Skimming Ghalib

If one has to compile a list of the World’s greatest poets, it would undoubtedly be incomplete without the mention of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib.

Ghalib stands tall as an equal, or maybe even a notch higher than most world greats of both the yore and the contemporary times.  As Ali Sardar Jafri, who compiled a compendium of Ghalib’s work- the ‘Deewan-e-Ghalib’ wrote, “The genius of Ghalib was not that he had the ability to break shackles and gather the restiveness of his era in his poetry but in the fact that he created poetry that itself stirred a restiveness which reflects the ethos of not just the times before Ghalib, but stands true centuries after him as well”. This is reflected in the Urdu deewan (compilation) which starts with a thought-provoking question:

“Naqsh fariyadi hai kiski shokhi-e-tahreer ka

Kaaghazi hai pairahan har paikar-e-tasveer ka’

As one leafs through the deewan one comes across many more such questions that flummox one with the intricacies of reality. Ghalib was a masterstroke who embraced the nuances of each of Life’s colours rather than just painting it in stark black or white. His poetry surges with a sea of human emotions at their crest, with each of his couplets doling out a philosophy by itself, uncannily reflecting idealism, mysticism, realism, rationalism and scepticism, all at once.

Ghalib shaped the traditional form of Ghazal into a summation of myriad feelings, problems, thoughts and experiences, to become a medium of concise yet non-conflicting expression. His Deewan is an exemplary reflection of Ghalib’s varied genius; sometimes sucking one into his forceful thoughts, while at others joining him in play with imagination drawn to a joyous toy, like a naughty child. All his ghazals are a surprise cauldron of happiness, surprise, sorrow... They are perhaps also a reflection of Ghalib’s own troubled personal life, which was full of strife sadness that peeks through some of his ghazals:

“Gham-e-hasti ka asad kis se ho juz marg-e-ilaaj

Shama har rang mein jalti hai seher hone tak”

Tinged with sadness, it is this aspect of his poetry that wrenches hearts and appeals to most. Like the master himself recited:

‘Kehta hai kaun naala-e-bulbul ko be-asar

Parde mein gul ke jigar chaak ho gaye”

Beyond all this there is one other facet that shares space with life, mysticism, love, beauty in Ghalib’s poetry- Death. And he like a true blue philosopher takes on death, in its face, in all starkness:

“Ishrat-e-qatra hai dariya mein fanaa ho jaana

Dard ka had se guzarna hai dawa ho jaana”

While the darkness of death and the heaviness of philosophy can mislead one into thinking of Ghalib as nothing but serious, yet the effervescence of his personality sears through some of his most celebrated ghazals and couplets, that carve him out as probably, the greatest ever romantic Indian history has ever seen. As I end my note, I shall leave all with this side of Ghalib, as he expresses with a frenzy that can only belong to a lover:

“Ishq se tabiyat ne zeest ka maza paaya

Dard ki dawa payi, dard, la-dawa paaya”