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.
“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”
