In the deadly sweep of every wave, said the poet Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib once, a thousand dangers lie in wait. He would have known of those dangers, for he lived through them. Rising to poetic prominence in the fading glory of the Mughals, he was fated to witness the decay and decline of what had once been one of the most powerful dynasties not just in India but in the entire world as well. As his twilight approached, Ghalib watched the Mughal dynasty peter out, through the sheer power of British colonialism soon after the outbreak and subsequent collapse of the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857. The hapless Bahadur Shah Zafar, emperor-poet, of whose munificence Ghalib had partaken of, was removed to Rangoon after a humiliating trial at the hands of the colonial power. It was in Rangoon that the heart-broken emperor would die. The British were determined that nothing remained of him and one way of ensuring that was to spray acid over the corpse of the emperor and so make sure his remains would quickly mingle with the soil in his grave.
Of Ghalib’s family we know hardly anything. He is said to have married at thirteen but then marriage could not keep him within its strict confines. He sired seven children, all of whom died before they could grow into adulthood. He was deeply attracted to women, and they to him. It is thought that he had at least one serious romantic liaison in his life, a phase which certainly must have given a spurt to his poetry. If, as Ralph Russell once noted, Urdu poetry is meant to be recited and not read, and then Ghalib’s poetry was not merely recited but, on a more elevated level, transformed into soulful music. Recall the following:
‘Muddat hee hai yar ko / mehmaan kiye hue / josh-e-qada se bazm / chiraghaan kiye hue . . .’
Which, in Russell’s translation, stands thus: ‘An age has passed since I last / brought my beloved to my house / lighting the whole assembly /with the wine cup’s radiance’.
Those among you who have heard Noor Jehan sing this number half a century ago, or more, will yet feel the bitter-beautiful pain inherent in the parting of loving man from beloved woman.
Ghalib’s haveli at Gali Qasim Jaan, Ballimaaran, in Old Delhi is where the poet spent the last years of his life. It is today a museum, home to poetry enthusiasts grateful to Ghalib for the exquisite nature of his poetry. And the poetry rested on love, all the way:
‘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 . . .’
Jawaharlal Nehru, having watched the movie ‘Ghalib’ (1954), was in his element as he told a happily surprised Suraiya: ‘You have put life into the soul of Mirza Ghalib.’
The life and soul of GHALIB
