illustrate Ghalib’s mastery in evoking emotion:

“Dhunde hai phir kisi ko lab-i-baam par havas

Zulf-i-siyeeh rukh pe pareshan kiye huay”

[Desire again searches for someone on the terrace lip

Dark tresses carelessly flowing over her face]

The columnist is associate professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, October 6th, 2019

https://www.dawn.com/news/1508978/colum ... ite-ghazal

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HAZARUN KHWAHISHEN AISI KE HAR KHWAHISH PE DUM NIKLEY
BAHUT NIKLEY MEREY ARMAAN LEKIN PHIR BHI KUM NIKLEY

Translation: I have a thousand desires, all desires worth dying for Though many of my desires were fulfilled, majority remained unfulfilled

DAAM E HAR MOUJ MEIN HAI HALQA E SOD KAMM E NAHANG
DEKHEIN KYA GUZREY HAI QATREY PE GOUHAR HONEE TAK

Translation: A hundred crocodiles lie ambushed in the web of every wave, see what happens to the droplet when it becomes a pearl.

WAIZ TERI DUA'UN MEIN ASAR HO TOU MASJID KO
HILLA KE DIKHA NAHEIN TOU DOU GHOUNTT PI

Translation: If your devotion has strength, then make the Mosque tremble. Otherwise, have a couple of pints.

HUM NE MUHABBAT KE NASHEY MEIN USSEY KHUDA BANA DHALA
HOSH TUBB AAYA JUB UUS NE KAHA KHUDA KISI KA NAHI HOTTA

Translation: Love made me believe that my lover is God himself, I got back to my senses when my lover said, God does not belong to any one person.

AAH KO CHAHIYE IKK UMAR ASAR HONEE TAK
KOUN JEETA HAI TERI ZULF KE SAR HONEE TAK

Translation: A lifetime passes before a sigh shows its effects. Who would wait so long to see your curls fixed up?

DIL E NAADAN TUJHEY HUA KIYA HAI
AAKHIR ISS MARZ KI DAWA KIYA HAI

Translation: Oh naive heart, what has happened to you? What is the cure for this pain, after all?

ISHQ PAR ZOR NAHEEN HAI YEH WOH AATISH GHALIB
JO LAGAAYE NA LAGEY AUR BHUJAAYE NA BANEY

Translation: We have no control on love, it is such a fire, Which cannot be kindled or snuffed out at our own desire.

AASHIQI SABAR TALAB AUR TAMANA BETAAB
DIL KA KIYA RUNG KARUN KHUN E JIGAR HONEEY TAK

Translation: Love demands patience but lust is relentless, What to do with the heart till it bleeds to death!

HUM NE MANAA KE TAGHAFUL NA KAROGEY LEKIN
KHAAK HO JAEINGEY HUM TUM KO KHABAR HONEEY TAK

Translation: True, you'd respond without least delay, But when you come to know, I'd be no more.

[swamidada]

On Mirza Ghalib's 220th birth anniversary today, here are some of the famous couplets by the legendary poet that manage to pierce the heart.
All India Edited by Richa Taneja Updated: December 27, 2017 6:10 pm
Famous Mirza Ghalib Lines That Leave Deep Imprints On Heart And Mind

Mirza Ghalib is considered one of the most popular and influential poets of the Mughal Era.

New Delhi: Mirza Ghalib, a name synonymous with deep, philosophical and love poetry in Urdu and Persian, is considered one of the most popular and influential poets of the Mughal Era. A large part of Mirza Ghalib's poetry focuses on the praise of Prophet Muhammad and then there are many about life and love which leave a deep imprint on heart and mind. His fame came to him after his death and the 'treasure chest' of his poetry, shayari and ghazals was recognized, making him one of the most revered and celebrated poets of the present generation. On Mirza Ghalib's 220th birth anniversary today, here are some of the famous sher by the legendary poet that manage to pierce the heart:

aah ko chaahiye ik umr asar hone tak
kaun jeeta hai teri zulf ke sar hone tak

(Translation: A lifetime passes before a sigh shows its effect,
who would wait so long to see you fixing the tangles in your hair)


un ke dekhe se jo aa jaati hai munh par raunaq
vo samajhte hain ki beemar ka haal achha hai

(Translation: My face lights up when I see her and she feels that the sick me is now okay)

hazaron khwahishen aisi ki har khwahish pe dam nikle,
bahut nikle mere armaan lekin phir bhi kam nikle

(Translation: I have a thousand desires, all desires worth dying for,
Though many of my desires were fulfilled, many remained unfulfilled)

hum ko maalum hai jannat ki haqiqat lekin
dil ke khush rakhne ko 'ghalib' ye khayal achha hai

(Translation: We know about janat, what's the truth, but to please yourself, this thought is good)

ye na thi hamari qismat ki visal-e-yaar hota
agar aur jeete rahte yahi intezar hota

(Translation: That my love be consummated, fate did not ordain
Living longer had I waited, would have been in vain)

bas-ki dushvaar hai har kaam ka asaan hona
aadmi ko bhi muyassar nahin insaan hona

(Translation: It is difficult to complete every goal easily. For a man, too, to be a human, is no easy feat)

kaaba kis munh se jaoge ghalib
sharm tum ko magar nahin aati

(Translation: What face will you show in kaaba, Ghalib, when you are not ashamed)

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/mirza-g ... et-1792616

[swamidada]

Mirza Ghalib was the pen name of Urdu poet Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan who was born in colonial India in 1797. Considered one of the most popular and influential poets of the later days of the Persian Mughal Era before British rule took full hold, he wrote several ghazals – poetic forms that incorporate rhyming couplets with a refrain, each line sharing the same meter.

Ghalib married Umrao Begum, according to Muslim tradition, and moved to Dehli, a period that was marked by personal tragedy. Ghalib and Umrao had 7 children but none survived beyond infancy.

Throughout his poetry there is a central theme about imprisonment and the painful struggle of life and Ghalib went on to describe his marriage a second form of imprisonment.

While his wife was generally pious and Godly, Ghalib was a little more unfettered, put in gaol on one occasion for gambling and acquiring a reputation as a ladies man in Mughal court circles. He has always been considered something of liberal mystic who was mistrustful of the literal interpretation of the teachings of Islam and other religions.

Poetry was a love from an early age. He composed his first poem at 11 and learned philosophy and logic in his late teens and brought this into his work, exploring issues such as the mysteries of life through numerous ghazals, which until then had been primarily used to express thoughts of love.

Although he was most connected to his Persian poetry, it was his Urdu verses that have lasted the test of time and are still sung and recited in modern day India and Pakistan. His work has been studied and written about by Urdu scholars across the years and the first complete English translation of his work was in The Love Sonnets of Ghalib by Dr Sarfaraz Niazi which was only recently published.

As a writer, Ghalib also chronicled a very turbulent period in Indian history and his letters provide a deep insight into the great changes that were taking place with the rise of colonialism and the end of the feudal elite.

Like many religious poets, both then and now, Ghalib was able to write profound pieces but also used verse to criticize many aspects of orthodox religion particularly the arrogance of certainty that many religious leaders were guilty of during the time. Often difficult to understand, especially in its English translation, in contrast Ghalib’s work brought about a revolution in Urdu literature, introducing a simplified, conversational style of prose.

Ghalib died in Dehli in 1869 at the age of 72. His fame grew after his death and over the years many films, plays and books have been produced about his work and poetry.

https://mypoeticside.com/poets/mirza-ghalib-poems

[swamidada]

Aah ko chaahiye ik umr asar hone tak,
Kaun jiyega teri zulf ke sar hone tak.

A lifetime passes before a sigh shows its effects.
Who would wait so long to see your curls fixed up?

Bazeecha e itfal hai duniya meray aage
Hota hai shab o roz tamasha meray aage

The world is a children’s playground before me
Night and Day, this theatre is enacted before me


Yeh na thi hamari qismat ke visaal e yaar hota
Agar aur jeetey rahty tou yahi intezaar hota

It was not my destiny to meet my beloved; if I were to live
a long life, it would still be an eternal wait!!

Kahoon Kis se main ke Kya hai shab e gham buri balaa hai
Mujhe Kya bura tha marna agar ek baar hotaa

Who is there, with whom I could share how unbearable are all these distressful night
I did not mind to die if it was once and not every day

Go haath mein junbish nahein aankho mein tou dam hai
Rahney do uabhī saagar o meena merey aagey

Although, now the hand doesn't move and not even the strength to lift the glass (of wine) and place it to the lips, still just leave the goblet and wine in front me.

Maara zamaane ney Asadullah Khan tumhey
Woh walwale kahaan woh jawaani kidhar gayee

The life's ups and downs have beaten you and made you tired 'Asadullah Khan' (Ghalib's name)
Where is that enthusiasm and where is gone that youth

Na tha kuchh to Khuda tha kuch na hotta to Khuda hotta,
Dhuboya mujh ko hone ne, na hotta main to kya hotta

When there was nothing there was God and if there would have been nothing God would have still be there, I am ruined because of my existence. It would not have made any difference if I was not around

[swamidada]

THE INCONSOLABLE GHALIB
Faheem Sikandar Published May 16, 2021

The year is 1857 and, after a long struggle with his persistent financial instability, our very own Mirza Nosha, also known as Mirza Ghalib, has established himself as a litterateur amongst Delhi’s literati.

Orphaned at a very young age and reared by one of his uncles, Ghalib had a difficult childhood. Later in his youth, he is to be obsessed with his portion of the same uncle’s pension as one of the legal heirs. The pension affair weighs heavy on his nerves and makes him travel to Calcutta. To his utter chagrin, things do not go his way. The uncle’s sons are wicked and influential enough to throw out the hapless bard who, in their view, was an inordinate claimant on their inheritance. The poor poet has to bear the brunt of it.

Since the very beginning, he carries a sense of bereavement within himself and believes that he is a burden for those on whom he depends. But he never lets his ill fate affect him adversely in any way. In Delhi, he is a man of an affable deportment, mannerly in speech. To rebuff his financial setbacks, he adopts the lifestyle of an aristocrat.

The result is more than obvious: he is in debt consistently. However, he lives quite a robust life in Delhi, while having flings with courtesans and dousing away his misery in excess of booze. He is conscious of being a sinner and knows the quantum of his sins to be limitless, as he says himself:

Ghalib is a giant in the world of Urdu literature. But he wanted to be celebrated as a poet of Persian — a status that eludes him in death, as it did in life. “Nobody enjoys the Persian odes that I pride myself on,” he once wrote in a letter. Why was he obsessed with this unrequited love for a language other than the one for which he is celebrated?

[The proclivity towards sins ought to be equated with the yearnings of the heart
Even if there be the water of seven seas, only a part of my garb will be soaked]

Ghalib is not a run-of-the-mill poet or just any other versifier in Delhi. He is an aficionado and maestro. He is too good at his art, and prosody is like child’s play for him. He asks his audience to play a round with him and flabbergasts everyone while ending up with all three aces in his hand. There is no match to him in contemporary literati.

That’s all right. The problem is that he knows the fact that he is the ace all too well. This adds to his misery as his merit is not acknowledged; rather he attracts more enemies. The best example is his rivalry with Ibrahim Zauq, the poet laureate of Delhi and the king’s tutor in poetry.

In 1852, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the king of Delhi, celebrates the wedding ceremony of his crown prince, Mirza Jawan Bakht, with great pomp and show. Ghalib is tasked by the queen, Zeenat Mahal, to write a sehra or prothalamion for the prince. The poet complies without delay. But, in his narcissist vein, he claims in one of the couplets that no other poet could write a prothalamion like him. The couplet goes:

[I understand the subtleties of art and am not Ghalib’s partisan
But let’s see if someone can write a better prothalamion than this one]

The king gets the message loud and clear, that Ghalib has taken a jibe at him for appointing Ibrahim Zauq his tutor and poet laureate instead of Ghalib. This shows the king does not know the worth of art and he is a partisan of Zauq.

The king asks Zauq to write a prothalamion promptly in response. Zauq complies, albeit his prothalamion is way inferior to Ghalib’s. With Zauq being the king’s blue-eyed boy, Ghalib has to write an apology for his tongue-in-cheek couplet. But Ghalib’s seditious spirit comes to the fore even in the apology. He claims that for centuries his ancestors were soldiers and poetry is not what he depends upon for honour and prestige.

In one of the couplets he, once again, belittles Zauq’s talent:



Ghalib claims in the couplet that he makes no claim of being an Urdu poet, that he wrote the prothalamion only for the pleasure of her majesty (the queen). Here, again, Ghalib is averring himself to be a poet of Persian rather than that of Urdu. Whereas Zauq was no match to him at all in Persian poetry. He attests whatever he said afore in the apology in the last couplet as such:

[God be witness to the fact that Ghalib is truthful
I speak the truth as I am not in the habit of lying]

Despite the double meanings of the apology’s verses, prima facie the apology is meek and reconciliatory. Therefore, the king has to let the matter go. In 1854, Zauq dies and Ghalib is appointed as the king’s tutor. But, unlike Zauq, Ghalib is never to be honoured as the poet laureate.

PERSIAN, URDU AND GHALIB

Urdu poetry is one of the most difficult genres to practice, owing to its prosody. There is a common misperception that poetry is just rhymed thoughts and anyone can do it. This is hardly the case. In Urdu, the prosodists have developed certain meaningless words as measures to balance a couplet. These meaningless words are called arkaan. The repetition of these meaningless words in a certain sequence constitute a behr (metre). The words in each couplet are scanned/measured against the arkaan, so as to get one of the metres.

There are eight popular behrs in Urdu poetry; although metre can be manipulated to get some other complex metres, which are for specialists and maestros. Urdu’s prosodic base is from Persian poetry and so are its metres.

Ghalib is too well versed in Persian poetry; rather, he considers himself as one of the best poets of Persian and not of Urdu. He is not amused when the king asks him to write in Urdu for a poetry symposium to be held at the Red Fort. As he complains in one of his letters to his friend Munshi Nabi Bakhsh (Haqir):

“My friend, you praise my ghazal and I am ashamed of it. These are not ghazals, but things I write to earn my bread. Nobody enjoys the Persian odes that I pride myself on. My sole hope of appreciation now arises from his majesty, the shadow of God, issuing a command by saying, ‘My friend, it has been some time since you brought me a present’ — i.e. a new Urdu poem. So willy-nilly an occasion arises when I compose a ghazal and bring it to the court...”

The above cited letter has been quoted by Altaf Hussain Hali in his book Yadgar-i-Ghalib, and was also translated and reproduced in the book The Oxford India Ghalib by Ralph Russell.

Hali further adds, “He [Ghalib] did not look upon the ability to write Urdu poetry as an accomplishment; in fact, he thought it beneath him.”

Similarly, when the editor of a Delhi Magazine, Aaram, asks him for some Urdu ghazals, he responds as such:

“My friend, how can I write in Urdu? Is my standing so low that this should be expected of me? Still, it is expected of me. But where am I to turn, hunting for tales and stories? I haven’t a book to my name. Let my pension be restored and I’ll get the peace of mind to think of some...”
— From The Oxford India Ghalib

But when he writes Urdu poetry, or rather says it (as Urdu poetry is to be recited rather than written according to tradition), he does it splendidly. His excellence comes to the fore during poetry symposiums in the form of metrical acrobatics and the multiple meanings of his couplets.

Ghalib is not a run-of-the-mill poet or just any other versifier in Delhi. He is an aficionado and maestro. He is too good at his art, and prosody is like child’s play for him.

He is an erudite poet and has knowledge of philosophy and mysticism. He claims to be a mystic, and the themes of his poetry are testimony to the fact. He is well-acquainted with all classical Persian poets including Bedil and Huzein, and, at times, criticises them as well.

A rare photograph of Ghalib | Wikimedia Commons
Ghalib is, in fact, not solely a poet but a philosopher poet. His couplets are loaded and expose the reader to multiple meanings. He flabbergasts his readers and audience with far-fetched metaphors, historical references and the finesse of his prosodical expertise. His audience is either awestruck or, like his archrival Ustad Zauq, is extremely envious of him.

Being a debonair past master in the art of poetry, he has many disciples (shagirds), including King Bahadur Shah Zafar himself, who come to him for correction of their verses. This happens so often that it seems that many of the king’s ghazals come directly from Ghalib’s pen. Altaf Hussain Hali, a close companion and disciple of Ghalib, quotes an incident in his book Yadgar-i-Ghalib, where the poet corrected multiple ghazals by the king in a matter of minutes and added some verses to them as well.

AGONY IN DELHI

Unfortunately, Ghalib’s excellence in the poetic arts does not pay off during his life. He is not acknowledged the way he should be. His financial constraints overwhelm him during his lifetime, save a brief interlude when he is appointed tutor to the king in 1854. But that too is short lived; in 1857, Delhi is overtaken by the East India Company and the king is promptly sent into exile to Rangoon. The poor poet is left without any hope for the future. His poetry duly reflects his plight in detail.

Ghalib’s prowess and excellence in poetry overshadows his prolificacy as a prose writer. The best amongst his prose works is Dastambu, meaning ‘posy of flowers’. Dastambu provides sufficient material to gauge the quantum of agony the poet went through. The writing is completely devoid of Ghalib’s characteristic humour. It’s an extremely sad book. In what circumstances and why this prose work was written by the ace poet is a pertinent question to be asked. For that matter, we will have to get back to 1857.

Ghalib is basking in the weak sunshine of slight monetary affluence through the stipend from the king and a meagre salary for writing the Mughal history, when catastrophe barges in, and the façade of Mughal rule in India is rendered topsy-turvy. 1857 is the year of revolt and one of the most turbulent times in Indian history. It is Ghalib’s fate to witness the massacre in the streets of Delhi and to see his city reduced to ruins in his lifetime.

There is carnage in the streets, initially by the mutineers and then by the Britishers. In any case, the loss of human lives is colossal. Ghalib is under self-imposed siege at his neighbourhood Ballimaran (not “Billimaran” or “street of cat killers”, as it was misidentified in historian William Dalrymple’s book City of Djinns). There is a situation of lockdown and curfew in the city; anyone found in the streets is liable to be killed.

Being a debonair past master in the art of poetry, he has many disciples (shagirds), including King Bahadur Shah Zafar himself, who come to him for correction of their verses.

During these ominous days, Ghalib engages himself in writing about the chaos around and resorts to his favourite medium, Persian, and not Urdu. This Persian is ornate and classical. The title, Dastambu (Posy of Flowers), is chosen not as per the book’s contents but as a literary metaphor. The book recounts 15 months of travail and agony in Delhi.

A commemorative 1969 postal stamp in India | Wikimedia Commons
Ghalib appears to be an Anglophile when he laments the loss of British lives at the hands of mutineers, and even condemns the mutineers’ ‘act of brutality’ when they resort to killing British women and children. However, in September 1857, when the British recapture the city of Delhi, Ghalib is also courageous and bold enough to express extreme grievance over the British excesses and the atrocities committed by them.

Meanwhile, life at Ballimaran turns out to be miserable and deplorable. There seems to be no access to even basic necessities of life, including drinkable water and food. The people are constrained to live like prisoners in their own homes and have to suffice with rainwater for drinking.

Ghalib dwells in detail about the turmoils he faces those days. He adopts two children from a relative. The poet is saddened when he cannot arrange for their milk and sweets, which they desire the most. But the climax of his agony comes in the death of his brother, whose corpse remains unattended in the streets of Delhi for days.

Despite all these odds, he is a professional poet and writes a paean for Queen Victoria. He allegedly also tones down some passages in Dastambu that might cause offence to the British, in the hope of saving his skin from British vengeance and of claiming a pension for himself. But these hopes are finally dashed when his pension claim is rejected in 1859.

Whether in dejection or elation, being a poet, Ghalib resorts to his art of poetry for catharsis. He dies a decade later, in 1869. His words and legacy continue to live on.

LANGUAGES OF LOVE

The million dollar question is, why did Ghalib prefer Persian over Urdu? Was it just a subconscious infatuation with the language or was he doing it consciously? To answer the question, we will have to revisit the cultural and linguistic ethos of Mughal society.

Persian was the official language during the Delhi Sultanate era. When the Mughals took over, they kept Persian as their official language. Persian was not the Mughal’s language; their mother tongue was Turkic and Tuzk-i-Babri was written in the same language.

Unfortunately, Ghalib’s excellence in the poetic arts does not pay off during his life. He is not acknowledged the way he should be. His financial constraints overwhelm him during his lifetime, save a brief interlude when he is appointed tutor to the king in 1854. But that too is short lived; in 1857, Delhi is overtaken by the East India Company and the king is promptly sent into exile to Rangoon. The poor poet is left without any hope for the future. His poetry duly reflects his plight in detail.

With the passage of time, the Mughals let go of Turkic and started adopting more Persian in their daily routine. However, a major breakthrough for Persian in the Subcontinent came with Akbar. Being a proficient administrator, he focused on revenue records in the country, and made it obligatory that all records be kept in Persian. It became necessary for all the educated lot to know Persian and, thus, Persian came into operations of the state full throttle.

At the same time, there were literary endeavours by the poets of the court in Persian. It’s interesting to note that native Persian speakers would snigger over Indian poets’ overtures in Persian, the way the British mocked Indians speaking their language in the later part of the 19th century.

Meanwhile, the Indian Subcontinent witnessed a rare linguistic phenomenon when Urdu emerged as the common language of people. Initially, Urdu was the pidgin language of the military camps, but soon it gained its distinct character and overwhelmed the Indian linguistic scene.

It had the Persian script, Hindi syntax and Persian-Arabic vocabulary. The royal harem adopted Urdu as their language for common parlance and, gradually, Persian was replaced by Urdu. However, it took time for sophisticated Urdu literature to come up.

It was not until the mid-18th century — during the reign of Muhammad Shah, the great grandson of Aurangzeb — that Urdu poetry was accorded recognition at the Mughal court. Till Aurangzeb’s time, Persian was in full vogue and his own epigrammatic prophecy in Persian, about the future of India, held water. As he said, “Az ma est fasaad baqi [After me chaos].”

Persian, being the language of the elite and the royal court, always had an upper hand over Urdu. That’s why the literati preferred to master the language to show their prowess and eruditeness. It was a sine qua non for the literati of the period. This may explain Ghalib’s obsession with the language.

However, his own etched belief, that he was an adept Persian poet rather than an Urdu one, turned out to be his fatal misperception. In fact, Persian was not his mother tongue but a foreign language. Despite his avid interest in the vocabulary and prosody of Persian, Ghalib’s Persian never reached the level of a maestro. His Persian was, more or less, stylised Indian Persian.

This statement can cause ripples and stirs amongst Ghalib’s admirers but truth needs to be acknowledged. The vocabulary he used in his Persian poetry was more of Urdu than Persian. The vocabulary of native speakers of Persian was markedly different .

Whatever Ghalib is today is solely due to his Urdu poetry. Ghalib’s stature as a poet is neither due to his Persian prose nor poetry. While he kept on perfecting his art and became more mature in the later stages of his poetic evolution, he is at his best when he renders poetry in an explicitly simple and meaningful verse known as Sehl-e-Mumtana.

This Urdu literary terminology literally means unattainably simple. The extreme simplicity of the verse strikes the reader/listener at once, so much so that he feels that he can also compose such a verse with ease. Of course, when he actually attempts it, he finds himself at a total loss. Allow me to explain this with certain verses of Ghalib:

[O my naive heart, what has gone wrong with you?
What can be the cure for this ache?]

Now, both of the above are proper prosodic metres of Urdu poetry, namely behr-i-khafeef and behr-i-ramal. At the same time, however, the verses are profound and nuanced. The listener can objectively correlate with the emotions and feelings for catharsis.

This is the real Ghalib — the Ghalib who is a maestro and doyen of Urdu poetry, who can come up with his own mark in poetry. He has his own identity and is a beacon for the progeny to follow. He would employ florid vocabulary with explicit ease, and prosody was a piece of cake for him. There can be no one like Ghalib in the annals of Urdu poetry. He is a milestone and trendsetter, at times inimitable due to his excellence in his art.

Maybe if he had written Dastambu, his prose work, in Urdu instead of Persian, its impact would have been formidable, and the recognition for the work everlasting. Apart from its literary merit, it would have been a perfect material for a historian to explore the ravages of the 1857 uprising, like Zahir Dehlvi’s Dastaan-i-Ghadar. In Persian it was not accorded the status it deserved, as it was a foreign language for the people of the Subcontinent, and the native speakers of Persian were not interested in Indian history.

Ghalib was a literary genius. Yet, he failed to gauge the impact of Urdu in the future and recognize the overwhelming influence the language would have in times to come. There are about 170 million speakers of the language presently; it is spoken and understood in the Subcontinent and in South Asian diasporas around the globe. Ghalib’s Diwan consists of no more than 215 ghazals. Yet, it is the most applauded and debated book of Urdu poetry. No other Urdu poet could get that stature and, without Ghalib, no one can claim to know the ABCs of Urdu poetry.

Ironically, the poet himself couldn’t take pride in his magnum opus, as he used to flaunt his skills as a poet of Persian in the faces of his opponents. Ghalib is to Urdu what Shakespeare is to English. His insistence on being a better poet at Persian rather than Urdu seems like much ado about nothing.

The author was lecturer of English literature at Peshawar University prior to joining the Civil Services of Pakistan

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 16th, 2021

https://www.dawn.com/news/1623919/the-i ... ble-ghalib

[swamidada]

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib Quotes:

Love knows no difference between life and death

The one who gives you a reason to live is also the one who takes your breath away

Lest we forget: It is easy to be human, very hard to be humane

Love cannot be seeded into someone. It is a fire that is difficult to kindle but once it takes on, it is equally difficult to extinguish.

For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river.

Alas, not all things in life are easy; Even man struggles to be human.

When nothing was, then God was there,
Had nothing been God would have been;
My being has defeated me,
Had I not been, what would have been.

The drop grows happy by losing itself in the river.

Love demands patience, desire is restless; What color shall I paint the heart, until you savage it? You shall not ignore me when the time comes, I know, but I may turn to dust before the news reaches you.

Oh, Lord, it is not the sins I have committed that I regret, but those which I have had no opportunity to commit

The world is no more than the Beloved's face. And the desire of the One to know its own beauty, we exist.

For how tiny the world,
This ant's egg-and the sky!

The object of my worship lies beyond perceptions reach. For those who see, the Ka'ba is a compass, nothing more.

Since sorrow follows joy As autumn does the spring Man must transcend the joys Of earth, which sorrows bring.

Whoever can't see the whole in every part plays at blind man's bluff. A wise man tastes the entire Tigris in every sip.

He gave me heaven and earth, and assumed I'd be satisfied; Actually I was too embarrassed to argue. The spiritual seekers are tired, two or three at each stage of the path. The rest who have given up never knew your address at all. There are so many in this gathering who wish the candle well. But if the being of the candle is melting, what can the sorrow-sharers do?

In the deadly sweep Of every wave, A thousand dangers lie in wait.

If there is a knower of tongues here, fetch him; There's a stranger in the city And he has many things to say.


Whereas it is difficult for everything to work out easily, A man cannot even afford to be a human

The world is a playground

[swamidada]

The life and loves of Mirza Ghalib, the last great poet of the Mughal era
The Delhi that shaped Ghalib was a city in flux, but never short of pleasure or wit.

Written by Nawaid Anjum
Updated: July 28, 2019 6:49:27 am

MIrza Ghalib, Ghalib Mazar, Mirza Ghalib poetry, Mirza Ghalib shayari, Mirza Ghalib couplets Rhyme and reason: Mirza Ghalib was fond of chess, flying kites and mangoes.
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib was seven years old, when he made his first visit to Delhi from Agra, his birthplace. By the age of 13, he had moved to the Mughal capital, after his marriage to the niece of the first Nawab of Loharu and Firozpur Jhirka. He lived on in the city for 50 years. In all those years, Ghalib never bought a house but lived on rent, moving whenever he got bored. But he never moved out of Gali Qasim Jan or its surroundings. His last home, where he died, was under the shadow of a mosque. This prompted the couplet: Masjid ke zere saaya ek ghar bana liya hai/ek banda-e-kameena hamsaya-e-khuda hai (Under the shadow of the mosque, I have made my house/a scoundrel is the neighbour of the God).

He lived at a time of flux, with the Mughal Empire on the cusp of decline and the British Empire on the rise. This zeitgeist echoes throughout his prose and poetry. When he arrived in Delhi, Akbar Shah II (1806-1837) was at the helm of the Mughal Empire. Delhi was a witness to a literary efflorescence in Urdu. Poets like Daagh Dehlvi (1831-1905) and Momin Khan Momin (1800-1851) were writing great poetry under the patronage of the Mughals.

A member of the nobility, Ghalib was well-built and dapper. He was counted among the city’s well-heeled. Six years after he moved to Delhi, Ghalib is believed to have completed his best works. He was only 19. His poetry was enormously popular in the city. “Jis shayar ki ghazal baalakhaane mein domni aur sadak par faqeer gaaye, use kaun maat kar sakta hai? (Who can beat a poet whose ghazals are sung by courtesans in salons and faqirs on the streets?)” he would say.

Ghalib knew it was not wise to displease either the Mughals or the British, on whom he was dependent for pension and grants. He kept fighting the latter for his pension but wrote several panegyrics in praise of both. But he was far from a sycophant. He spoke his mind, without fear or favour. He was free-spirited, a non-conformist, who looked upon formal structures of religion and traditions with derision and disdain. His poetry is replete with words like “why, what, when, where and how”, a reflection of this questioning spirit. In a letter written in 1858 to his long-time disciple, Har Gopal Tafta, he writes: “Please do not consider truth and right whatever the elders wrote. There were fools in the olden days too.”

His relationship with Bahadur Shah Zafar, himself a poet of repute, was cordial. Once, Ghalib visited the Red Fort soon after the month of Ramzan. The emperor asked him: “Mirza, kitney rozey rakhe? (Mirza, how many days did you fast?)” Ghalib quipped: “Bas huzoor, ek nahin rakha. (My Lord! I didn’t fast for a day).”

MIrza Ghalib, Ghalib Mazar, Mirza Ghalib poetry, Mirza Ghalib shayari, Mirza Ghalib couplets A requiem for a dream: The Mazar-e-Ghalib at Nizamuddin, Delhi. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)
When Zafar chose his mentor, Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq (1789-1854), as the poet laureate in 1837, however, Ghalib sulked. Unable to hide his frustration, he wrote a ghazal in which he imagines the wind “turning against” him, the “anchor” having been broken and rocking the “boat”. Ghalib was made the poet laureate after Zauq died; he occupied the position till 1857.

Ghalib was left devastated by the First War of Independence in 1857, a turning point both for Delhi and Ghalib. In Dastanbu (1858), his Persian diary, he records the revolt in great detail. He had lost his younger brother and many friends in its aftermath. He writes about dead bodies being strewn from Rajghat to Chandni Chowk, about the loss of his manuscripts.

Despite the many tragedies in his life, however, he perfected the art of laughing at himself. He was known for his repartee and sangfroid. After the revolt, when the British were rounding up Muslims connected with the Mughal empire, Ghalib was arrested and brought before the presiding officer of the forces. When he asked Ghalib if he was Muslim, the latter replied: “Ji, aadha Musalman hoon (I’m only a half-Muslim).” The colonel asked: “What do you mean?” Ghalib replied: “Sharaab peeta hoon, sooar ka gosht nahin khata (I consume alcohol, but don’t eat pork.)”

For half his life, Ghalib submitted one petition after another to the British for an increase in his pension. But he remained in debt, and at the mercy of moneylenders. In Agra, he had been pampered at the house of his maternal grandfather. In Delhi, the luxuries of life eluded him.

Ghalib was fond of expensive liquor — wine, champagne, and Old Tom whiskey or rum. The latter was available at select cantonments then. Ghalib managed to get a regular supply of Old Tom from the nearest cantonment in Meerut through his British connections. When he’d be told by his devout friends that the prayers of an alcohol-drinker would not be accepted, he’d retort: “Jis ke paas sharab ho, usey kis cheez ke liye dua karne ki zaroorat hai? (When a man has liquor, what else does he need to pray for?)”

Ghalib was also fond of playing chess, gambling, and gorging on mangoes. His gambling habits led to a raid at his house in 1841 and a six-month detention in 1847; he, however, served only about half of his sentence in jail.

His household was managed by a small staff, co-headed by a manservant called Kallu, and a maid named Wafadar. When it came to his drink, Ghalib was very particular: Kallu had been trained to make it to his satisfaction. “Mixed with rosewater, the spirit would be poured into a bowl of clay called aabkhora. The aabkhora would then be covered and buried in earth or kept afloat in a pool of water for a couple of hours before it was time for Ghalib to have the drink,” writes Saif Mahmood in Beloved Delhi: A Mughal City and Her Greatest Poets (2018).

Just as he never invested in a house, Ghalib never bought books, although his entire life was spent in reading and writing. In Delhi, a person named Ala Mashallah, ran a rudimentary circulating library — get books from bookshops on rent and deliver them to households. Ghalib was one of his clients. The poet never travelled too far from Delhi for long, except once when he went to Kolkata at the age of 40 to file a petition to the British authorities. He lived in Kolkata for two years. During this trip, he also stayed over in Lucknow and Banaras for a few months.

Today, the last house where Ghalib lived is an ancient, decrepit building in Gali Qasim Jaan at Ballimaran in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk. Surrounded by a smattering of shops selling tawdry sunglasses, clothes and shoes, filled with the clamour of traffic and jostling shoppers, it tells the story of the last great poet of the Mughal era, whose legacy looms large even after 150 years after his death.

Ghalib ki Haveli is a 300-year-old structure and has been turned into a heritage site under the Archeological Society of India (ASI). It houses a museum that gives a glimpse into the poet’s life and work; the exhibit here includes an ivory bust donated by Gulzar, books, couplets, letters, clothes, photographs, and a life-size replica of the poet enjoying a hookah. The haveli is built in the Mughal architectural style, with lakhori (kiln-fired) bricks — there is a semi-circular brick arch at the entrance and chhajjas (overhanging eaves) loom over the courtyard. “From the lacklustre and dark Gali Qasim, an order of light emerges,” wrote poet and lyricist Gulzar, immortalising the street where Ghalib spent his last days, in his landmark TV serial, Mirza Ghalib (1988).

Ghalib lies buried at Nizamuddin Basti (RENOVATED BY HAZAR IMAM), in the then family graveyard of the Nawab of Loharu; his wife, who died a year later on the same day as Ghalib (February 15), is buried next to him. A few metres away is the dargah of the 13th century Sufi saint, Nizamuddin Auliya, which is always abuzz with a steady stream of followers. Also in the dargah’s compound lies the tomb of Amir Khusrau, the 13th century Sufi musician and poet, whom Ghalib described as the greatest Persian poet.

Mazar-e-Mirza or the tomb of Ghalib is no monument at Stratford-upon-Avon, but Ghalib’s admirers from far and wide keep coming in to pay their respects to the poet. He, though, had wished not to have his tomb anywhere on the face of the earth:

Huye mar ke hum jo ruswa,
Huye kyun na gharq-e-dariya
Na kabhi janazaa uthtaa,
Na kahin mazaar hotaa
(I was disgraced after death; oh why didn’t I drown in the sea? There would never have been a funeral, nor a tomb anywhere.)
https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday

[swamidada]

Rekhta Blog

Ishqnaama: The love-life of Asadullah Khan Ghalib
Ishq se tabeeyat ne zeest ka maza paaya

All lovers are not poets but all poets are lovers, in one way or the other. If poetry is a love affair with life, which it is, then the poets must have a beloved. In some cases, poets have had more beloveds than one. This made them and their poetry amazingly curious and curiously amazing. To think of love and life is to think of Ghalib the lover, and Ghalib the beloved. He was not angelic in form and moving, nor a god in his apprehension but he surely was a piece of work, not very noble in reason but infinite in faculty. He was indeed Shakespeare’s ‘quintessence of dust’ who saw his love going to dust with emotional attachment and philosophical detachment.

Although Ghalib configured his love metaphorically, it is not difficult to recognize faces that wear the veil of his poetry. While some of them are imaginary, others are as real as life itself. We know that he was married to Umrao Begum, the thirteen-year-old daughter of nawab Ilahi Bakhsh of Loharu and niece of the nawab of Ferozepur Jhirka. We also know that he fathered seven children but none of them could survive beyond a few months. It has been often said that he was unhappy in his married life but there are evidences to show that he cared for Umrao Begum although he was bitter with her for many other reasons. Indeed, Ghalib shared a richly ambiguous relationship with her knowing not how to fare forward. This is probably why he considered life as a term of imprisonment.

Although Ghalib configured his love metaphorically, it is not difficult to recognize faces that wear the veil of his poetry. While some of them are imaginary, others are as real as life itself.

Not finding the desired gratification in the institution of marriage, men are known to have sought their pleasures elsewhere. Is it a matter of infidelity, one wonders. Some may say “yes” but Ghalib probably did not think so. And if he did, he did not how to resolve this dichotomy. So, whatever he did, he did only naturally and without much rationality behind them. There are two cases to mention here. He was enamoured by a coquettish singing girl but showed utmost poise in his relationship with her. Visiting the singing, or dancing girls, or even courtesans, was not supposed to be a demeaning act during those days. Indeed, men of high status visited them and enjoyed their company. One such girl whom Ghalib visited was known as Mughal Jaan and he was deeply fascinated by her.

Ishq se tabiyat ne zeest ka maza payaa
Dard ki dawaa paai dar be-dawaa paayaa

Unfortunately for Ghalib, she was also the cynosure of a good looking, suave and a contemporary poet of great merit called Hatim Ali Mehr who also admired her and visited her as Ghalib did.
Mughal Jaan did not hide her dual sympathies and she shared his liking for her with Ghalib. Ghalib, being Ghalib, did not burn in anger and did not think of him as a rival. None of the three knew, however, that God had a different design for them. Mughal Jaan did not live long enough to let this plot thicken. She passed away too soon in her life. Mehr was deeply aggrieved as was Ghalib but Ghalib showed the highest kind of courtesy in writing a note to Mahr to assuage him and to share his grief with him. Ghalib’s love for Mughal Jaan was of a rare kind; he was romantically disposed towards her but was painfully aware that his sympathies would not go too far. Mughal Jaan was both–Ghalib’s fantasy and impossible reality.

Aashiqi sabr talab aur tamanna betaab
Dil ka kya rung karoon khoon e jigar hone tak

Human nature is also known to make peace with loss. So did Ghalib. After Mughal Jaan, his love-life did not reach an end. This time he got into contact with a respectable lady from a respectable family. This is said to have continued secretly as his shers during the period bear him out. This affair did not last long. He found another beauteous being yet again who would give all he wanted—emotional solace and physical contact. This lady was an admirer of poetry and poets and Ghalib undoubtedly was the one whose companionship any poetry lover would pine for. She used to send her ghazals to him for his opinion. This brought both of them closer to each other although she was a minor poet and Ghalib would not have otherwise drawn closer to her but for his amorous nature. Ghalib referred to her as the “Turk lady” and enjoyed her special companionship the most. Their affair went on secretly and reached a stage where every excuse would only bring greater damage to their reputation than repair it. Fearing the onslaughts of the society for doing an inexcusable wrong, the lady chose to sacrifice her life. This put Ghalib to great agony. The incident might have lost its fire with time but it remained fresh in his imagination. A ghazal he wrote subsequently with the radeef of “hai hai” is more expressive than many other of his ghazals. This ghazal is an epitaph for his “Turk lady”, as well as an act of love-sharing with her that shows Ghalib’s genuine respect for her. Unable to bear the loss, he fell ill and expressed his grief in the most poignant terms possible. Incidentally, this also happens to be one the best known ghazals of Ghalib.

rekhta.org

[swamidada]

Spirituality Of Mirza Ghalib:

Khudaaya , jazba-e-dil ki magar taasseer ultee hai
Ke jitnaa khenchtaa houn, aur khinchtaa jaaye hai mujhsse

(Oh God ! the effect of my heart’s feelings is just the reverse ! My beloved recedes as much away as I pull her towards myself.)

Sambhalne de mujhe, aye naa umedi, kyaa qayaamat hai
Ki daamaan-e-khayaal-e-yaar, chhootaa jaye hai mujhsse

(O hopelessness ! Let me collect myself. Is it the end of the world ! That the thought of my beloved is slipping out from my hand like the corner of her shirt.)

Udhar vo badgumaanee hai, idhar ye naatawaanee hai
Na poochhaa jaaye hai uss se, na bola jaaye hai mujhsse

(That misunderstanding on her side, and this helplessness on my side Neither she is able to ask, nor I am able to speak up !)

Houn garmi-e-nishaat-e-tassawur se naghma-sanj
Main andaleeb gulshan-e-naa’aafreeda houn

(I sing as a result of the warmth of the bliss of my imagination.
I am [ bird] ‘andaleeb’! of the thankless garden .) -
Ghalib is perhaps the most well known and often quoted Urdu poet. Though fondly, and indulgently, his name is associated with the themes of romanticizing beauty of womankind, atheism, drinking, and largely a life of profligacy, rather than any serious depths or school of thought.
Most of his critics are convinced that he was self-admittedly not spiritually inclined. His often quoted couplet to bolster this view is:

“Ye massaail-e-tassawuf, ye teraa bayaan Ghalib
Tujhe hum wali samajhte jo na baada khwaar hotaa

(*massaail-e-tassavvuf = themes of Sufism
*wali = a Sufi saint who has attained the state of ‘walaayat’i.e.
exclusivity from all falsehood.
*baada khwaar = drunkard)

However, this couplet is the key to understanding
the real Ghalib. Here the meaning of ‘wali’ is in the terminology of Tasawuf. It means a Sufi aspirant who has reached the state of self-oblivion, that is, the state of ‘walaayat’.
What therefore is meant in the above couplet is that “from your subject- matter of tassawuf, and your style of saying it, we would have taken you for a person (speaking during a spell of ‘ghalba’) in a state of ‘walaayat’,(a wali),but for the doubt, that you could be in this state of self- oblivion, due to drunkenness, as you have a solid reputation of being a drunkard.”

True, that Ghalib was a proud habitual drinker who reviled in his enjoyment of good liquor.

Mai se gharaz nishaat hai kiss russiyaah ko
Ik goona bekhudi mujhe din raat chaahiye

(*nishaat = enjoyment, mauj-masti
*russiyaah = kalmuhaa
*goona = a measure of)

Dete hain jannat hayaat-e-deh ke badle
Nashaa b’andaaz-e-khumaar naheen hai

Vo cheez , jiske liye hamko ho, bahisht aziz
Siwaaye baadaa-e-gulfaam-e-mushkboo kyaa hai?

Jaan-fizaa hai baadaa, jiske haath mein jam aa gaya
Sab lakeerein haath kee, goyaa rag-e-jaan ho gayein

Qarz kee peete thee mai lekin ssamajhte thee ki haan
Rung laayegi hamaari faqaa mastee bhi ek din
(*hayaat-e-deh = existence in mortal frame
*nashaa b’andaaz-e-khumaar = intoxication
according to the capacity of the drinker.
*Jaan-fizaa = life giving
*rag-e-jaan = the mainstay of one’s life
*faqaa masti = uncaring like a medicant (faker)).

But unfortunately Ghalib was grossly misunderstood in the society, mainly because he did not believe in the activities and rituals merely for show of religiosity. He would not perform namaaz mechanically at prescribed times, or go to the mosque just to mark his attendance there with the community.
He says in a couplet, that he would come away even from the door of a mosque if it was closed at the time he visited it. He would consider it below his dignity to request for the opening of the mosque gate for him.
But to conclude from this that he was a non-believer, would be wrong.
He was a believer all right. But the God he believed in was not the one sequestered by any community to the exclusion of those who believed in another faith. His God was a universal God. Like the One Allah in Sufism or One Brahma in Vedant.

“Waa* kar diye hain shauq ne band-e-naqaab-e-husin
Ghair az nigaah koi bhi haayal nahein rahaa
(*waa = khol diye
*band-e-naqaab-e-husn = khubsurati per pade
So, the “Vo massaail-e-tassawuf”, about which Galib has made a bold mention in his couplet quoted above, is not to be found in his poetry in the conventional Sufi connotation.
Ghalib’s tassavvuf, that is if we, like he himself has done, insist on calling it ‘tassavvuf’ only, is quite different. This makes one wonder as to why he considered his poetry pregnant with “massaail-e-tassawuf”.
A clue to the answer to this question is discernible in the Ghalib couplets concerning ishq which is the backbone of tassavvuf:
ishq sse tabeeyat ne zeest kaa mazaa paayaa
dard ki dawaa paai , dard be-dawaa paayaa

Garche hai tarz-e-taghaaful*, pardaadaar-e-raaz-e-ishq*
Per ham aisse khoye jaate hain, ki vo paa jaaye hai
Hoke aashiq, vo paree-rukh*, aur naazuk ban gayaa
RaNg khultaa jaye hai, jitnaa ki udtaa jaaye hai

Ishq ne Ghalib ko nikammaa kar diyaa
Vernaa ham bhee aadmi the kaam ke

*tarz-e-taghaaful = dokhaa dene kaa andaaz, style
*pardaadaar-e-raaz-e-ishq- = muhabbat ke raaz ko chhupaa kar rakhne waalaa
*paree-rukh = the one with a fairy-like face

Ishq is the common factor as well as the most significant point of difference between conventional tassavvuf and Ghalib’s brand of tassavvuf.
But before we proceed further on ‘ishq’, it is useful to understand Ghalib’s self indictment of being a nikammaa, in order to get an insight into his psyche.
This feeling of ‘nikammaapan’, uselessness, must be based on his aversion to taking up any body’s ‘naukaree’, which must have come to him with the mind-set developed during his early life of zameen daaree and raessee at his Nana’s place at Agra.
And he must have had a hard time at his unappreciative and basically incompatible wife’s hands, who must have been using this as a favorite club to hit him with.
Since at the time of his marriage he was only 13, and not old enough yet to go to work, his in-laws must have presumed that following in the tradition of his father and grandfather he too would eventually get settled in a high position in the Mughal army. Later therefore, his aversion to going into any kind of routine employment just to earn livelihood,( like most men in genteel society do), must have gravely disappointed his wife and in-laws, who all, in turn , must have victimized him by taunting him about it, in various ways on various occasions, to the extent that he got persuaded that non-conformance with the mundane customary ways of thinking and living, was a defect in him.

Ghalib did not fit at all in the artificial and strictly tradition and convention bound world of his in-laws, and precipitately admits candidly his uselessness , nikammaa pun, in this context.
It was not that he shied away from his duties in the mundane world. He fought valiantly for his rights to his ancestral pension. And he traveled right up to Calcutta, met British officials at gubernatorial levels, argued his case vehemently, and after 14 years of hard pleading managed to win it too, with help from an intellectual of the caliber of Sir Sayyad Ahmad.
But yes, he admitted his being a man lost in his own different world of ‘ishq’.
Ham wahaan hain jahan sse hamko bhee
Kuchh hamaaree khabar naheen aatee
(I am at the stage from where even I get No news of myself)
Ishq per zor naheen, hai ye vo aatish Ghalib
Ki lagaaye na lage aur bujhaaye na bane
(No one has control over love. It is a fire that neither be kindled at will nor can be extinguished at will.)

This rendered him useless for the down-to-earth limited -vision society in which it was his destiny to live most of his family life. Although in deference to their wishes he pursued his pension case and eventually after incurring heavy debts in the long struggle, did manage to get his pension revived.
His own attitude towards it is clear from the following couplet.
Ghalib wazifaa-khwaar ho, do shaah ko duaa
Vo din gaye ki kehte the, naukar naheeN hooN main
Coming back to ‘ishq’, it is indeed a common factor, as observed herein above, between conventional tassawuf and Ghalib’s tassawuf.
But the ‘ishq’ that ghalib is talking about is not the ‘ishq’ as conceived in conventional ‘Tassawuf’.
In the conventional tassawuf, there are two states of vissaal (union with the beloved).
One is ‘wahdat’l wujood’, the other is ‘wahdat’l shuhood’.
In the wahdat’l wujood state, the aspirant loses his own identity totally in the identity of ‘Maashookh’, that is, God. And after realization he looks upon the world as a ‘falsehood’, a deception,a mirage, not to be taken for real,and therefore not to be allowed to sully or influence in anyway one’s pure and true identity with the almighty.
Whereas in the state of wahdat’l shuhood, the aspirant, after realization of his oneness with God , returns, so to say, to his identity as an individual, but only as a shaahid, that is, as a witness, as an observer, of the creation, and activities in phenomenal world, created by God.
The aspirant lives and acts with the conviction that whatever is getting accomplished through his agency is the will of God. And he happens to be just an observer of whatever is going on around him.
Ghalib does not buy either of the above positions.
He accepts oneness with the ‘Absolute ONE’, but Ghalib thinks that, that One God is equally the manifest (the physical world and the unmanifest ( the subtle or the imperceptible world ,Ghaib,God),‘both at the same time’.

Hai pare sarhad-e-idraak* sse apnaa masjood*
Qible* ko ahl-e-nazar* qiblaa numaan* kehte hain
sarhad-e-idraak = gyaan kee seemaa
masjood = upaasya, object of worship
qible = masjid, or place of offering prayer
ahl-e-nazar = gyaan drishti rakhne waale
qiblaanumaan = dishaa dikhaane waalaa
There is no such thing as ‘falsehood’ in Ghalib’s world.
God is one. And the world too is ‘genuine He’ only.
The world and God are one and the same thing. If we consider world to be a reflection of God, then how can the ‘genuine’ cast a ‘false’ reflection?
(‘ Poornamidah poornamidam
Poornaatpoornamudachyate’
---‘this is whole, and that is whole, whole can give birth to whole only.)Brihadaranyak Upnishad,
It is true that from Ghalib’s earlier poetry it appears that he too was prone towards the
‘jaganmithyaa’ (the world is illusion)concept as propounded by Adi Shankaracharya.

Hastee ke mat fareb mein aa jaaiyo ‘Asad’
Aalam tamaam halqaa-e-daam-e-khayaal hai*

HaaN, khaaiyo mat fareb-e-hastee
Harchand kahen ki hai, naheen hai

Hastee hai na kuchh adam hai ‘Ghalib’.

Hai aadmee b’jaa-e-khud ik mehshar-e-kheyaal
Ham anjuman ssamajhte hain, khilwat hee kyon na ho!
*halwaa-e-daam-e khayaal= belonging to the realm of imagination only
*mehshar-e-khayaal= doom’s day of thought

But later when he got the exposure of the intellectual ambience in Delhi at his father-in-law’s house he seems to have drastically matured out of his shallowness and frivolity he had acquired earlier at his filthy rich Nana’s place at Agra.
Aid to this intellectual exposure the shock of nightmarish grief in his personal life, resulting from the series of deaths of his seven children one after the other, all dying within one or two years of their births; his younger brother going mad at the age of 28 only , his wife taunting him as ‘nikammaa’ all the time, creditors hounding him day in and day out, his only lady-love, a singer (domini) dying sudden premature death when he was just 22 years old; and you get some idea of his traumatic disillusionment with God’s scheme of things.

Rahiye ab aissee jagah chalkar jahaan koee na ho
Ham-sukhan* koee na ho aur ham-zubaan koee na ho
Be-dar-o-deewaar saa ek ghar banayaa chaahiye
Koi hamssaayaa na ho aur paasbaan* koi na ho

Padiye gar beemaar, to koee na ho teemaardaar
Aur agar mar jaaiye to nauaa-khwaan* koee na ho

KyooN gardish-e-mudaam* se ghabraa na jaaye dil
inssaan hoon piyaalaa-o-saaghar naheeN hooN maiN/

yaarab zamaanaa mujhko mitaataa hai kiss liye
lauh-e-jahaan* pe harf-e-muqarrar* naheeN hooN main

*ham-ss- ukhan = baat karnewaalaa
*passbaan = khayaal rakhnewaalaa
*nauaa-khwaan = pallbearer
*gardish-e-mudaam=th- e inertia of annihilation
*lauh-e-jahaan = duniyaa kee takhtee, stone plate of universe
*harf-e-muqarrar = inscribed word

A weaker individual might have gone out of his mind.
The great thing about Ghalib is the fortitude and temperamental forbearance with which he faced his immense misfortune.

Zindagee apnee jab iss shakl sse guzaree, Ghalib
Ham bhee kyaa yaad kare ge ki Khuda rakhte the !
But Ghalib’s insight into the basic truth of existence finds new depths in personal misery. He gets a unified vision of the seemingly variegated forms in the universe.
Hai aadami b’jaa-e-khud ek mahshar-e-khayaal
Ham anjuman ssamajhte hain, khilwat hee kyon na ho/
Saaqiyaa de ek hee ssaaghar mein sabko mai ki aaj
Aarzoo-e-bossaa-e-lab haai maigoon hai mujhe
Hai tajallee* teree ssaamaan-e-wujood*
Zarg* be-partao-e-khursheed* naheen/
Bakhshe hai jalwaa-e-gul* zauq-e-tamaashaa* ‘Ghalib’
Chashm ko chaahiye har rang mein waa* ho jaanaa
Neend uskee hai, dimaagh uskaa hai, raaten uskee hain
Teree zulfen jiske baazoo par pareeshaan ho gayeen/

*tajallee = beauty
*saamaan-e-wujood = constituents of existence
*jalwaa-e-gul = the splendor of the flower
*zauq-e-tamaashaa = anxiety to see
*waa = open, khula

Naqsh* ko uske mussawir* par bhee kyaa kyaa naaz hai
Khainchtaa hai jiss qadar, utnaa hee khinchtaa* jai hai
Garche hai tarz-e-taghaaful pardaadaar-e-raaz-e-ishq
Par ham aisse khoye jaate hain, ki vo paa jaaye hai
*naqsh = roop
*mussavvir = chitrakaar
*khinchtaa = here beauty lies in double meaning,
khinchnaa meansgetting sketched, khinchnaa = meansgettingawayorwithdrawing oneself.

Kaanton kee zabaan ssookh gaee pyaas sse yaarab
Ek aablaapaa* waadiye purkhaar* mein aave
*aaqblaapaa = jiske talvon mein chhaale hon
*purkhaar = kaanton sse bharee huee

Waa kar diye hain shauq mein band-e- niqaab-e-husn
Ghair az nigaah ab koee haayal naheen rahaa
We happen to be body and soul at the same time.
There is no separateness between the two. The part of soul that is within the grasp of the senses we call the body, and the body that is not in the grasp of the senses we call soul. So obviously for our complete emancipation both the aspects of our ‘being’ are to be purged equally.

Shab ko kissee ke khwaab mein aayaa na ho kaheen
Dukhte hain aaj uss naazuk badan ke paanv
Ssunte hain jo bahisht kee taareef ssab durust
Lekin Khuda kare vo teree jalwagaah ho

Dekhnaa qismat ki aap apne pe rashq aa jaaye hai
Main usse dekhoon bhalaa kab mujhsse dekhaa jaaye hai
Munh na dikhlaave, na dikhlaa, per b’andaaz-e-itaab*

Kholkar pardaa, zaraa aankhen hi dikhlaa de mujhe
Karne gaye the uss sse taghaaful* kaa ham gilaa

Kee aik hee nigaah, ki bass khaak ho gaye
Jabtak dahaan*-e-zakhm na paidaa kare koee

Mushkil, ki tujhsse raah-e-sukha* waa* kare koee
Muhabbat mein naheen hai farq jeene aur marne kaa

Ussee ko dekh kar jeete hain jiss qaafir pe dam nikle

Partav-e-khur* se hai shabnam* ko fanaa* kee ta'aleem
Main bhee hoon ik inaayat* kee nazar hone tak

Phir bekhudee* mein bhool gayaa raah-e-koo-e-yaar*
Jaataa vagarnaa aik din apnee khabar ko main

Girnee thee ham pe barq-e-tajallee*, na toor* per
Dete haiN baadaa, zarf-e-qadah khwaar* dekh kar

Laraztaa hai meraa dil zehmat-e-mehr-e-daraqshaaN* per
MaiN hooN vo qatraa-e-shabnam jo ho khaar-e-bayaabaaN per
*b’andaaz-e-itaab = ghusse ke andaaz mein
- - (aankhen dkhaane kaa
- - double meaning mazaa hai)
*taghaaful = dhokhaa
*dahaan = mouth, munh
*partav-e-khur = sooraj kaa prakaash
*shabnam = dew,oss
*fanaa = destroyed, khatam
*inaayat = meharbaanee
*bekhudee = self-oblivion
*raah-e-kooy-e-ya- ar = the street of beloved
*zarf-e-qadah khwaar= capacity of the drinker
*barq-e-tajalli = husn kee bijlee
*toor= is a holy hillock
*zehmat-e-mehr-e-daraqs- haaN= sooraj kee meharbaanee kee takleef
*khaar-e-bayaabaan par = jangal ke kaante kee nok par, yani on teterhooks.

Ghalib talks now about the infinity of God’s potential manifestations, which necessitates an unmanifest state of ‘being’ too (much vaster perhaps then the manifest one) , besides His manifest being in the form of the phenomenal world (which includes us humans too).

Ssab kahaan! Kuchh laala-vo-numaanyaan* ho gaeen
khaak mein kyaa ssooratein hongee ki pinhaan* ho gaeen.

*numaayaan= MANIFEST/ JO DIKHAAEE DE
*Pinhaan= CHUPAA HUAA/ Unmanifest

(‘His’ images are infinite and are impossible of manifestation to our limited sensibilities all at the same time; so only a few get
manifested (numaayaan), the remaining keep hidden in
oblivion (pinhaan). It is His will how much to reveal and how much not to reveal.)
A sort of divine play is visualized here. “Apne ko le kar apne aap sse khel.”

jab vo Jamaal-e-dilfaroz*, ssoorat-e-mehar-e-neemroz*
aap- hee ho nazarasoz*, parde mein munh chhupaaye kyoon?
(agar dekhnewaalaa bhee vo tez roshnee khud hee hai to chamak sse bachne kee kyaa zaroorat hai, iss liye usse apneaap sse munh chhupaane kee zaroorat naheen.)

dashnaa-e-ghamzaa* jaan-ssitaam*, naavak-e-naaz* be-panah*
teraa hee aks-e-rukh* sahee, saamne tere aaye kyoon?
(He is the beauty, the beholder, and the vision, then from whom and why would he hide his face?
And similarly, even though it be His own reflection only why should He expose Himself to you, when He knows fully well the menacing sharpness of your love glances.)

waaN vo ghuroor-e-izz-o-naaz*, yaan ye hijaab-e-paass-e-vaz’a*
raah- mein ham milen kahaan , bazm meiN vo bulaaye kyoon?
*Jamaal-e-dilfaroz = dil lubhaa lene walaa
*meher-e-neemroz = tez chundhiyaa denewaalee roshni waalaa
*nazaraasoz = nazaaraa dekhnewaalaa
*dashnaa-e-ghamzaa- = teeth of the glass those of some cutting instrument)
*jaan-ssitam = endangering life
*naavak-e-naaz = naaz ke teer
*be-panah= jinse koee bhchne kaa thikaanaa naheen
*asks-e-rukh = reflection of face
vaz’a= ssamaaj/society
But Ghalib does not preclude the possibility that we can widen our vision and see and experience more in the manifest forms.
dekho mujhe, jo deedaa-e-ibratnigaah* ho
meree ssuno, jo gosh-e-nasseehat niyosh* hai
yaan shab ko dekhte the, ki har goshaa-e-bissaat*
daamaan-e-ba- aghbaan*-o-kaf-e-gulfarosh* hai/However, thinks Ghalib, it is natural for nature to delude us.

ssaaqee, b’jalwaa dushman-e-eeman-o-aagahee*
mut- rib*, b’naghmaa*, rehzan-e-tamkeen-o-hosh* hai

*ibratnigaah= sabaq pehchaanlenewaali nigaah
*gosh-e-nasseehat niyosh = sabaq per dhyaan rakhnewaale kaan
*goshaa-e-bissaat
*daamaan-- e-baaghbaan
*kaf-e-gulfarosh
Ghalib’s new all-inclusive vision finds fault with both the conventional philosophies of tassawuf.
He criticizes Shuhudies (advocates of
Wahdat’l Shuhood) as follows:
-
Hai ghaib-e-ghaib* jisko samajhte hain ham shuhood*
Hain khwaab meiN hanoz* jo jaage hain khwaab mein

Asl-e-shuhood-o-shaahid- -o-mashahood ek hai*
Hairaan hoon phir mushaahidaa* hai kiss hissaab mein!

Hai mushtamil* namood-e-ssubar* per wujood-e-bahr*
YaaN kyaa dharaa hai qatraa-vo-mauj-o-habaab mein*

Dil-e-har qatraa* hai ssaaz-e-analb’hr*
Ham uske haiN hamaaraa poochhnaa kyaa?

Jab ki tujh bin naheen koee maujood
Phir ye hangaamaa-e-‘khuda’* kyaa hai?

And he rejects the contention of the wujoodies (the advocates of wahdat’l wujood) in following terms:

Juz* naam naheen ssoorat-e- aalam* mujhe manzoor
Juz wahem* naheen hasti-e-ashiyaa* mere aage
- -
Ye paree-chehraa log kaisse hain?
Ghamzaa*-o-ishq-o-adaa kyaa hai?

Shikan-e-zulf-e-ambaree*- kyon hai?
Nigah-e-chashm-e-ssurmassa- a* kyaa hai?

Ssabzaa-o-gul kahaaN sse aaye?
Abra* kyaa cheez hai hawaa kyaa hai?

Hai tajallee* terey saamaan-e- wujood*/
Zarg* be-partao-e-khursheed* naheen
*juz = only
*aalam = world
*wahem= illusion
*ashiyaa = matter, padaarth
*ghamzaa = nain-baan, kataakchh
*shikan-e-zulf-e-ambe- ree =
*chashm-e-ssurmassaa =
*abra = baadal
*tajallee =brilliance, chamak
*wujood = existence
*zarg = zarraa, particle
*partao-e-khursheed= light of the sun

For Ghalib God is looking at Himself in
His own creation like some one looking at his
own face in a mirror.
Aaraaish-e-jamaal* sse faarigh* naheen hanoz*
Pesh-e-nazar* hai aainaa daaim* naqaab mein

*aaraaish-e-jamaal = apani sundartaa kee ssajaavat
*faarigh= not yet through
*pesh-e-nazar =nigaah ke saamne
*daaim = eternal
And then Ghalib goes further to say that the mirror reflection of the world, and we, being a part of the world, does not only go to show our oneness with God, it has to be our ‘duality’ too, in His unity.
Dehr* juz jalwaa-e-yaktaai-e-maashooq* naheen
Ham kahaan hote agar husn na hotaa khudbeen*?
*dehr= world
* juz jalwaa-e-yaktaai-e-maash ‘show’ of the all-inclusive
‘Oneness’ of the beloved (God)


It is true too that Ghalib is fascinated, perhaps more than anything else, by God’s manifestations as the beautiful woman with all her antics, flirtatiousness, haughtiness, mysteriousness, and sensuousness. For him God is all-inclusive. He sees all the attributes of the beloved beautiful woman as manifestations of God only.
His andaaz-e-bayaan is largely molded , so to say, by his liberal use of the imagery of romance and seduction.
True, his ‘andaaz-e-bayaan’ owes a lot too, to his keen sense of humor and his command over,and witty use of the vernacular, that is the ‘aam bolchaal kee zabaan in qilaa-e-moallaa, (that is ‘Rekhtaa or Urdu ).

dil aapkaa, ki dil mein hai jo kuchh sso aap kaa
dil leejiye, magar mere armaan nikaal ke

hogaa koee aissaa bhi, ki Ghalib ko na jaane
shaayar to vo achhhaa hai, pa badnaam bahut hai

Ghalib, gar iss ssafar mein mujhe ssaath le chalen
Haj kaa ssawaab* nazr karoongaa huzoor kee

Kahaan maikhaane kaa darwaazaa Ghalib, aur kahaan waaiz
Per itnaa jaante hain, kal vo jaataa thaa, ki ham nikley

Zaher miltaa hi nahee mujhko, ssitamgar vernaa
Kyaa qassam hai tere milne kee ki khaa bhee na sakoon

Jaate hue kehte ho, qayaamat ko milen ge
Kyaa khoob, qayaamat kaa hai goyaa koee din aur

Kare hai qatl lagaawat meiN teraa ro denaa
Teree tarah koee tegh-e-nigah* ko aab* to de

Aashiq hoon per maashooq-farebee* hai meraa kaam
Majnoo ko buraa kehtee hai Laila mere aage

Unke dekhe se, jo aa jaatee hai munh per raunaq
Vo ssamajhte hain ki beemaar kaa haal achchhaa ha

Deke khat, munh dekhtaa hai naamaabar
Kuchh to paighaam-e-zabaanee* aur hai

*ssawaab = punya
*tegh-e-nigah = sword-like glance
*aab denaa= sharpen the edge
*maashookh-farebee = befooling the beloved
*paighaam-e-zabaanee = oral message

And the love songs like the following which captured the imagination of greatest of ghazal singers.
Begam Akhtar, Mehdi Hasan, KL Sehgal, the legendary names in this field felt blessed for having Ghalib’s poetic words to sing.

Dil-e-naadaan tujhe huaa kyaa hai
Aakhir iss dard kee dawaa kyaa hai?
MaiN bhee munh mein zabaan rakhtaa hoon
Kaash, poochho ki mudd’aa kyaa hai.

Ishq mujhko naheeN vahshat hee sahee
Meree vahshat teree shohrat hee sahee
Qat'aa* keeje na t’alluq hamsse
Kuchh naheen hai, to adaavat* hee sahee

Yaar se chhed chalee jaaye ‘Asad’
Gar naheen vasl, to hasrat hee sahee
*qataa = todnaa, kaatnaa
*adaavat= dushmanee
But the factor that makes Ghalib’s andaaz-e-bayaan ‘aur’ is , precisely and primarily his frequent, dexterous but nimble use of the imagery of romance with beautiful women, their sly side glances, mizgaan, ghamzaa, ssurmassee aankhen, the mehfil and bazm with them, and the burning of the shamaa etc. to convey most subtle of psychological and philosophical thoughts.

This is accomplished so skillfully and unobtrusively by him that many an eminent critic of his, is convinced that Ghalib’s poetry had no serious psychological or philosophical undertones, worth the mention. It is just plain and simple romantic poetry.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Just look at the deep undertones of the following couplets.

Nazzaare ne bhee, kaam kiyaa whaan naqaab kaa
Mastee se har nigah tere rukh per bikhar

Dam liyaa thaa na qayaamat ne hanoz*
Phir teraa waqt-e-safar* yaad aayaa

Zindagi yoon bhi guzar hee jaatee
Kyoon teraa raah-e-guzar* yaad aayaa

Iss naamuraad dil kee tassallee ko kyaa karoon
Maanaa ki tere rukh sse nigah qaamiyaab hai

Mat pooch ki kyaa haal hai meraa tere peechhe
Too dekh ki kyaa rang hai teraa mere aage

Munh na khulne per hai vo aalam ki dekhaa hee naheen
Zulf sse badh kar niqaab uss shokh ke munh per khulaa

Sharm ik adaa-e-naaz* hai, apne hee sse ssahee
Hain kitne be-hijaab*, ki hain yuun hijaab mein

*hanoz = abhee tak, as yet
*waqt-e-ssafar = the time of your departure
*raah-e-guzar = your street, where you reside
*adaa-e-naaz = nakhraa dikhaane kaa andaaz
*be-hijaab = unveiled
So coming to the special and prominent place given to romantic and flirtatious imagery in Ghalib’s poetry, we must keep in mind his
off-the-beaten-track style of saying things, which successfully exploits that evocative imagery for the purpose of lending vibrancy to the otherwise taxing themes of life’s vicissitudes.
Look at the force of the caress of the aashiq with which his appreciation of the beloved’s (Maashooq’s) physical beauty puts across the nuances of his sublime love.

Vo shokh apne husn per maghroor hai ‘Asad’
Dikhlaa ke usko aainaa todaa kare koee

Saaqiyaa de ek hee ssaaghar meiN ssabko mai, ki aaj
Aarzoo-e-bossaa-e-lab haai maigoon* hai mujhe

Kiss munh se shukr keejiye, iss lutf-e-khaass kaa
Purssish hai aur paa-e-ssukhan* darmiyaan* naheen

Bossaa* naheen, na deejiye, dushnaam* hi ssahee
Aakhir zubaan to rakhte ho tum, gar dahaan* naheen

Jahaan teraa nkhsh-e-qadam dekhte hain
Khiyaabaan-niram* dekhte hain
Tamaashaa ki aye mahve* aainaadaaree*
Tujhe kiss tamannaa sse ham dekhte hain

Taa phir na intezaar mein neend aaye umr bhar
Aane kaa uhad* kar gaye, aaye jo khwaab mein

Qaassid* ke aate-aate, khat ik aur likh rakhoon
Main jaantaa hoon, jo vo likhen ge jawaab mein

Hai tewaree chadhee huee, andar niqaab ke
Hai ik shikan padee hue tarf-e-niqaab mein

Laakhon lagaav, ek churaanaa nigaah kaan
Laakhon banaav, ek bigadnaa itaab* mein
Milnaa teraa agar naheen aassaaN, to sehal hain
Dushwaar to yahee hai, ki dushwaar bhee naheen

Iss ssaadgee pe kaun na mar jaaye, aye Khudan
Ladte hain aur haath mein talwaar bhee naheen
maigoon = sharaab kaa pyaassaa
*paa-e-ssukhan = baat-cheet ke qadam
*darmiyaan = in between, beech mein
*bossaa = kiss
*dushnaam =badnaam
*dahaan = mouth
*khiyaabaan khiyaabaan
*iram = gyaan-dhyaan
*mahve =prone towards
*aainaadaaree
*uhad = waadaa
*qaassid
*itaab

These are at times the bewilderments of the aashiq at mysteriousness of the maashooq, at other times ecstasy at closeness, at still other times, pangs of separation, complaints against intentional hide and seek .This is the crux of
human plight , the kashma-kash, the dhoop-chhaanv,the paradoxical experiences in phenomenal world and guesses about the ‘beyond’.
It is obviously an outpouring, an outflow, bursting out from his depths in a torrential stream. And because of this authenticity of these images they most effectively touch the sensibilities of the ‘saama’een’.
Hai kahaan tamannaa kaa doosraa qadam yaarab!
Hamne dasht-e-imkaan* ko ek naqsh-e-paa paayaa*
*dasht-e-imkaan = the forest of possibilities
*naqsh-e-paa = one footprint
It is ‘aamad’ from the ‘ghaib’ in early hours of the morning. It is not composed poetry written in adherence to certain rules and rhyming.
It is said that Ghalib used to go on tying knots in his kamarband (waist band) as he got his couplets shaped in his mind, and subsequently in the morning, he would recollect each of them by undoing those knots one by one as he wrote them down on some piece of paper.( It is a pity though that this self-lost and, couldn’t-care-less man, used to send these pieces of papers on which he wrote couplets to various friends, without keeping any track of them later, with the result that most of these have been lost to posterity.)
This reminds one of the way in which the holy Quran was revealed to, and endowed upon, prophet Muhammad over a period of time (about 23 years).
In this context it is important to note that most of the romantic Urdu poetry having the aashiqana hue of Tassawuf was written by Ghalib from the age of 24 to 44.
In later life he admits to having lost that touch. And before the age of 24, when he lived in his nanihal in Agra, he lived mostly the life of a rich profligate, and the fine philosophical thoughts had no conducive soil to germinate upon.

Ghalib was convinced that we exist by explicit will and wish of God to fulfill a definite purpose of His.
At this point, the question that normally arises is that if God comprises everything and there is nothing besides Him in existence, then from where does the evil, the ugly, and tortuous come? Ghalib has an answer to this in the tradition of Indian seers.

Lataafat* be kassaafat* jalwaa* paidaa kar naheen ssaktee
chaman zangaar* hai aainaa-e-baad-e-bahaaree kaa

hawass* ko hai nishaat-e-kaar* kyaa-kyaa?
na ho marnaa to jeene kaa mazaa kyaa?

meree taameer* mein muzmir* hai ek ssoorat kharaabee kee
*lataafat = love
*be-kassaavat = without bitterness
*jalwaa = manifest beauty
*zangaar = rusted, vo aainaa jiskaa paani mar chukaa hai

*aainaa-e-baad-e-bahaaree =the mirror of the spring breeze
*havis =
*nishat-e-kaar =

Duality is the basic requirement of the existence of the phenomenal world. And if one takes the world as His variegated forms only, then one realizes that attaining Him is the same thing as attaining ones own self with all its strengths and drawbacks. Just as they say ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’; ‘ugliness ‘ too lies in the eyes of the beholder only. Ghalib would say:

Wahee ek baat hai jo yaaN nafass* waan nakhat*-e-gul hai
Chaman kaa jalwaa baaiss* hai meree rangeenwaaee* kaa

Laao usse bhi rakh deN uthaa kar shab-e-vissaal
Haayal jo ek khafeef ssaa pardaa nazar kaa hai/

Nazar mei hai hamaaree jaada-e-raah-e-fanaa* Ghalib
Ki ye sheeraza* hai aalam ke azazaa-e-pareeshaan* kaa
*nafass = saans, breath
*nikahat = khushboo
*baaiss = result, effect
*rangeenwaaee = colourfulness
*jaadaa-e-raah-e-- fanaa =
*sheeraazaa =
*azazaa-e-pareeshaan = bikhare hue elements

Our sight is constantly noticing destructive forces, butwe do not see that these act as the unifying adhesive for the inherently dispersing elements of the creation.
Once we imbibe the functional indispensability of duality in the actualization of creation, we become ‘at peace’ as a part of the whole system.
Ghalib says:

Partav-e-khur* se hai shabnam ko fanaa* kee ta'aleem*
MaiN bhee hoon ek inaayat* kee nazar hone tak.

Waa kar diye hain shauq ne band-e-naqaab-e-husn
Ghair az nigaah koee bhee haayal nahee rahaa

But this realization does not lead Ghalib towards a life of inactivity. His mentality is tha instead of an inactive passive existence, life’s noise and clamor is more interesting. Be it crying or mourning only, doesn’t really matter.

Ek hangama pe mauqoof hai ghar kee raunaq
Nauha-e-gham hee ssahee naghma-e-shaadee na ssahee

Maqtal* ko kiss nishaat* sse jaataa hooN maiN ki hai
Purgul kheyaal zakhm sse daaman nigaah mein
*maqtal = slaughter house
*nishaat = khushi
*purgul = phoolon sse bharaa huaa
*daaman = kurti kaa nichlaa hissaa

That is why Ghalib’s misery has an attraction.
This misery too is of several types. ‘gham-e-dauraan’, ‘gham-e-kaarobaar’, ‘gham-e-ishq’.
Amongst these his ‘gham-e-ishq’ is most magnificent.
Because it has the elixir of life in it, and because it carries in it the pain and its cure both simultaneously.
Zeest se tabiyatan-e-zeest kaa mazaa paayaa
Dard kee dawaa paaee dard be-dawaa paayaa
The ‘cure’ of pain being claimed discovered here, is paradoxically the realization that pain is incurable.
Somewhat in the nature of Albert Camus’ ‘absurd’.

Gham agarche jaan-gussil* hai
pe kahaan bachen, ki dil hai
Gham-e-ishq gar na hotaa,
gham-e-rozgaar hotaa
*jaan-gussil = jaanlevaa

Bakhshe hai jalwa-e-gul, zauq-e-tamaashaa Ghalib
Chashm ko chaahiye har raNg meiN waa ho jaanaa
In a famous ghazal he says:
Ye na thee hamaaree qismat ki vissaal-e-yaar hotaa
Agar aur jeete rehte yahee intezaar hotaa
He is not complaining. He is just plainly accepting with all grace at his command , his plight, his condition, his destiny as a human being in God’s scheme of things. This does not mean that he loves to wait perpetually, or that he would not like ‘vissaal’ with the beloved. But he wants to continue struggling ,( in the manner of Camus’ Sysiphus repeatedly rolling the stone uphill) knowing fully well that he is not destined to succeed.
Ghalib appears to be a most befitting example of Sartre’s existentialist.
And here is Ghalib’s attitude towards the ‘given’ impossibility of his condition as a human being in the cosmos.
He has learnt to live with it. But not in ‘submission’or surrender. Only, as an inseparable part of the overall scheme of things, for which he can not, and does not have an ‘other’ to blame.
He doesn’t say he is enjoying his plight. But he accepts the fact of his pain and misery indulgently as a necessary price for his
‘aliveness’. This is the crux of Ghalib’s philosophy.

Naghmahaa-e-gham ko bhee, aye dil ghaneemat jaaniye
Be-ssadaa ho jaayegaa yeh ssaaz-e-hastee ek din

In aablon se paaon ke ghabraa gayaa thaa main
jee khush huaa hai raah ko purkhaar dekh kar

Koee mere dil sse poochhe tere teer-e-neemkash* ko
Ye khalish kahaan sse hotee jo jigar ke paar hotaa

Tere wade per jiye ham, to ye jaan jhooth jaanaa
Ki khushee sse mar na jaate agar aitbaar hotaa

Ishrat-e-paaraa-e-dil*- zakhm-e-tamannaa* khaanaa
Lazzat-e-reesh-e-jigar- * ghark-e-namakdaan* honaa

Haif uss chaar girah kapde ki qeemat Ghalib
Jiskee qismat mein ho aashiq kaa girebaan honaa
*neem kash = aadhaa ghussaa huaa
*ishrat-e-paaraa-e-dil = pare kee tarah bikharnewaale dill kee moksh/mukti/salvation
*zakhm-e-- tamannaa = naakaam khwhish ke ghaav
*reesh-e-jigar = jigar sse khoon kaa rissnaa
*ghark-e-namakdaan = immersed in the salt celler

Aah ko chaahiye ek umra assar hone tak
Kaun jeetaa hai teree zulf ke ssar hone tak*
* The problem is that ‘aah’ requires a ‘life’ of some duration
to have an effect on the beloved. But who has that kind of
longevity?
*zulf ke ssar hone tak = there are many interpretations. One is : “sar honaa” as an idiom, meaning ‘being crazy about’.
The other is that it denotes the image of the beloved with her
hair down covering her face, and that the poet is referring to
the ‘ages’ it may take for the beloved to sweep the hair back
on to her head.

Hamne maanaa ki taqghaaful na karoge lekin
Khaak ho jaayeNge ham tumko khabar hone tak

Partao-e-khur sse hai shabnam ko fanaa kee ta'aleem
MaiN bhi hoon ek inaayat kee nazar hone tak
*(the dew drops are trained to expect annihilation by the sun light. ‘Ghalib’ is giving the simile of this phenomenon to denote
the expected impact of his beloved’s glance of grace on him.)

Gham-e-hastee kaa ‘asad’ kissasse ho juz margh ilaa
Shamaa har raNg mein jaltee hai sehar hone tak

Ishrat-e-qataraa hai dariyaa meiN fanaa ho jaanaa
Dard kaa had sse guzarnaa hai dawaa ho jaanaa

Hai mujhe abr-e-bahaaree kaa barass kar khulnaa
Rote-rote gham-e-furqat mein fanaa ho jaanaa

Ranj sse khoogar huaa inssaan, to mit jaataa hai ranj
MushkileN mujh per padeen itneen ki aassaaN ho gaeen `

Shab ko kissee ke khwaab meiN aayaa na ho kaheen
Dukhte hain aaj uss but-e-naazuk badan ke paanv

Ssunte hain jo bahisht kee ta'arif, ssab durust
Lekin khudaa kare, vo teree jalwaagaah ho
It is from this point of view that one gets to
appreciate his ‘ishq’ as reflecting his brand of ‘massaail-e-tassawuf.
He is aware that this is not the way that most Sufis would express their ishq. Hence his lines ‘Ghalib kaa hai andaaz-e-bayaan aur’

Ghalib had zest and acute passion for life and the world with all its shortcomings. He was
perpetually thirsty and hungery for things of the world. And that insatiable thirst and hunger shows prominently in his mid-life poetry.
Ghalib ‘s sense of unfulfilment was perpetual, not because off deprivations or financial paucities, which came later only in his life, it was a sense of ‘incompleteness despite having a lot’. It gave him a restlessness like that of Vincent Van Gogh.
B’qadr-e-shauq naheen, zarf-e-tangnaa-e-ghazal
Kuchh aur chaahiye vuss’at* mere bayaan ke liye
* vussat = vastness, expance

That life of his is a flow, a perpetual movement, a constant journey, is borne out by his couplets after couplets.

Chaltaa hoon thodee door, har-ik tez-rau ke ssaath
Pehchaantaa nahin hoon abhee raahbar ko main

Chhodaa na rashq ne, ki tere ghar kaa naam loon
Har-ik sse poochhtaa hoon, ki jaaoon kidhar ko main

Phir be-khudee mein bhool gayaa, raah-e-koo-e-yaar
Jaataa wagarnaa ek din apnee khabar ko main

Death is a stop, a halt, a destination, a lack of movement. That is why he was a poet of the state of flux, ‘marching on’, the journey, life ,not of the destination (death). Ghalib’s is a perpetually non-committal state of mind.Free! Here life is dancing without fetters. There is no restriction of any kind on it.

Rau mein hai rakhsh*-e-umr kahaan dekhiye thamn
Na haath baab* per hai na paa hai rakaab mein
*rakhsh= horse
*baab = lagaam

Ghalib’s concept of life has no place for ‘rest’ or lack of movement or dynamism. No sooner than he recovers even slightly from setbacks he starts hankering for his habitual ways of indulgent life and romance. His zest for life is unstoppable. An incurably romantically indisposed person, that is Ghalib.

Muddat huee hai yaar ko mehmaan kiye hue
Josh-e-qadah se, bazm charaghaan kiye hue

Phir vaza-e-ahtiyaat se rukne lagaa hai dam
Barsson hue hain chaak girebaan kiye hue
Phir purssish-e-jaraahat-e-dil ko chalaa hai ishq
saamaan-e-ssad-hazaar namakdaan kiye hue
Maange hai phir, kissee ko lab-e-baam per hawass
Zulf-e-siyaah rukh pe pareeshaan kiye hue
Ik naubahaar-e-naaz ko take hai phir bahaar
Chehraa farogh-e-mai sse gulistaan kiye hue
Jee dhoondhtaa hai phir wahi furssat, ki raat din
Baithe rahen tassawur-e-janaan kiye hue

[swamidada]

The HyperTexts

Mirza Ghalib: Modern English Translations by Michael R. Burch

Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is considered to be one of the best Urdu poets of all time. The last great poet of the Mughal Empire, Ghalib was a master of the sher (couplet) and the ghazal (a lyric poem formed from couplets). Urdu/Hindi shayari (poetry) is notable for its highly romantic images, evocative metaphors, emotional content, depth of feeling, transcendence, and sheer passion! Ghalib remains popular in India, Pakistan, and among the Hindustani diaspora. He also wrote poetry in Persian.

with modern English translations by Michael R. Burch

If you like my translations you are welcome to share them for noncommercial purposes, but please be sure to credit the original poet and translator. You can do this easily by copying the credits along with the poem.


Every wave conceals monsters,
and yet teardrops become pearls.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Daam-e har mauj mein hai halqa-e-sad kaam-e-nahang
Dekhein kya guzre hai qatre pe guhar hone tak.



A lifetime of sighs scarcely reveals its effects,
yet how impatiently I wait for you to untangle your hair!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Aah ko chaahiye ik 'umr asar hone tak,
Kaun jeeta hai teri zulf ke sar hone tak.



All your life, O Ghalib, you repeated the same mistake:
your face was dirty but you kept obsessively cleaning the mirror!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Umar bhar Ghalib ye hi bhool karta raha,
Dhool chehre par thi aur aaina saaf karta raha!



Oh naïve heart, what will become of you?
Is there no relief for your pain? What will you do?
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

dil-e-naadaa. N tujhe huaa kyaa hai ?
aaKhir is dard kii davaa kyaa hai ?



Cost Analysis
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I get that 'Ghalib' is not much,
but when a slave comes free, what’s the problem?

mai.n ne maanaa ki kuchh nahii.n 'Ghalib'
muft haath aaye to buraa kyaa hai ?

I believe Ghalib is complaining to his beloved that since he has become her slave, his lack of "value" in her eyes is immaterial. The fact that he puts his name in quotation marks suggests that she may have been talking derogatorily about him.



My face lights up whenever I see my lover;
now she thinks my illness has been cured!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

unhe dekh kar aati hai chehre pe raunak,
aur wo samajhte hain beemar ka haal achha hai



If you want to hear rhetoric flower,
hand me the wine decanter.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Phir dekhiyen andaz-e-gul afshaani-e-guftar;
rakh de koyi paimaan-e-saiba mere aage



I tease her, but she remains tight-lipped ...
if only she'd sipped a little wine!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

main unhein chheDun aur wo kuchh na kahen
chal nikalte jo mai piye hote



People don’t change, their true colors are revealed.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Log badalte nhi 'galib' benaqab hote hai



Drunk on love, I made her my God.
She quickly informed me God belongs to no man!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Ten thousand desires: each one worth dying for ...
So many fulfilled, and yet still I yearn for more!
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hazaaron khwaishein aisi ke har khwaaish pe dam nikle,
Bahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle..



While you may not ignore me,
I’ll be ashes before you understand me.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

humne maana ke tagaaful na karoge lekin
khaak ho jayenge hum, tumko khabar hone tak



I’ll only wish ill on myself today,
for when I wished for good, bad came my way.
—Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

khuub tha pahle se hote jo ham apne bad-khvah
ki bhala chahte haiñ aur bura hota hai



Bleedings
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Love requires patience, while passion races;
must my heart bleed constantly until it expires?

'Aashiqi sabr-talab aur tamanna betaab
Dil kaa kyaa rang karoon khoon-e jigar hone tak.



Abstinence?
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let me get drunk in the mosque,
or show me the place where God abstains!

Peene de sharab masjid me baith ke Galib
Ya woh jaga bata jaha KHUDA na ho!



Exiles
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Often we have heard of Adam's banishment from Eden,
but with far greater humiliation, I depart your garden.

Nikalna khuld se aadam ka sunte aaye hain lekin,
Bahut be-abroo hokar tere kooche se hum nikale

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Mirza%20Gh ... 0Burch.htm

[swamidada]

Arts and Culture
Mirza Ghalib: Legendary poet of the Urdu language
Remembering one of the most popular and influential poet and writers of the Urdu language.

Published On 27 Dec 2017

Mirza Ghalib, born on December 27, 1797, in Agra, was a well-known poet in the Persian and Urdu languages.

Today, he remains one of the most popular and influential masters of the Urdu language; he is known simply as Ghalib.

He remains popular not only in India and Pakistan but also among the diaspora.

Persian poet
A prodigious poet. Mirza Ghalib started writing poetry at the age of 11. His verse is characterised by sadness, the result of an often tragic life. He was orphaned at an early age and lost all seven of his children in their infancy.

The Conqueror. Born in Agra as Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, who later used pen name “Ghalib” (the conqueror), he migrated to New Delhi where he lived for the rest of his life.
He struggled financially, never had a regular job and depended on patronage from royalty.

The poet had an arranged marriage at the age of 13, but none of his seven children survived beyond infancy, tragedies which are reflected in his work.
Ghalib’s poetry. After marriage, he settled in New Delhi. In one of his letters, he describes his marriage as a second imprisonment after the initial confinement of life itself.

The idea that life is one continuous struggle was a recurring theme in his poetry.

Three forms of poetry. Ghalib’s best poems were written in three forms: ghazal (lyric), masnavi (moralistic or mystical parable), and qasidah (panegyric).

Ghalib took the concept of ghazals and changed them from an expression of anguish in love to philosophies of life.

His critics accused him of writing in an ornamental style of Persian that was incomprehensible to the masses. But his legacy has come to be widely celebrated, particularly his mastery of the Urdu ghazal.

Gifted letter writer. Mirza Ghalib was also a gifted letter writer. His letters paved the way to a simpler usage of Urdu.

Before him, letter writing in Urdu was highly ornamental, his letters used common words to express ideas.

Recognition. He was awarded the title Dabir-ul-Mulk by Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II in 1850, along with the title of Najm ud-Daulah.

He died in New Delhi on February 15, 1869. The house where he lived has been turned into a memorial and hosts a permanent Ghalib exhibition.

Ideas
Seeking God. Ghalib placed a greater emphasis on seeking God rather than ritualistic religious practice.
In one of his poems, he wrote: “The object of my worship lies beyond perception’s reach; For men who see, the Ka’aba is a compass, nothing more,” according to William Dalrymple, in his book The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857.

“The prison of life”. The idea that life is a struggle which can end when life itself ends is recurrent in his poetry.

“The prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same. Before the onset of death, why should man expect to be free of grief?” he wrote.

Life is a playground. In Ghalib’s view, life was similar to a playground, where people are busy in mundane activity but not aiming for a major goal.

“Just like a child’s playground, this world appears to me. Every single night and day, this spectacle I see,” he wrote.

Final goal. His final aim with his writing? “I want to write lines that make whoever reads them, happy.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017 ... u-language