February 15, 2009

Showering encomiums on Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib’s poetry is like employing rich epithets to describe William Shakespeare’s tragedies or Salvador Dali’s surrealistic strokes. Ghalib’s couplets are what he is. He is Urdu poetry. That is all you know, that is all you need to know.

Ghalib’s death anniversary falls on Feb 15. Should it be marked? If yes, then why is it important to mark creative individuals’ birthdays and death anniversaries? Perhaps to remember them? If recalling the important days in their lives makes a difference with respect to carrying out research on them, and exploring hitherto unravelled facets to their works and lives, then why not?

But sadly, despite Ghalib’s undisputed stature as a literary colossus, we’ve yet to decide whether he was an Indian or defied geographical boundaries.

In Pakistan we don’t seem to ‘own’ him as we own Allama Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz or Josh Malihabadi. Yes, scholars have undertaken tasks of ‘understanding’ his works or of Ghalib shanasi (which means getting acquainted with him), but one feels that the vital ‘ownership’ factor is amiss.

So why is Ghalib important to be considered as one of our own? Answers: (1) he enriched the Urdu language by almost exhausting the possibilities of linguistic inventiveness and creative ingenuity; (2) he had the temerity to explore undiscovered lands in the realm of poetry that prior to him weren’t even thought of as plausible literary subjects; (3) he blazed a trail for many a creative man to indulge in ghazal-writing like never before… and the list goes on.

To Ghalib composing poetry wasn’t a leisurely pastime or a part-time job. He was dealing with existence, warts and all. He was just 13 when he got hitched to an 11-year-old girl, Umrao Begum. They had seven children, none of whom survived, and passed away in their infancy. It was but natural that Ghalib was crestfallen. But he never turned bitter or vitriolic. He had seen life eyeball to eyeball. And was an admirer of nature and all that is beautiful.

That is precisely why his verses brim with love for the sensual and the intangible, coupled with the bare truths of being. He knew half-baked measures would make him a run-of-the-mill poet. Yes, he was an iconoclast. Yes, he was alcoholic. Yes, he was a gambler. But these social evils (if they are that) have nothing to do with his extraordinary skill or perceptiveness. He was every inch a poet, top-notch at that. As Intizar Husain enthused about Jaun Elia, Ghalib’s personality had become an extension of his poetry.

T.S. Eliot has given world literature an irrefutable dictum: poetry communicates before it is understood. Ghalib exactly achieved that. Even to those readers for whom Persianised Urdu or intricate phrasing is a tad knotty to comprehend, his couplets appear readily accessible.

For example, every reader of Urdu poetry is familiar with the following two lines:

A worthy picture doesn’t need description/

The paper on which it’s drawn is self-explanatory attire

Yet it is not a simple idea to grasp, but don’t we all love it truly, deeply and madly?

Or for that matter the couplet which is often ascribed to the death of one of his children:

 

Ghalib’s verses brim with love for the sensual and the intangible, coupled with the bare truths of being. He knew half-baked measures would make him a run-of-the-mill poet.

 

You say we’ll meet on Judgment Day/

Isn’t this gesture apocalyptic in itself?

This is the work of an artisan as well as of a genius. The couplet is fraught with etymological possibilities. It sounds personal. It has a mystic ring to it. It has an air of worldly wisdom about it. And seems easily identifiable.

Even when Ghalib tries to be a bit impish and light-hearted, compromising on contextual weightiness, he wins the reader over by virtue of his brilliant wordplay.

You don’t let me kiss but keep looking at my heart/

You think that having me for free would be a worthy bargain for you

Mir Taqi Mir was a great poet, period. But he has many imitators, if not successors. Ghalib had neither a predecessor nor a successor. He scaled heights that not many can even think of. According to an adage, you are always alone at the top. Ghalib is alone, for sure.

 

GHAZAL TRADITIONS
 

Some critics believe that the golden era of genuine poetry has finally ended. They think that the versifiers of today have nothing worthwhile to contribute and they are treading on barren land waiting endlessly for a new lease of life. But all this may not be true. At least Naqqash Kazmi’s collection of verses Daman-i-Gul falsifies such notions. As a modern poet fully aware of the demands of a highly complex society, he has trained his senses to receive messages and then to accept or reject them. This sounds rather a mundane analysis, but this is exactly how the poet has lived his life, facing moments of ecstasy and hours of anxiety and restlessness.

He has his share of romantic impulses. A poet cannot remain indifferent to many compelling desires whose fulfillment depends on several unpredictable factors. But romanticism is not the domain of Naqqash. He is essentially a poet of ghazal and has a deep insight into the traditions of this genre as he closely follows the diction of ghazal. What distinguishes him from other poets is his unflinching commitment to life and the people whom he understands and loves.

Naqqash takes pride in his association with the ‘scum of the earth’. There are many verses that speak of his unbounded love for the poor and deprived. He is not dazzled by the blinding light coming out of the protected chambers of the rich and the privileged. But he does not join this crowd and watches the revelers from a close distance.

In his brief introductory remarks he recalls some notable events of his early life. It appears that he had been nursing for a long time an aversion for the institutions that promoted hatred and divided human beings.

The poet has a pretty busy schedule. Besides organising various literary and cultural meetings, he moves with the times. Despite his official engagements, he has been able to publish around half a dozen books on poetry and written articles on major literary movements in the world.
 

— Akhtar Payami
 

Daman-i-Gul
By Naqqash Kazmi
Al- Saheer Printing House, Karachi
112pp. Rs125