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June 23, 2002
REVIEWS: Ghalib revisited
Scholarship on Ghalib demands that we see both the woods and the trees. Hali focused our attention on the woods; Akbar Hyderi concentrates on the trees. Akbar Hyderi has been writing on Ghalib, his various manuscripts, his contemporaries and his critics for over half a century. These articles have now been collected in two volumes called Nawadir-i-Ghalib, and Ghalibyat ke chand faramosh shuda goshe.
The common purpose of both the books is to resurrect rare and forsaken literary tracts concerning Ghalib. Not only as a poet but also as an intellect of the nineteenth century, Ghalib was a man of multiple aspects; consequently many aspects of nineteenth century cultural life reflect his presence or influence.
The late Kalidas Gupta Raza had published a volume called Muta’lliqat-i-Ghalib (1978) going as far as to include an article on Mirza Abbas Beg, Ghalib’s nephew. The miscellany collected by Akbar Hyderi cover a wider field.
The main source from where this material is drawn are rare files of defunct literary journals. Nawadir-i-Ghalib has separate chapters on five literary journals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Oudh Akhbar, Muraqqa-i-Alam, Al-Asr, Adeeb and Ma’arif. These journals contain news items and articles about Ghalib, mostly from people who had access to oral accounts from his contemporaries.
We have it on Hali’s account that Ghalib had a keen sense of humour; from Syed Ahmed Shafi Nayyar we learn that Ghalib was a prankster. He summoned one of his admirers on a dark and stormy night, by pretending that he was in his death throes, only to show his ardent devotee a dead cat on his bed. Ghalib had stage managed the prank because his admirer had a cat phobia.
Shafi Nayyar remains an important source. Apart from portraying Ghalib as a heartless prankster, he gives us valuable information. For instance he tells us that Ghalib was once on the point of leaving Delhi. All accounts of Ghalib agree that he lived a life of penury, always being in debt. Shafi Nayyar informs us that the lot of the poet laureate Zauq was no better. For all the titles and patronage that he received Zauq was faced with paucity of funds. Considering that his tastes were far less expensive than Ghalib’s, this speaks volumes about the place of poets in their society.
This is partly indicated by Hyderi when he reminds us that the only recompense Ghalib received for his Diwan was a single complimentary copy and though the publisher did not incorporate the corrections in the proofs Ghalib had so painstakingly carried out, the poet was still obliged to buy a number of copies to present to his patrons and friends.
It was not that Ghalib was above all unscrupulous practices. At times he could not resist recourse to unethical measures. When a pupil, Maikash, suggested to Ghalib that he rededicate a panegyric in praise of Amjad Ali Shah to his newly enthroned son Wajid Ali Shah, Ghalib was scandalized. He wrote back to say that his panegyric to Amjad Ali Shah was included in his Diwan which had been circulated all over India.
Later when Wajid Ali Shah was no longer on the throne but Ghalib still needed his patronage, the poet did exactly what he had earlier refused. He dedicated the same panegyric to Wajid Ali Shah, taking the plea that the king had not read his Diwan. Ghalib received no reward for his efforts. This struggle between the essential dignity of a great poet and the viles of a grasping courtier plagued Ghalib throughout his life.
In the aftermath of the 1857 uprising, Ghalib eked out a particularly miserable existence and according to Hyderi, only his Hindu pupils came to his aid, the Muslims themselves being fugitives. It is in this context that Hyderi devotes an article to Nawab Husammuddin Hyder Khan, whose influence on Ghalib was deep and lasting. Ghalib remained in contact with three generations of this family. Two members suffered summary execution after which their property was confiscated. The most touching letters of condolence Ghalib ever wrote were about them.
The process of critically appraising Ghalib began with the question of ascription. Hyderi shows Ghalib expostulating about the lineage of the persons interpolating the verses of other poets in his collection. Ghalib’s style was inimitable for genuine poets but lent itself to parody. Abdul Bari Aasi raised his parodies to a fine art. He forged verses claiming to have discovered them in a rare holograph of Ghalib. Both Niaz Fatehpuri and Majnun Gorakhpuri, the leading critics of their time, were taken in and showered praises on these spurious verses (Ghalibyat).
There is an interesting article on the first guide book to Ghalib (Wasooq-i-Sarahat by Waalah), notes as we call them today. Naubat Rai Nazar bluntly stated that explanatory notes were not needed. What were needed were reviews, which pinpointed the nuances of his style and the philosophical basis of his poetry. Urdu literary criticism thus started setting higher goals. The next step was microscopic studies of single ghazals anticipating what T.S. Eliot would call the lemon squeezer school of literary criticism. A ghazal was dissected by Zia Abbas Badayuni (Nawadir-i-Ghalib), a further step was taken by Shakir when he compared the ghazals of the same rhyme and metre composed by Ghalib, Zauq and Atash. While discussing the panegyrics of Ghalib, Piarey Lal Shakir is torn between the conventional merits of Sauda and Zauq and the innovative merits of Ghalib — a severe reminder that for all the progress it had made, Urdu criticism still trailed behind Hali.
Among other miscellany is an article on Mir Nasir Ali Sirhindi who had died 104 years before Ghalib was born. A writer had selected seven verses of Nasir Ali showing how they had foreshadowed the verses of Ghalib, Hyderi comments: “Ghalib’s verses confirm Yas Yagana’s statement in which he has accused Ghalib of plagiarism” (Ghalibyat).
So these volumes were intended to celebrate a plagiarist! Hyderi makes it appear that Yagana won in the end, for he reserves his very last article for Yas Yagana.
The genius of Yas Yagana was essentially attuned to the pure Urdu idiom. The genius of Ghalib was attuned to the Persian tradition. The two strands were bound to confront each other at some stage or the other. The entire critical corpus of Yagana revolves around his search for linguistic credibility. This we need not grudge, but its manifestation, that is according to Atash a status higher than Ghalib’s, is a grave critical anomaly. Unless we recognize this limitation of Yagana’s critical faculty, we can render justice neither to him nor Ghalib.
Nawadir-i-Ghalib Ghalibyat ke chand faramosh shuda goshe
By Dr Akbar Hyderi
Idara-i-Yaadgaar-i-Ghalib, PO Box 2268, Nazimabad, Karachi-74600
264pp. Rs200
280pp. Rs200
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