Welcome back, dear poetry aficionados!

In honor of our inaugural Read the World feature, which begins this month with India, let's take a little trip back in time to the last days of the Moghul court and meet our poet, Mirza Ghalib (1797-1868). He was known also by his pen names, Ghalib and/or Asad [with Ghalib-all conquering/superior/most excellent and Asad- lion] so there is no false humility here! His Persian Divan numbered to over 11, 000 poems. He additionally gained honorifics in the Mughal Court, under Bahadur Shah Zafar-himself a noted poet, such as Dabir-ul-Mulk, Najm-ud-Daula, respectively, "Secretary of State" and "Star of the State" in Persian, the language of the court and its literature. He and the last Shah saw the last of the once-mighty Mughal Empire, which had shrunk from its original 1700 domination of most of India and beyond, to the city of Delhi and its environs, as in opposite proportions, the East India Company grew and conquered more and more of India, until the Crown took control in 1858.

The path for the British Crown seizing India from the East India Company was the first real uprising against the English. Referred to as the Sepoy Rebellion or the Indian Rebellion of 1857 or the Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian Mutiny, the Great Rebellion, the Revolt of 1857, the Indian Insurrection or perhaps the First War of Independence is the most appropriate. And the rebellion reached Delhi, where the Bahadur Shah Zafar was declared Emperor of Hindustan, a controversial move that alienated the Punjab region and was done under coercion most probably.

Now, there is more than meets the eye, here. The war was fought by different factions of Indians on both sides, not all of them well united or organized. Caste, religion and regimental organization played a big role in fermenting unhappiness within the East India Company's army, as the spark that kicked off the rebellion was the introduction of the Enfield rifle, which had cartridges that were greased with animal fat. Rumors quickly spread it was beef tallow, which is forbidden for Hindus or pig fat, which is forbidden to Muslims, or both and it had to be bit open to release the gunpowder, a situation everyone found unacceptable and disgusting. Also, the Company had managed to tear through the social fabric, through the Doctrine of lapse, which allowed the East India, and later the Raj, to rule over the princely states and eventually annex them directly. In short, conditions were ripe for rebellion, but the politics made it doomed for failure.

As we know, this rebellion was eventually squashed, and it led to tighter involvement of the British in Indian affairs. Delhi held under siege for almost 3 months before the British entered the city via an assault on the Kashmiri Gate. Many casualties were taken before the British gained a foothold. Bahadur Shah Zafar was arrested and exiled to Rangoon, his sons and grandsons executed. Delhi was looted, pillaged and the citizens slaughtered and raped in retaliation for those killed by the rebels. Many architecturally important buildings were destroyed, and artillery was set up in the Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India and a symbol of Islamic power and political significance in Delhi. By the time Delhi fell, the rest of the rebellion across India folded.

By 1862, the Emperor of Hindustan was dead in Burma and in 1877, Queen Victoria would take the title Empress of India.

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So, that is the historical background in which today's poem was written. We return to the ghazal form of poetry we last visited with Rumi, but have here the "Shar Ashob", a specific Urdu poetry type which laments “a city’s misfortune”, which is Delhi in today's poem, the city where Ghalib would spend most of his life and be remembered in death. He took the ghazal into new directions, moving from a lover's lament to an exploration of philosophy, memory, and human emotion and struggle, where an idea would take place of the lover.

While Ghalib knew he would be remembered long into history, he never expected his colloquial Urdu poems to be the ones which were immortalized. In fact, he made huge contributions to the Urdu language through his copious correspondence, turning it from a highly ornamental language to one that could be deployed playfully and easily. He was also an important witness during a turbulent historical period.

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Ghalib on his own work: "See my Persian [poetry] so that you may see colorful pictures of many hues. Pass over my Urdu collection; it’s only a sketch" (1).

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R. Parthasarathy on Ghalib, in the essay linked below: " After Ghalib (1797-1869), there has not been an Indian poet comparable to the great European Moderns- Yeats, Mandelstam, Cavafy, and Pessoa. Bogged down in tradition, Indian poetry has not been successful in reinviting the past"(2).

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"Twilight in Delhi"

by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

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To my eye the pleasures of the world are nothing but dust.

Except for blood, what else flows in the guts?

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Turned to dust, the wings are now a spent force;

they might even blow away on the winds.

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Who is this coming towards us with the very face

of heaven, his path strewn with roses, not dust?

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I should have been kind to myself, even if she wasn't.

How I have wasted my breath for nothing!

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The mere thought of spring makes me drunk;

what had the tavern doors and walls to do with it?

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I am ashamed of the violence of my own love.

In this ruined house how I had hoped to be a builder!

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Today our verses, Asad, are only an idle pastime.

What's the use of flaunting our talent, then?

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Translated from the Urdu by R. Parathasarathy- translator's note on the poem.

Source: Poetry (April 2006)

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Some things to discuss might the way the city of Delhi is worked into the fabric of this poem and how Ghalib manages to capture the disarray that followed the siege, both physical and metaphysical. He asks himself, rhetorically, what poetry can do in the face of violence, invasion and chaos, with one foot in the old world of Delhi and one in the world that would follow. It is a question that many poets have faced across time and place. Why do you think he picks the time of day of twilight? Does it hold more symbolic meaning? I highly recommend reading the bonus poem (well, always read it!) but this, in particular, really gives you a sense of his wit and wordplay in a more lighthearted way than the Shar Ashob form. The title of "Twilight in Delhi" was also used as the title of a famous novel by Ahmed Ali, that captured another turbulent period in Delhi, capturing the effects of colonialism and imperialism on Indian Muslims during the turn of the 20th century. Ghalib's work becomes a touch stone across time once again. If you read the Bonus Poem, how do you compare the two? Do you get a sense of why his work became so important to literature?

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Bonus Poem: No, I Wasn't Meant to Love and Be Loved

Bonus Link #1: You can visit his home in New Delhi, which is a museum, Ghalib ki haveli. There is also a statue of him at the Jamilia Milia university. In Mumbai, there is a large wall mural.

Bonus Link #2: Many of Ghalib's ghazals were preserved in popular culture to this day and worked into song lyrics and his life and work made into plays and movies. I found a playlist of songs from Mirza Ghalib (1954), where you can watch and listen.

Bonus Link #3: More Ghalib poetry in Urdu

Bonus Link #4: The translator, R. Parathasarathy, discusses the "State of Indian Poetry" (2007) in an essay, mostly focusing on Tamil poetry.

Bonus Link #5: "The Pen, the Throat, the Ear: On Ghazals" essay by Sarah Ghazal Ali, on writing contemporary ghazals.

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If you missed last month's poem, you can find it here.

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