Ghalib Read online

  RAZA MIR

  GHALIB

  a thousand desires

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  Preface

  Prologue: Four Imagined Vignettes from Ghalib’s Life

  PART I

  1. The Paragon of Urdu Expression

  2. The Half-Believer Sufi

  3. The Ghalib Paradox

  4. Ghalib and His Critics

  5. 1750–1850: The Urdu Century

  6. Ghalib in the Here and Now

  PART II

  1. The Ghazal Introduced

  2. Anatomy of a Ghazal by Ghalib

  3. Ash’aar

  4. Maqtey

  5. Matley

  6. Ghazaliyaat

  Appendix 1: The Navratan: Nine of Ghalib’s Poet Contemporaries

  Appendix 2: A Ghalibian Bibliography

  Appendix 3: A Ghalibian Timeline

  A Note on Transliteration and Translation

  Notes

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  GHALIB

  Raza Mir grew up in Hyderabad, and teaches management at William Paterson University, USA. He is the author of The Taste of Words: An Introduction to Urdu Poetry and the co-author of Anthems of Resistance: A Celebration of Progressive Urdu Poetry. He can be reached at [email protected].

  Preface

  Mirza Ghalib is perhaps the most widely chronicled Urdu poet in English. The current bookscape shows several volumes on him, a veritable plethora. There are Internet sites devoted to him, and Ghalib’s couplets circulate relentlessly across social media. The terrain of Ghalib scholarship, it would appear, is well-mapped.

  So where does my modest contribution fit in?

  This book is designed to introduce Ghalib to a newer readership. I have attempted to write it in relatively contemporary language to target a new generation. There are several young people whose interest in Ghalib is immense thanks to his ubiquity in popular culture, but whose ability to engage seriously with him is hampered. This may be because of their unfamiliarity with Urdu and its outsider-unfriendly metaphorical conventions. But we also lack engaging material that melds together history and anecdote, poetry and meaning, the serenely effulgent world of the mushaira and the brutal historico-political conflagrations of Ghalib’s time. My relatively short book has ambitions to bridge that chasm. It has not been written for the Ghalib expert or the Urdu expert, but for a relative newcomer. Hopefully, it has not sacrificed depth in the pursuit of simplicity.

  A quick roadmap for what is to follow. I begin the book with a description of four imagined vignettes from Ghalib’s life, a prologue of sorts that fleshes out Ghalib’s personality in a quasi-fictional manner. The rest of the book is divided into two parts. I begin the first part with a biography of Ghalib, interspersed with a historical understanding of his milieu (Chapter 1). My aim here is not just to tell his story but also to evoke the conflict-ridden yet wondrous world that he inhabited. I then attempt to explore a few dimensions of Ghalib’s persona as a poet, and situate him in his time. I look at Ghalib’s attitudes to religion and religiosity, which are complex, but integral to his personality, and embody the spiritual temper of his time (Chapter 2). Following from that, I discuss a few paradoxical elements of Ghalib’s personality, which don’t neatly add up, but give us a sense of how he survived through his wits in an atmosphere where he often found himself at the wrong end of the power divide (Chapter 3). I also offer some space to Ghalib’s critics, both his peers and those who came after him, to see how they received him (Chapter 4).

  The unique age Ghalib lived in deserves some detailed contextual analysis. I describe the manner in which Urdu emerged in the century between 1750 and 1850 as a sophisticated language with its own literary and poetic traditions (Chapter 5). I conclude the first part with a commentary on how Ghalib remains relevant in the literary landscape of the twenty-first century across the Indian subcontinent and the globe (Chapter 6).

  I begin the second part of the book with a description of the ghazal, a dominant poetic form in which Ghalib wrote. I follow it up with a detailed analysis of a famous ghazal by Ghalib to uncover the richness of metaphors that abound in his work. I then offer a variety of translations of his work, some stand-alone couplets (ash’aar), some couplets bearing his poetic signature (maqtey), some rhyming couplets that start off his poems (matley) and a few poems translated complete (ghazaliyaat).

  In the appendices to the book, I first introduce a few of Ghalib’s contemporaries in the world of Urdu poetry to show how, despite his obvious talents, Ghalib was hardly an outlier and had occasion to match wits against the best. I also provide a selective and annotated bibliography for those seeking to learn more about Ghalib. In keeping with the profile of my anticipated readership, I lean more heavily towards those works that appear in English, and especially those that are available in the digital and Internet realms. I end the book by providing a brief timeline of events relevant to Ghalib’s life.

  Ghalib died in 1869, 150 years before this book was published. But I am sure my readers will agree that in a manner of speaking, he lives with us, transcending space and time, cementing his status as the greatest Urdu poet ever. To quote the final verse of his divaan:

  Ada-e khaas se Ghalib hua hai nukta-sara

  Sala-e aam hai yaaraan-e nuktadaaN ke liye

  Ghalib sings his special verses armed with verve aplenty

  This is an open invitation for the cognoscenti

  ~

  I have several debts to acknowledge as I look back on the long process that constitutes the evolution of this book. My parents Taqi and Zakia recited poetry to their children. The atmosphere in our house was one where attachment to poetry became interactive. My first acknowledgment is thus to my parents. Now that I have my own home, I recite poetry incessantly to my older son, Safdar, though his poetic preferences run more towards Kendrick Lamar. My wife, Farah, has become my most thorough editor, and I have her to thank for many a tweak in the translations as well as the body of the text. Her frank feedback improves my work immeasurably. My brother, Husain, provided the book with the most detailed copy edit imaginable, to go with substantive observations on structure and thematics. My sister, Syeda, is very enthusiastic in her feedback and encouragement and read an early draft of this book as well. For direct help with this manuscript, I thank Farah, Husain and Syeda, and my uncle S.M. Shahed. Those four have been my primary readers. I also thank Anees Ayesha, Akshay Manwani, Anwar Moazzam, Sandipan Deb, Jeff Naqvi, Sajjad Zaidi, Vamsi Vakulabharanam, M.V. Ramana, Asif Raza, Amirullah Khan, Krishna Gubili and Ashhar Farhan for critical and supportive feedback. Professor Frances ‘Fran’ Pritchett gave this book a once-over and made astute comments, for which I am grateful. None of those who gave me feedback bear any responsibility for any errors that may be present in my work, or for my often idiosyncratic choices of translation, transliteration and representation. At the publishing end, Ambar Sahil Chatterjee has been a thoughtful and supportive commissioning editor, someone whom I have, through successive collaborations, come to trust. I also thank Shreya Dhawan and Shreya Chakravertty for editing assistance, and Gunjan Ahlawat for cover design.

  I dedicate this book to Farah and Safdar and to our younger son, Sahir. Sahir does not read poetry. He does not need to. He is a poem unto himself.

  Prologue

  Four Imagined Vignettes from Ghalib’s Life

  Sojourn

  A bucolic evening in February 1827. The majestic Ganges, a veritable sea unto itself, laps the prow of a sailboat making its serene way across a riverine landscape. Its deceptive calm is often interrupted by the graceful leaps of dolphins, the sudden hunting manoeuvre of a gharial, or the precise dive of a kingfisher to pluck out a whiting from the clear water
. The boat is on its way to Calcutta, the grand metropolis of the east, and amongst the passengers is a restless thirty-year-old who drinks in the landscape with the unblinking eagerness of one who is making his first consequential journey.

  A resident of Delhi, Mirza Asadullah Khan Baig ‘Ghalib’ has made an overland journey to Agra, visited the Avadhian capital of Lucknow, travelled to the holy city of Benaras, and on the final leg, is eagerly waiting to make landfall near Howrah. Ghalib has experienced an intellectual flowering on this journey. He has met peers of incomparable abilities, experienced different cultures and traditions and has had occasion to re-examine some of his core spiritual beliefs. The idea of Calcutta fascinates him. It is, after all, the seat of the East India Company, whose administrative reverberations have been felt in Delhi for a long time.

  Ghalib’s youthful naiveté equates the British with order: metalled roads, an efficient postal system, and above all, planned transfers of authority, a bureaucratic feature that is alien to one raised on tales of the internecine brutality of Mughal succession. Like many of the credulous denizens of Shahjahanabad, he has been shielded from the acquisitive brutality of the Company in the hinterland, experiencing it mostly through the reduction in his stipend from his feudal benefactors. Indeed, he is on his way to Calcutta to remedy that, hoping for a direct salary from the British, and to pursue a legal case involving his inheritance, about which he is in legal conflict with some of his relatives.

  Ghalib has a sheaf of papers in front of him, where he has taken to scrawling his thoughts with a pencil, a precious gift bestowed upon him by a friend. The boat is too unsteady to use a dip pen, and while Ghalib has had occasion to see a fountain pen in action, he has not had the privilege of owning one. No matter. The pencil, with its sturdy wooden exterior and lead core, delights him; it will do admirably for his thoughts that tumble out chaotically at all moments, often as fully formed verses. He has been a busy poet on this trip. He composed a florid Farsi poem in the masnawi style while at Benaras, a feat he is especially proud of. The poem, titled Chiragh-e-Dair (Temple Lamp), is one of his few Farsi poems destined for greatness.

  But this journey insistently calls an Urdu muse forth, one that invites him to shake off the abstruse and metaphysical and indulge in the spare parsimony of feelings. He glances at the lines he has written that very afternoon:

  Kalkatte ka jo zikr kiya tu ne hum-nasheeN

  Ek teer mere seene pe mara, ke hai

  When you mentioned Calcutta, sweetheart

  Oh you pierced my chest with a dart!

  He determines not to finish that poem until he returns to Delhi. There will be time to reflect on the pleasures of Calcutta with the benefit of experience, rather than the imprecision of anticipated pleasure.

  ~

  Mushaira

  The night is threatening to yield to morning on 10 May 1855. A grand mushaira is in progress, this last Thursday before the start of the holy month of Ramadan. Miyan Fakhru, the oldest son of Bahadur Shah Zafar, presides. He is in poor health and will not last the year. Of course, peace in Delhi will not last two years, but no one is to know that yet. For the moment, Shahjahanabad is bedecked. The fountains of Chandni Chowk are awash in clear water, a happy consequence of the opening of the Ali Mardan canal that has brought water to Delhi from the Yamuna. The patissiers of Ghantewala are whipping up glorious desserts, the restaurateurs of Ajmeri Gate have invented tandoori chicken and nihari, and despite boilerplate denunciations of inebriation by the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar, a merchant near the Lahori Darwaza has a cellar that stocks the finest of ports from Portugal, luscious reds from Bordeaux and an assortment of palm wines from Rajasthan.

  In the haveli of Maulvi Mohammed Baquir, the poets sit in a circle in the great hall. Maulvi Baquir has been a host beyond compare. The night had begun with the Maghrib prayer, followed by a sumptuous repast that belied his increasingly impecunious fortunes. Guests had feasted on khaibari biryani with meat so succulent that it could be scooped up with a spoon, rice grains as long as a baby’s finger, and ghee that flavoured the entire room. There had been dum-pukht machhli made with the freshest rohu fish from the Yamuna, murgh Irani, the richest of chicken dishes laced with saffron, almonds and cream, and dal panchratan, baingan shirazi and dahi ka achaar for the vegetarians. Chefs at open tandoors had baked an assortment of naans and there had been drinks galore—lassi, khus sharbat, false ka ras—all chilled with real ice. Gajar ka halwa, badam burfi and frozen kulfis had made the desserts irresistible, and now that the eating is done, delectable paans are being made to order for the guests.

  Ghalib of course has neither oohed nor aahed at the spread but has grumbled loudly that the puritanical and abstemious Maulvi Baquir had not only refused to serve alcohol, but had sent Ghalib a private word that the flask of cheap wine he was known to bring to such ‘dry’ parties would be most unwelcome in a house where the sounds of namaaz were ubiquitous. ‘How is a poet to perform without the audience of the “daughter of grapes”?’ is his scowling refrain. But Maulana Baquir is not a man to be trifled with, so Ghalib has given in with ill grace.

  The mushaira proceeds apace. A shama, a brightly burning candle, is put in front of each performer by turn, signifying their turn to recite. Seniority determines the order, and Ghalib is to be the last of the featured poets, reflecting his stature as the new poet laureate of the Mughal crown.

  He has waited impatiently for this honour, which had not been accorded to him as long as his friendly rival Sheikh Muhammad Ibrahim Zauq had been alive. Ghalib remembers how he had flayed his rival with many a sniggering dig of a poem, insinuating that Zauq had been made poet laureate only because he was a toady. It is only after Zauq and his other rival Hakeem Momin Khan Momin have died that he realizes how much he misses his peers, and how foolish he had been to disguise his immense respect for them. Mushairas with them had been veritable feats of poetic repartee; he has no patience for the derivative verses of the younger generation and feels isolated and alone in his respectable status as the ‘closer’. At least there is that old codger Agha Jaan Aish to hurl an occasional insult his way. Even his coarse familiarity is welcome in these desolate times.

  The shama has made its way to Ghalib, startling him out of his reverie. He surveys his fellow poets, arrayed before him in a circle, waiting expectantly for what they anticipate will be exquisitely crafted but impossibly indecipherable verses. An impish desire to floor them with the most opaque of lines runs through his mischievous mind. But Ghalib is tiring of his isolation and wishes to meet his audience halfway. It is a non-traditional, ghair-tarhi mushaira after all. He has always been particular about presenting new work at these events, but decides on impulse to present older fare, a ghazal he had written over three decades ago, in 1821. He begins:

  Aah ko chaahiye ek umr asar hone tak

  Kaun jeeta hai teri zulf ke sar hone tak

  For a sigh to be heard sometimes takes an age

  Who survives while you with your stray curls engage?

  He proceeds to wait for the giddy and euphoric waah waahs to subside.

  ~

  Horror

  It is 22 September 1857. The sky is stained scarlet by the setting sun as Ghalib stumbles home, past Gurudwara Sheesh Ganj towards Gali Qasim Jan. He cuts into by-lanes that have not yet been traversed by British soldiers and their underlings. It is not just for safety that he skirts the thoroughfare but also to avoid the horrors that the massed corpses wreak on his old eyes. In a matter of days, he has seen carnage that would have aged the young. Word has reached him that Bahadur Shah’s sons Mirza Mughal and Mirza Khizr Sultan, and his grandson Mirza Abu Bakr, were shot point-blank, disembowelled and decapitated by General William Hodson’s soldiers at the Khooni Darwaza. The ramparts of the Red Fort have boomed all day with periodic cannon fire, with one horrific innovation: each cannon had an unfortunate rebel tied to its mouth before it had been fired. The fountains of Chandni Chowk are choked with human entrails, the detritus of a fiendis
h army that had been so crazed by the memories of humiliating losses over the past four months that it had wreaked impotent but implacable revenge on any man they came across.

  Ghalib had experienced the mutiny with ambivalence but had warmed up to it over time. Indeed, his beloved postal service had been disrupted, his stipend had been suspended, and the bumpkins from the east who had occupied the Red Fort exhibited none of the cultural refinements that he had trained his instincts to admire. But still, they were fiercely independent and proud folk who had given voice to a collectively felt resentment against a foreign occupying force that had begun to tear the country apart with its rapacious depredations. They had rallied under the flag of the emperor, and he had slowly aligned his loyalties to their agenda. The Mughal court had begun to feel like an indigenous seat of power again, and Ghalib had begun to serve it as a responsible citizen.

  And now, that age of imperial decorum was being destroyed with a rage that ironically legitimized it in death. The last few months felt in hindsight like the heightened consciousness of a person just as they passed from life into death. Ghalib remembered a verse by a younger poet—it might have been either Amirullah Tasleem or Shad Lakhnawi:

  Jawaani se ziyaada waqt-e peeri josh hota hai

  Bhadakta hai chiraagh-e subah jab khamosh hota hai

  Advancing years are indeed more passionate than youth

  The taper burns brightest at dawn before slowly going mute

  Ghalib has been forced outdoors in these times by circumstance, searching in vain for an apothecary to minister to the pain of his brother, Mirza Yousuf, slowly dying of multiple maladies in opaque, schizophrenic isolation. He reaches home, and as he shuffles in, his wife, Umrao Begum, looks at him in anticipation. A glance at his face silences her; she sees no point in giving voice to defeat. As Mirza Yousuf dozes fitfully, Ghalib picks up his pen. ‘All I can do in the face of death is write,’ he muses grimly. ‘I wrote when my beloved adoptive son Arif died, I write when my Yousuf dies, and I will write when my Delhi dies.’