One, superb poetics – and, that includes everything except thought! As per Wikipedia, ‘poetics is distinguished from hermeneutics by its focus not on the meaning of a text, but rather its understanding of how a text’s different elements come together and produce certain effects on the reader. Most literary criticism combines poetics and hermeneutics in a single analysis however, one or the other may predominate given the text and the aims of the one doing the reading.’ And, Ghalib’s ghazal couplets are expressed in the most exquisite language using devices such as wordplay, hyperbole, irony and paradox. Today, after 150 to 200 years, Ghalib’s Urdu ghazals are attractive for a highly diverse set of people – rich and poor, literary and scientific, uneducated and erudite, layperson and polymath, lover and beloved, men and women, young and old, even the oppressor and the oppressed, those sunk into the past and reactionary, as well as those who are forward-looking and progressive – and, with passing time, the number of discussants and readers has been rising at an ever increasing rate – possibly because of the following reasons: Roohul qudus agarcheh meraa ham-zabaan naheen Paataa hoon us sey daad kuchh apney kalaam kee Though Gabriel does not subscribe to my thoughts I do from him receive appreciation for my verses So, the continuity of life is maintained through concrete work.Ī partisan like me perceives Ghalib’s popularity as a sweet recompense to his hurt at not getting due appreciation – somewhat assuaged in later life. One becomes a part of historical evolution. Succeeding generations, in addition to savouring the rewards of their own toil, also reap the fruits of the cumulative labour of preceding generations. Post-death, one lives in the form of the work that one does during one’s life. So, life is to be lived to its fullest and savoured in all its varied hues, as death imparts impermanence and thereby charm to it.ĭeath, a natural phenomenon, is a complement of life it is a part of evolution. Life is infused with meaningfulness only through its negation, i.e., death. The life is to be savoured because of its impermanence. Ghalib tells that the life would lose all charm if it were eternal and terms the normal human desire to live longer (for ever!) as rapacity! (For him, the permanence – be that of verifiable earthly life or imagined heavenly bliss – is highly boring and unacceptable.) Were not to die, then what to savour life? In what-all delightful affairs, greed is engrossed? The following couplet reveals that Ghalib, in fact, derived meaning of life from death! Marg sey waihshat nah kar, raah-e a’dam paimoodah hai Jis taraf sey aaey hain, aakhir udhar hee jaaen gey We are bound to return to the place from where we cameĭon’t fear death, road to non-existence has been traversed He reassures the reader not to fear death, since the path to non-being – before arrival and after departure, i.e., pre-birth and post-death – is not only a well-charted course but also inevitable. Bequeathing epoch-making Urdu ghazals, on February 15, 1869, i.e., exactly one hundred and fifty years ago, Ghalib coolly returned to pavilion – because he realised the interconnection between creation and decimation, and considered the life-death cycle to be a natural process, which has been going on ever since the appearance of the human being on the world stage.
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