Aap sunte nahin to kya keeje? ‘We know how to complain/ You listen not, what to do?’ Thus lamented Ghalib, writing the lines that have become the mantra in Pakistan today. Of apathy he wrote profusely; apathy of the beloved, the people, the state, destiny; he indeed had many tormentors in a Delhi that was outright cruel to him and repelled by the decadent ways of the poet. While his Turkish ego led him to rebellion and outburst, his very Hindustani, poetic sense of pity salvaged the day. Consider Daayam parra hua tere dar par nahin hun mein/ Khaak aisi zindagi pe ke patthar nahin hun mein (Forever will I not languish at your doorstep/ Pity life, for a rock I am not). That is why it is hard to put Ghalib, his content and the context, in the past tense. Ghalib is, and shall remain, as long as the ‘ways of the world’ do.

The lonely poet, the victim of all kinds of vitriol hurled his way by the very community that was his audience, had only to turn to himself for any consolation: Ranj utthaane se bhi khushi hogi/ Pehle dil dard aashna keeje (Grief too will bring happiness/ Tune your heart to embrace pain). Or, Koi veeraani si veeraani hai?/ Dasht ko dekh ke ghar yaad aaya (What desolation is this; indeed what?/ The wilderness reminds me of home).

The universality and timelessness of Ghalib’s poetry lay in depicting the human condition when faced with adversity of the kind that leads to an irretrievable sense of despair, as in Marte hain aarzu mein marne ki/ Maut aati hai par nahin aati (I am dying for death/ Death comes, but it comes not). But this sense of despair is matched by an equal sense of ridicule of the ways of the world that give the poet so much grief: Ghair ki marg ka gham kiss liye aey ghairat-i-maah/ Hain hawas pesha bohat woh na hua aur sahi (Why grieve for one who was never yours, pride of the moon/ While greed abounds, there will be another one along if not this one). This was the very stark world of apathy which repulsed Ghalib.

In a similar tone, he admonishes his tormentor, and dismissively scoffs at the brutality of unrequited love, or the cruelty showed to him: Apni gali mein mujh ko na kar dafn baad-i-qatl/ Mere pate se khalq ko kyun tera ghar mile? (Don’t bury me in your own street after you’ve killed me/ Why must mine be the landmark leading to your house?)

Ghalib was so deeply entrenched in cynicism that at times he seemed to have lost all faith, and not only in the world alone that he inhabited. Baazeecha-i-atfaal hai dunya mere aage/ Hota hai shab-o-roz tamaasha mere aage (The world it but child’s play to me/ A spectacle that goes on night and day). And then Eemaan mujhe roke hai to khenche hai mujhe kufr/ Kaaba mere peechhe hai kaleesa mere aage (Faith stops me but heresy pulls me/ Kaaba is behind me, a temple lies ahead). But the unequivocal cynicism comes in yet another haunting verse: Khuda ke waaste purdah na Kaabe se uttha zaalim/ Kahin aisa na ho yaan bhi wohi kafir sanam nikle (For God’s sake, don’t lift the veil of the Kaaba, you cruel one/ What if the same infidel cast in stone is revealed here?) This was a far cry from the humility witnessed in: Kaabe kiss munh se jaaoge Ghalib/ Sharm tum ko magar nahin aati (How will you face the Kaaba, Ghalib/ Have you no shame left in you?)

[hana-flv-player video="https://www.dawn.com/wp-content/video/mirza-ghalib.flv" width="540" height="405" description="Mirza Galib" player="4" autoload="false" autoplay="false" loop="false" autorewind="false" /]

Unlike the Ghalib of his twilight years, who was despairing and lonely, in his heyday the poet found heart enough to even humour his erstwhile beloved’s suitor, graciously forgiving the trespass: Zikr uss pariwash ka aur phir bayaan apna/ Ban gaya raqeeb aakhir tha jo raazdaan apna (Singing of that fairy the way I did/ Turned my confidant into her lover). On a more subtle note later, the adversary, the raqeeb is addressed as a ‘friend’: Tujh se to kuchh kalaam nahin lekin aey nadeem/ Mera salaam kahiyo agar namabar mile (No issues with you my friend/ But do greet her messenger from me when you see him next).

Such contradictions abound in the poet that is Ghalib, and remain, as do the vagaries of the world to this day and beyond. However, this Ghalib Day, one cannot end this write-up but with two verses that are masterpieces, depicting the dilemma that is loneliness and then the inevitability of having to brave but finally succumb to the human condition: Kaav kaave sakht-jaani-haaye tanhaai na pooch/ Subh karma shaam ka laana hai ju-i-sheer ka (Ask not of the travails of a stubborn loneliness/ Enduring to see day turn into night is but digging a stream in which milk shall flow). And finally, a similar idiom applies to this haunting verse taking a dig at Majnun: Teshe baghair mar na saka kohkan, Asad/ Gum-gashta-i-khumaar-i-rusoom-o-quyood tha (The mountain digger died not without help from his chisel/ So lost he was in the deep recesses of norms and traditions).

Murtaza Razvi is the Editor, Magazines, at Dawn.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.