Ghalib Ghazals
“Poochhte hai woh ki Ghalib kaun hai, koi batlao ki ham batlain kya “
Mirza Ghalib is a name that resembles a greatest poet who captured the heart of the people around the world by his Ghazals, Letters and thoughts.
Balli maarhah ke mahalle ki wo pechida daleeloN ki see wo galiYan
saamne Taal ke nuKkad pe baTeroN ke posheede
guD-guDaati hui paaN pi peekoN meiN wo daad wo waH-waH
chand darwaaze par laTke huye boshida se kuch TaaT ke parde
ek baKri ke mamiyaane ki awaaZ
aur dhoondhlaayi huyi shaam ke be-noor andhere
aise deewaroN se mooH joD kar chalte haiN yahaN
chuDi-waala unke katri ke badi bee jaise
apNi boojHti hui aaNkhoN se darwaaze TaTole
aisee be-noor andheri see gali qaasim se
ek quran-e-sukhan ka safa khulta hai
asad allah Khan 'GHalib' ka patha milta hai.
Mirza was born in Kala Mahal in Agra. In the end of 18th century, his birthplace was converted into Indrabhan Girls' Inter College. The birth room of Mirza Ghalib is preserved within in the school. Around 1810, he was married to Umrao Begum, daughter of Nawab Ilahi Bakhsh Khan of Loharu (younger brother of the first Nawab of Loharu, Nawab Mirza Ahmad Baksh Khan,[18] at the age of thirteen. He had seven children, none of whom survived (this pain has found its echo in some of Ghalib's ghazals). There are conflicting reports regarding his relationship with his wife. She was considered to be pious, conservative and God-fearing.Ghalib was proud of his reputation as a rake. He was once imprisoned for gambling and subsequently relished the affair with pride. Once, when someone praised the poetry of the pious Sheikh Sahbai in his presence, Ghalib immediately retorted, "How can Sahbai be a poet? He has never tasted wine, nor has he ever gambled; he has not been beaten with slippers by lovers, nor has he ever seen the inside of a jail." In the Mughal court circles, he even acquired a reputation as a "ladies' man".
He died in Delhi on February 15, 1869. The house where he lived in Gali Qasim Jaan, Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, in Old Delhi has now been turned into 'Ghalib Memorial' and houses a permanent Ghalib exhibition.Ghalib was a very liberal mystic who believed that the search for god within liberated the seeker from the narrowly Orthodox Islam, encouraging the devotee to look beyond the letter of the law to its narrow essence. His Sufi views and mysticism is greatly reelected in his poems and ghazals. As he once stated:
" The object of my worship lies beyond perception's reach;
For men who see, the Ka'aba is a compass, nothing more."Like many other Urdu poets, Ghalib was capable of writing profoundly religious poetry, yet was skeptical about the literalist interpretation of the Islamic scriptures. On the Islamic view and claims of paradise, he once wrote in a letter to a friend:
"In paradise it is true that i shall drink at dawn the pure wine mentioned in the Qu'ran, but where in paradise are the long walks with intoxicated friends in the night, or the drunken crowds shouting merrily? Where shall i find there the intoxication of Monsoon clouds? Where there is no autumn, how can spring exist? If the beautiful houris are always there, where will be the sadness of separation and the joy of union? Where shall we find there a girl who flees away when we would kiss her?".
He staunchly disdained the Orthodox Muslim Sheikhs of the Ulema, who in his poems always represent narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy:
"The Sheikh hovers by the tavern door,
but believe me, Ghalib,
I am sure i saw him slip in
As i departed."In another verse directed towards the Muslim maulavis (clerics), he criticized them for their ignorance and arrogant certitude:"Look deeper, it is you alone who cannot hear the music of his secrets". In his letters, Ghalib frequently contrasted the narrow legalism of the Ulema with "it's pre-occupation with teaching the baniyas and the brats, and wallowing in the problems of menstruation and menstrual bleeding" and real spirituality for which you had to "study the works of the mystics and take into one's heart the essential truth of God's reality and his expression in all things".[19]
He believed that if God laid within and could be reached less by ritual than by love, then he was as accessible to Hindus as to Muslims. As a testament to this, he would later playfully write in a letter that during a trip to Benares, he was half tempted to settle down there for good and that he wished he had renounced Islam, put a Hindu sectarian mark on his forehead, tied a sectarian thread around his waist and seated himself on the banks of the Ganges so that he could wash the contamination of his existence away from himself and like a drop be one with the river.
Jaur se baaz aaye par baaz aayaiN kya ?
Kehte haiN, ham tumko muNh dikhlayaiN kya ?Raat din gardish meiN haiN saat aasmaaN
Ho rahega kuchch-na-kuchch ghabraayaiN kya ?Laag ho to usko ham samjhaiN lagaav
Jab na ho kuchch bhee, to dhoka khayaiN kya ?Ho liye kyuN naamaabar ke saath-saath ?
Yaar! apne KHat ko ham pahuNchaayaiN kya ?Mauj-E-KHooN sar se guzar hee kyuN na jaaye
Aastaan-E-yaar se uTh jaayaiN kya ?Umr bhar dekhaa kiye marne kee raah
Mar gaye par dekhiye dikhlaayaiN kya ?Poochchte haiN woh K ‘GHalib’ kaun hai ?
Koee batlaao K ham batlaayaiN kya ?haiN aur bhee duniya meiN suKHanwar bohot achche
kehte haiN ki 'GHalib' ka hai andaaz-e-bayaaN aur .