Ghalib: ‘The Greatest Urdu Poet of all Time

Having just read ‘Ghalib: A Wilderness at my Doorstep’ by Mehr Afshan Farooqi - I was inspired to learn more about the famous poet. Farooqi’s work is highly academic and an in-depth insight into Ghalib’s works. It’s very interesting but for novices, more background reading is essential to understand more about the man, his poetry and themes.

Beloved Urdu poet Mirza Beg Asadullah Khan - more popularly known as Ghalib was born in 1797 in Agra. He had Central Asian heritage - his family hailing from Samarkand. He lived during the East India Company’s control of India and also witnessed the dissolution of the Mughal Empire and the establishment of the British Raj.

He died in 1869 and is buried in Delhi. Ghalib is known as the ‘greatest Urdu poet of all time.’

He wrote in both Persian and Urdu, valuing his Persian oeuvre more. However, ironically he is more applauded for his Urdu work. Ghalib is still revered through the Indo-Pakistani community, including in the diaspora.

Ghalib had a very tough life. He was orphaned at a young age, and lost all his seven children in infancy, and also lived a life of economic hardship. His hardship and reflection on life is commonplace across his work. One of his couplets says: “The prison of life and the bondage of sorrow are the same
Why should man be free of sorrow before dying?”

Ghalib had an edge of arrogance and self superiority- especially when it came to his Persian poetry. He felt that he had an expert command of Persian language and would constantly assert his Central Asian and Persian heritage. There was a hierarchy of language in South Asia, and there were some who viewed Hindustani writers of Persian as inferior to those who were native Persian. It is now commonly believed that Ghalib made up a Zoroastrian Persian teacher to give himself legitimacy.

Having travelled to Calcutta to dispute his pension - he stayed for some time and fell in love with the city. His experiences meeting different creative people helped develop him further as a poet. Ghalib benefitted from the rise of the printing press and its use and popularity in Calcutta. He used print effectively, and it helped him reach a much wider audience.

In his later life, Ghalib was patronised by the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II who was also a poet. The Emperor bestowed titles on Ghalib as well as appointing him as a tutor to the royal court.

After the Indian uprising of 1857 – Ghalib lost many of his friends who were either killed or fled. He survived however, and was for a time confined to his home under the protection of a Raja of Patiala.

Ghalib actually wrote an account of the uprising which is a valuable historical resource.

Ghalib transformed the nature of the ghazal to being solely about romantic love. He wrote about philosophy, life and other subjects within the traditional ghazal style.

He believed in a less ritualistic Islam. In one of his poems, he said: “The object of my worship lies beyond perception's reach;
For men who see, the qibla is a compass, nothing more.” Ghalib was also critical of certain religious leaders.

As well as being applauded for his Urdu poetry, his letters have also received critical acclaim. His use of simple yet beautiful Urdu language really stood out.

Nandu M Mulmule writes about Ghalib’s psychological state of depression and hopelessness because of all the trauma he suffered in his life.

“Ghalib lived his death every moment. In a truly nihilistic sense, he was acutely aware of the emptiness of human existence. Struggling for the securities of life and caught in the mayhem of mutiny and the epic disintegration of the sociopolitical system, he went through every shade of depression, like:

Self-deprecation:

My verses are now a matter of derision “Asad”/ No gain in my ingenuity, I discern

Hopelessness:

Neither a song of a flower nor a string of music/I remain a voice of defeat

And a radically nihilistic yearning for dissolution:

A death of defame would better end with burial in river/Neither a funeral nor a tomb anywhere.”

He was a poet who lived in a defining moment for India. The dissolution of the much loved Mughal Empire and a lifestyle of high culture, literature and the arts; replaced with bloodshed and the creation of the British Raj. The despair and hopelessness that came from witnessing this historical event would have been enough on it own to create a feelings despair and anger; but Ghalib also had his life situation which only  added to more grief.

Although he did not live for too much longer after the British Raj, Ghalib lived for long enough to see the disastrous impact on his beloved city of Delhi. He openly seemed to respect the British and see them as effective and organised. However, it must be noted that he needed the British to be on side due to his pension and living.

Academic Shreya Gupta says: “In such circumstances, scholars say, Ghalib uses the Dastanbuy as a petition to request the British power ‘for title, for robe of honour, and for pension.’ After the British victory, they suspected the Muslim population of Delhi of sympathising with the rebels. Many of them, including Ghalib, were rounded up for waging war against the British. The Dastanbuy, published in 1858, was thus a way for the poet to ‘seek the shelter of the Lord from these unwarranted arrests.’”

However, he could not have been blind to the impact of the Raj especially on the Muslim community of India. This pivotal time in history would change the future of India forever.

“The heart is not stone or steel but will be moved. The eyes are not lifeless cracks in a wall but will shed tears at the panorama of death and at India’s desolation. The city of Delhi was emptied of its rulers and peopled instead with creatures of the Lord who acknowledged no lord—as if it were a garden without a gardener, and full of fruitless trees.” Ghalib

“As Urdu scholar G.C. Narang writes, ‘if we wish to know Ghalib’s real attitude towards the Mutiny, Dastambu is not enough; we must also take his letters into account.” Shreya Gupta