Biography Of Mirza Ghalib

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Mirza
Ghalib
Damir-ul-Mulk
Asad ghalib.jpeg
Native nameمِرزا اسَدُاللہ بیگ خان
Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan
Born27 December 1797
Darya ganj, Akbarabad Agra, Mughal Empire
Died15 February 1869 (aged 71)
Gali Qasim Jaan, Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, (now Ghalib ki Haveli, Delhi, India)
Pen nameGhalib
OccupationPoet
NationalityIndian
PeriodMughal era, British Raj
GenreGhazal, Qasida, Rubai, Qat'aa
SubjectLove, Philosophy, Mysticism
Parents
  • Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan (father)
  • Izzat-ut-Nisa Begum (mother)


Ghalib (Urdu: غاؔلِب‬‎, Hindi: ग़ालिब), born Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan (Urdu: مِرزا اسَدُاللہ بیگ خان‬, Hindi: मिर्ज़ा असदुल्लाह् बेग खiन), 26 June 1797 – 15 February 1869), was a prominent Urdu and Persian-language poet during the last years of the Mughal Empire. He used his pen-names of Ghalib (Urdu: غالِب‬, ġhālib means "dominant") and Asad (Urdu: اسَد‬, Asad means "lion"). His honorific was Dabir-ul-Mulk, Najm-ud-Daula. During his lifetime the Mughals were eclipsed and displaced by the British and finally deposed following the defeat of the Indian rebellion of 1857, events that he described. Most notably, he wrote several ghazals during his life, which have since been interpreted and sung in many different ways by different people. Ghalib, the last great poet of the Mughal Era, is considered to be one of the most famous and influential poets of the Urdulanguage. Today Ghalib remains popular not only in India and Pakistan but also among the Hindustani diaspora around the world.

Contents

  • 1Personal life
    • 1.1Background
  • 2Mughal Titles
  • 3Literary career
    • 3.1Letters
    • 3.2Pen name
  • 4Mirza Ghalib and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
  • 5Religious views
  • 6Views on Hindustan
  • 7Poetry in Persian
  • 8Contemporaries and disciples
    • 8.1Ghalib's grave
  • 9Films and TV serial on Ghalib
    • 9.1Stage plays on Ghalib
  • 10Ghalib in today's culture
    • 10.1Google Doodle
  • 11See also
  • 12References
  • 13Further reading
  • 14External links

Personal life

Background

 
Ghalib ki Haveli, now a museum, Ballimaran, Old Delhi
 
Clothes of Mirza Ghalib, at Ghalib Museum, New Delhi
 
A special commemorative cover of Ghalib released in India.
Mirza Ghalib was born in Kala Mahal, Agra[5] into a family descended from Aibak Turks who moved to Samarkand(in modern-day Uzbekistan) after the downfall of the Seljuk kings. His paternal grandfather, Mirza Qoqan Baig Khan, was a Saljuq Turk who had immigrated to India from Samarkand during the reign of Ahmad Shah (1748–54).He worked at Lahore, Delhi and Jaipur, was awarded the subdistrict of Pahasu (Bulandshahr, UP) and finally settled in Agra, UP, India. He had four sons and three daughters. Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan and Mirza Nasrullah Baig Khan were two of his sons.
Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan (Ghalib's father) married Izzat-ut-Nisa Begum, an ethnic Kashmiri, and then lived at the house of his father-in-law. He was employed first by the Nawab of Lucknow and then the Nizam of Hyderabad, Deccan. He died in a battle in 1803 in Alwar and was buried at Rajgarh (Alwar, Rajasthan). Then Ghalib was a little over 5 years of age. He was raised first by his Uncle Mirza Nasrullah Baig Khan.
At the age of thirteen, Ghalib married Umrao Begum, daughter of Nawab Ilahi Bakhsh (brother of the Nawab of Ferozepur Jhirka).He soon moved to Delhi, along with his younger brother, Mirza Yousuf Khan, who had developed schizophrenia at a young age and later died in Delhi during the chaos of 1857.
In accordance with upper class Muslim tradition, he had an arranged marriage at the age of 13, but none of his seven children survived beyond infancy. After his marriage he settled in Delhi. In one of his letters he describes his marriage as the second imprisonment after the initial confinement that was life itself. The idea that life is one continuous painful struggle which can end only when life itself ends, is a recurring theme in his poetry. One of his couplets puts it in a nutshell:
قید حیات و بند غم ، اصل میں دونوں ایک ہیں‬
موت سے پہلے آدمی غم سے نجات پائے کیوں؟‬
Transliteration in Hindi
क़ैद-ए-हयात-ओ-बंद-ए-ग़म, अस्ल में दोनों एक हैं
मौत से पहले आदमी ग़म से निजात पाए क्यूँ?
Translation in English
The prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same
Before the onset of death, why should man expect to be free of grief?
Mirza Ghalib's view of world as he sees world is like a playground where everyone is busy in some mundane activity and merrymaking rather than something of greater value as he wrote:
بازیچہ اطفال ہے دنیا میرے آگے ‬
ہوتا ہے شب و روز تماشا میرے آگے ‬
Transliteration in Hindi
बाज़ीचा-ए-अत्फ़ाल है दुनिया मेरे आगे
होता है शबो-रोज़ तमाशा मेरे आगे।
Translation in English
Just like a child's play this world appears to me
Every single night and day, this spectacle I see
At the age of thirty 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.[9]
Ghalib was proud of his reputation as a rake. He was once imprisoned for gambling and subsequently relished the affair with pride. In the Mughal court circles, he even acquired a reputation as a "ladies' man".[10]:41 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.[10]:41
؎اگ رہا ہے در و دیوار سے سبزہ غاؔلب
 ہم بیاباں میں ہیں اور گھر میں بہار آئی ہے
He died in Delhi on 15 February 1869. The house where he lived in Gali Qasim Jaan, Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, in Old Delhi known as the Ghalib ki Haveli has now been turned into 'Ghalib Memorial' and houses a permanent Ghalib exhibition.

Mughal Titles

In 1850, Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II bestowed upon Mirza Ghalib the title of "Dabir-ul-Mulk". The Emperor also added to it the additional title of "Najm-ud-daula".[1] The conferment of these titles was symbolic of Mirza Ghalib's incorporation into the nobility of Delhi. He also received the title of 'Mirza Nosha' from the Emperor, thus adding Mirza as his first name. He was also an important courtier of the royal court of the Emperor. As the Emperor was himself a poet, Mirza Ghalib was appointed as his poet tutor in 1854. He was also appointed as tutor of Prince Fakhr-ud Din Mirza, eldest son of Bahadur Shah II,(d. 10 July 1856). He was also appointed by the Emperor as the royal historian of Mughal Court.
Being a member of declining Mughal nobility and old landed aristocracy, he never worked for a livelihood, lived on either royal patronage of Mughal Emperors, credit or the generosity of his friends. His fame came to him posthumously. He had himself remarked during his lifetime that he would be recognized by later generations. After the decline of the Mughal Empire and the rise of the British Raj, despite his many attempts, Ghalib could never get the full pension restored.

Literary career[edit]

Ghalib started composing poetry at the age of 11. His first language was Urdu, but Persian and Turkish were also spoken at home. He received an education in Persian and Arabic at a young age. When Ghalib was in his early teens, a newly converted Muslim tourist from Iran (Abdus Samad, originally named Hormuzd, a Zoroastrian) came to Agra.[according to whom?] He stayed at Ghalib's home for two years and taught him Persian, Arabic, philosophy, and logic.[11]
 
Ghalib poem in Nastaliq
Although Ghalib himself was far prouder of his poetic achievements in Persian,[12] he is today more famous for his Urdu ghazals. Numerous elucidations of Ghalib's ghazal compilations have been written by Urdu scholars. The first such elucidation or Sharh was written by Ali Haider Nazm Tabatabai of Hyderabad during the rule of the last Nizam of Hyderabad. Before Ghalib, the ghazal was primarily an expression of anguished love; but Ghalib expressed philosophy, the travails and mysteries of life and wrote ghazals on many other subjects, vastly expanding the scope of the ghazal.[original research?]
In keeping with the conventions of the classical ghazal, in most of Ghalib's verses, the identity and the gender of the beloved is indeterminate. The critic/poet/writer Shamsur Rahman Faruqui explains[13] that the convention of having the "idea" of a lover or beloved instead of an actual lover/beloved freed the poet-protagonist-lover from the demands of realism. Love poetry in Urdu from the last quarter of the seventeenth century onwards consists mostly of "poems about love" and not "love poems" in the Western sense of the term.
The first complete English translation of Ghalib's ghazals was Love Sonnets of Ghalib, written by Sarfaraz K. Niazi and published by Rupa & Co in India and Ferozsons in Pakistan. It contains complete Roman transliteration, explication and an extensive lexicon.[15]

Letters

 
A page from Ghalib's letters( in his own hand)
Mirza Ghalib was a gifted letter writer.[16] Not only Urdu poetry but prose is indebted to Mirza Ghalib. His letters gave foundation to easy and popular Urdu. Before Ghalib, letter writing in Urdu was highly ornamental. He made his letters "talk" by using words and sentences as if he were conversing with the reader. According to him Sau kos se ba-zaban-e-qalam baatein kiya karo aur hijr mein visaal ke maze liya karo (from a hundred of miles talk with the tongue of the pen and enjoy the joy of meeting even when you are separated). His letters were very informal; sometimes he would just write the name of the person and start the letter. He was very humorous and wrote very interesting letters. In one letter he wrote, "Main koshish karta hoon ke koi aisi baat likhoon jo padhe khush ho jaaye'" (I want to write lines such that whoever reads them would enjoy them). Some scholars say that Ghalib would have the same place in Urdu literature on the basis of his letters only. They have been translated into English by Ralph Russell in The Oxford Ghalib.
Ghalib was a chronicler of a turbulent period. One by one, Ghalib saw the bazaars – Khas Bazaar, Urdu Bazaar, Kharam-ka Bazaar, disappear, and whole mohallas (localities) and katras (lanes) vanish. The havelis (mansions) of his friends were razed to the ground. Ghalib wrote that Delhi had become a desert. Water was scarce. Delhi was "a military camp". It was the end of the feudal elite to which Ghalib had belonged. He wrote:
"An ocean of blood churns around me
Alas! Were this all!
The future will show
What more remains for me to see."[17]

Pen name

His original Takhallus (pen-name) was Asad, drawn from his given name, Asadullah Khan. At some point early in his poetic career he also decided to adopt the pen-name of Ghalib (meaning all conquering, superior, most excellent). At some places in his poetry Ghalib also used the pen name of Asad Ullah Khan.[citation needed]

Mirza Ghalib and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan[edit]

 
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
1855, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan finished his scholarly, well researched and illustrated edition of Abul Fazl's Ai’n-e Akbari. Having finished the work to his satisfaction, and believing that Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib was a person who would appreciate his labours, Syed Ahmad approached the great Ghalib to write a taqriz (in the convention of the times, a laudatory foreword) for it. Ghalib obliged, but what he produced was a short Persian poem castigating the Ai’n-e Akbari and, by implication, the imperial, sumptuous, literate and learned Mughal culture of which it was a product. The least that could be said against it was that the book had little value even as an antique document. Ghalib practically reprimanded Syed Ahmad Khan for wasting his talents and time on dead things. Worse, he highly praised the "sahibs of England" who at that time held all the keys to all the a’ins in this world.This poem is often referred to but had never been translated into English. Shamsur Rahman Faruqi wrote an English translation. The translation is accurate if lacking the felicity of the original:

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