Everlasting glory of Ghalib: Magisterial selection and reflective reading

Mirza Asad Ullah Khan Ghalib (1779-1869)’s creative dexterity and speculative imagination consistently epitomise the cerebral and soft power that makes India a distinct and enduring presence in the literary and cultural landscape of the world. His influence on Indian and global literature is not only significant but also profound, shaping the discourse and inspiring generations of writers. His popularity transcends all cultural and linguistic barriers, as the non-Urdu-speaking world is captivated by his multi-layered, evocative poetry. Ghalib’s refreshing verbal conceits, exuberance in narrating lived experiences, thematic variations, and highly suggestive and elliptical style, which resembles that of his renowned contemporary English poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), are the unique aspects that make his poetry universally appealing, inviting readers from all walks of life to appreciate its beauty and depth.

It is incredible that much of his work, wrapped in a complex and intricate idiom, received widespread adulation. Initially, his subversion of common-sense-fed ideas and distortion of syntax were ridiculed. This initial ridicule, however, is a testament to the revolutionary nature of Ghalib’s work, as it challenged traditional literary norms and paved the way for a new wave of poetry. The twentieth century saw a significant growth in scholarship around Ghalib, a testament to his enduring literary importance. This body of scholarship continues to grow rapidly with the publication of translations, books, and articles on every aspect of Ghalib, hitting the stands repeatedly. The dedication and skill required to translate Ghalib’s work underscore the depth of his poetry and the scholarly commitment to conveying its essence in another language. Sufi Sadullah rendered selected verses of Ghalib into English (Finlayson, Beckonfield, England, 1956). However, the verse selection appears too exiguous. In 1970, NCERT published Professor Mohammad Mujeeb’s compendium volume, which carries a more discerning selection of Ghalib’s ghazals and the author’s reflections on the chosen verses. Since then, Ghalib‘s poetry has continued to arrest the attention of translators, highlighting the dedication and skill required in this task. Still, a selection and interpretation of Ghalib that showcases a range of verse techniques, diversity of mood, unity of mood, new rhyme and rhythm patterns, prosodic innovations, assonance, alliteration, subversion of syntax, and finally captures the sheer exuberance of Ghalib is highly coveted. It is what renowned academician and accomplished translator Anisur Rahman’s latest translation and interpretation, The Essentials of Ghalib, succeeded with remarkable ease.

The Essentials of Ghalib

The book, which comprises 200 verses, is supplemented with insightful interpretations that bear the fruits of close critical reading. A close look at the book leaves the reader in agreement with the noted writer, Tabish Khair, who aptly remarks, “By placing selections from Ghalib‘s poetry in historical and linguistic context, this book also enables new, fruitful ways of reading it. And it reminds us why great literature is forever topical and necessary. Professor Anisur Rehman, an erudite scholar, bilingual poet, and skilled translator, has published extensively. His recent publications, Earthenware: Sixty Poems (Rubric Publishing, 2018), In Translations: Positions and Paradigms ( Orient Black Swan, 2019), Socioliterary Cultures in South Asia (Niyogi Books, 2019), Hazaaron Khwashein Aisi: The Wonderful World of Urdu Ghazal (Harper Collins, 2019) and Hazaar Rang Shaairi: The Wonderful World of Urdu Nazam (Harper Collins, 2022), bear testimony to his dexterity in negotiating with the multi-layered and diverse literary texts. By selecting 200 couplets drawn from the awe-inspiring thematic variations, Anis seeks to decipher the glistening and equally curious oeuvre of Ghalib, making Ghalib more tangible for non-Urdu-speaking readers. His translation is not confined to locating Ghalib through the prism of denotative and connotative meaning, but it turns its full attention to textual explication, laying bare the rich cultural and aesthetic landscape that Ghalib’s poetry inhabits. Unlike Yusuf Hussain Khan’s intent, neither leaving anything out nor adding anything extra, Anisur Rehman, resolved to bring together an immense variety of verses drawn from his ghazals; some only too well known, and others waiting to be known better, and read better still with these classic verses, selected from carefully, translated judiciously and commented upon comprehensively.

Anisur Rahman does a great job

The opening couplet of Ghalib, betraying his creative prowess, has fetched several discerning and disaffirming interpretations by Khwaja Altaf Hussain Haali, Shaukat Meeruthi, Nazam Tabbatabai, Yusuf Husain Khan, Ali Sardar Jaafri, Shamsur Rehman Farooqui, Gopi Chand Narang, Saleem Ahmad, Naiyar Masood, Ateeq Ullah, Anis Ashfaq and a few others.

Curiously, it is the couplet that has been viewed as an example of meaningless verse in Ghalib’s time. The couplet, which reads: ‘naqash faryaadi hai kis ki shokhi-tahrir ka / Kagzi hai pairahan paiker e taswir ka’ (Whose crafty creation am I; the image implores -/ every image stands enrobed- but in paper robes, translated by Anisur Rehman), is a prime example of Ghalib’s unique style and his ability to evoke multiple interpretations. Explaining a conviction on which the meaning rests, the author located it in a custom in Iran where the appellant would put on a paper robe and appear before the ruler to protest and seek justice. Ghalib also mentioned it in one of his letters, and all the annotators of the poet replicated it; however, Anis’ critical acuity surpasses this and locates the custom in Indian and Arab cultures.” This was similar to carrying a lighted torch in India or hanging the blood-soaked clothes of the murdered one on a stick in Arabia. This allusion takes us to the heart of the verse and adds to its foundational strength. Far from being meaningless, this verse represents metaphysical meaning. This is one of the most precise verses of Ghalib where words act like metaphors: naqsh for the picture of suffering, Faryadi for the oppressed ones, shokhi -I tahrir for the craftiness of scripting, kaagazi for ephemerality, pairahan for perishability, and paiker-e tasvir for the suffering human being inside a robe, which together bear the structural and thematic burden of the verse. The frequent use of adjectives or double adjectives produces a sickening mushiness and redundancy. However, Ghalib’s speculative imagination upends it, and the author vividly documents it while explicating a popular couplet of the poet: Saadgi-opur-kaari be- khudii-o hushyari/husn ko taghaaful mein jurat-aazma paayaa( simple but cunning, lost but alert-/ beauty was brave -even if inert, translated by Anisur Rehman).

Ghalib’s speculative imagination

Turning attention to Ghalib’s penchant for contraries, the author makes a pertinent point: “Ghalib artfully puts together six adjectives in three pairs to portray the beloved as a curious figure of romance. It should be noted that, like the English metaphysical poets, he yokes with creative violence saadgi (simplicity with pur-kari (cleverness), be-khudii (selflessness) with hushyaari (alertness) and taghaaful (negligence) with jur’at(courage). Each pair of adjectives combines the contrariness which Ghalib does on design to portray a beloved who is a stranger indeed than a strange one. The two lines of this verse seem disconnected on the surface, and the second line of the verse does not apparently seem to flow out of the first line, but it is the Ghalib’s touch of genius that, by reconciling the discordant images of the beloved in both lines, he strikes a unique continuity between the lines. This is how he succeeds in portraying an atypical beloved who is also a type of her own. The section verses and commentaries of The Essentials of Ghalib, barring some traces of turgidity, decipher the densely textured, evocative poetry of Ghalib with a sense of critical acuity and academic rigour; indeed, it is not a run-of-the-mill translation of Ghalib being churned out through the assistance of neural machine translation and IA.