Ghalib’s Urdu ghazals

A modern biographer and critic, Muhammad Sadiq, argues that judged by the volume of his Persian verse and the just pride he took in it, Ghalib should be classified as a Persian poet. But he wrote exquisitely in Urdu and later adopted it as the medium of all his prose, including his letters. Ralph Russell, another modern biographer, considers Ghalib as one of the greatest poet of south Asia and greatest poet of two of its greatest literary languages, Persian and Urdu. It is true that in the initial phase of his Urdu writing, his poetry was heavily impregnated with Persian, but it was criticized by his friends and parodied by others. Subsequently, he destroyed much of his over Persianised compositions and wrote in a much simpler and purer style.

Be it Persian or Urdu, most of Ghalib’s verses were written in the form of ghazal, which was the most popular of the traditional genres of verse writing. The ghazal consists of a series of couplets, each one of them encapsulating the entire theme. Sometimes however, the theme continues in other couplets, as witnessed in a few ghazals of Ghalib. But typically, every couplet of the ghazal is an independent, self-contained entity, thus leaving enough scope for the changing mood of the poet. One of the distinguishing feature of Urdu verse is that they are not written but said, and the poet, who says it, presents to his audience (generally in a mushairah) by reciting it to them, and it is only later that they appear in print. Ghazal is a short poem, rarely comprising less than five or more than twelve couplets. The range of themes in ghazal is quite vast and any thought, which can be encapsulated in a simple couplet, can be included in its theme. However, the theme of ‘love’ dominates the ghazal. Urdu poetry, from the last quarter of the 17^th century onwards consists mostly of “poems about love” and not “love poems” as it was free from the demands of realism. Ghalib’s poetry is a fine illustration of this. In verse writing the genius of a poet lies in his range of thought and the style of presentation. Ghalib excelled his predecessors as well as contemporaries in both these aspects.

For Ghalib, ghazal was not just an exercise in conventional themes but the expression of thought and feelings which accorded with his own. Although, all the traditional themes of ghazal, found a place in his verses including that of passionate, all-consuming love of a man for his mistress, Ghalib brought about innovations in the presentation of the stock character of the ghazal especially with respect to such themes as love and religion. In the sphere of religion or mysticism, he showed in a new light, a man’s relationship with God as well as that of God’s role in the universe. The distinctive, characteristic qualities of Ghalib’s Urdu poetry, identified by his modern biographers are: i) a keen, unsentimental, detached observation of man, God and the universe ii) a strong sense of independence and self-respect iii) a strong passion for originality in what he has to say iv) an ability to enjoy to the last drop, everything that the life brings and v) a dry, irrepressible and unabashed humor, which he is capable of bringing to the treatment of any theme, including those, on which he feels with the greatest seriousness and intensity.