Ghalib, Tamas, Boston Marathon, And How the Past is Present

Every now and then someone will remark to me, in that jokey offhand manner that masks a mix of exasperation and disbelief: aap ne Ghalib mein PhD kee hai? Do you have a doctorate in Ghalib?

This question stems, I guess, from my habit of quoting Ghalib frequently. (Those who know me well will claim the correct adverb is not ‘frequent’ but ‘interminable’. Perhaps.)

As for the PhD - Dunno. Unless PhD entails countless hours spent in company of said subject. I don’t know when I first encountered the maestro but I can glean the beginnings to some late summer evening when my parents watched Mehdi Hassan on the B&W TV (in our border town those days the reception from PTV Lahore was clearer than that of DD Amritsar) as he sang Ghalib and I loped in-out of the room in play, pausing only to quiz my parents: why is he so-oo slow?

I developed an annoying habit of punctuating my parents’ evening viewing with sundry remarks on the manner, speed, and style of singing as I meandered in-out, the singer curiously trilling over some words repeatedly, sounding suspiciously stuck. I am surprised my parents didn’t silence me with one smack on the bum - which, in hindsight, seems entirely appropriate. Instead I learnt it was something called ghazal which I wouldn’t understand just then. Oh-so, o-kay.

My childish smugness came back to bite me with all the vengeance of simmering lava. Suffice to say that I encountered Ghalib again in my adulthood and have been recovering from that ever since.

When I began writing Ghalib became a constant friend, with words of prescience for my every occasion, mood and thought. How is it that a man dead for some 150 years knows exactly what I feel? Dunno.

These days I am wallowing in research for my next book. An entirely fascinating and frustrating time when I don’t know whether I’ll sink or swim - you get the gist? A time when Ghalib speaks to me. This morning I was deep into the partition of India, the images from Tamas - the TV serial - were squeezing my heart and then I heard about the explosions at the Boston marathon... Bloodied ground, torn limbs, anguish - as if 2013 had collapsed into 1947. The senselessness of it all. Our sheer bloody unwillingness as a race to learn the simple truth: violence begets violence, the spiral is infinite.

How do I structure a story out of this, this maelstrom that is our past and our present? How do I find the words...

And Ghalib came to me, saying exactly what is in my heart in his words: 

Phir kuch ik dil ko bekarari hai 

seena zoya-e-zakhm-e-kari hai

Phir jigar khodne laga nakhun

amad-e-fasl-e-lalakari hai

The same restlessness is in my heart again

The bosom seeks fresh wounds once again

The heart is freshly ploughed again

As it readies for the arrival of red blossoms 

How Ghalib Sustains An Extant Writer

Some days just belong to Ghalib. 

The rain has been unyielding, descending in clumps one minute, drifting like gauze at another; the clouds, dense and dark with moisture, have laid siege to Hong Kong skies. And I am in the throes of beginning work on a new book. 

The weather, I think, mirrors my current dilemma - I am filling up with what I want to say, write, tell and yet, it’s all fits and starts. Like the rain, I don’t know my own mind. However, this isn't my first book and much like the rain, writing has a pattern - that much I know. At this time I am my cranky-worst-self: unsettled, clutching at ideas that refuse to be pinned down, lost.

Just as I endure the rain knowing the sun will out, I have to plod my way through this amorphous cloud which hides within itself my fifth book. I feel trapped in  a cage of my own making. And yet, am I?

As always, for sustenance there is Ghalib.

Bas ke hun Ghalib asiri mein bhi aatish zer-e-pa,

mue aatish dida hai halka meri zanjeer ka.

Even in bondage, Ghalib, there is fire beneath my feet,

The chains that bind me are merely curls of singed hair.

(The video clip below is from the TV serial Mirza Ghalib by Gulzar. The above shayr comes towards the end of the clip.)

Happy birthday Mirza Nosha!

We holidayed recently in Western Australia’s wine region of Margaret River, an undulating land sprinkled with grape trees and contented cows grazing under an azure sky in which milky shape-shifting clouds bounced along as if giddy on Chardonnay vapours. 

Old friends – a couple with two daughters – joined us from Mumbai and all together much fun was to be had as we biked along the beach, licked ice creams clean, chased sea gulls, petted alpacas, swam in the Indian Ocean, and between Cabernet and Shiraz, shared new confidences and renewed old ties.

During one of those conversations, the 15-year-old daughter of our friends remarked – with some amusement – that I tended to mention Ghalib with surprising regularity. Well, blame it on the wine, I quipped, but she set me thinking. 

Ghalib is an old friend, courtesy of growing up in an Urdu-literate household located on the thin line that divides India from Pakistan, and like any good friend, he has offered the solace of his friendship on countless occasions. I am dismayed therefore when I realize that the younger generation has little acquaintance with the poet who is regarded as the Milton of Urdu language.

Returning to the conversation, I said I’m sure you’ve encountered Mirza on more occasions but remain unaware of it.

How so, she asked.

Because Ghalib’s oeuvre is so wide that he has opined on every conceivable topic under the sun. He is so much a part of our lexicon that the average Indian quotes him without being aware that she/he is spouting poetry.

I like to believe that at some point I can undertake a project that will make an entire younger generation of Indians appreciate the magic of Mirza Ghalib. (Mirza Nosha was a title bestowed on the poet by Bahadur Shah Zafar II.) Making them cognizant of the indelible imprint of his verse in our daily speech might be one way to go.

On the occasion of Ghalib’s 214^th birthday I am quoting below some shayrs that find frequent recurrence in Hindi  …

On love:

Ishq par zor nahin yeh who aatish hai Ghalib

Jo lagaaye na lage aur bhujaaye na bhuje

Ishq ne Ghalib niqamma kar diya

Warna hum bhi aadmi they kaam ke

On relationships:

Har ek baat pe kehte ho tum ke tu kya hai?

Tumhin kaho ke yeh anaaze-e-guftagu kya hai?

Meharbaan hoke bula mujhe chaho jis waqt,

Main gaya waqt nahin ke phir aa bhi na sakun

On longing:

hazaaron khwahishain aisee ke har khwahish pe dam nikle,

Bahut nikle mere armaan lekin phir bhi kam nikle

Phir is dil ko bekaraari hai

Seena zoya-e-zakhm-e-kari hai

On God:

Na tha kuchch to khuda tha, kuch na hota to Khuda hota,

Duboya mujh ko hone ne, na hota main to kya hota?

On life:

Qaid-e-hayaat-o-band-e-gham asal mein dodno ek hain,

Maut se phele aadmi gham se nijaat paaye kyon

On being human:

Bas ki dushwaar hai har kaam ka aasaan hona

Aadmi ko bhi mayassar nahin insaan hona

Ghalib continues to be relevant: like today, he lived in a time of change and turbulence when the Mughal empire had ceded to British rule; he was a secularist in an era of religious foment; his philosophical take on God, faith, love, life, friendship continue to be a bellwether for those seeking a way to deal with life’s vicissitudes.

I shall relate an anecdote from the TV serial Mirza Ghalib directed by Gulzar. Mirza is enjoying some sweets when another Muslim remarks sarcastically:

“Diwali ki mithai kha rahe ho Mirza?”

Ghalib: “Barfi kha raha hoon. Barfi Hindu hai? Aur jalebi? Imarti? Ye kya hain?”

His inquisitive debating spirit is a trait we could all look to develop as we deal with a world that challenges us daily. As Ghalib himself said:

Hui muddat ke Ghalib mar gaya par yaad aata hai,

Woh har ek baat pe kehna ke yun hota to kya hota?

On that note, a very happy 2012 to all of you! May you discover the wit and vigour of Ghalib's shayari in the days to come.

Muse and I, Staring down a Vacation

Adios amigos, I’m off on a break,

This year, the Muse has been on my case,

I’ve convinced her its not a jailbreak -

End of year, we just need some space.

Wine - red, white and sparkling,

Coupled with seafood and salads divine,

Before the whale watching,

And after the swim with bottlenose dolphin.

My plan, even Mirza Nosha would endorse,

I point out to the Muse with alacrity!

My friend, she fixes me with a steely gaze,

Ghalib liked his wine French, and you, are going southerly.

Time to deploy good Gibran as I confess:

Let the winds of heaven blow between our togetherness.

So, for the nonce, she’s gone,

To whatever place Muses go, perhaps Saigon?

Not too far, you see, I can’t take the chance,

I need her around when I return from my holiday,

When copious amounts of wine have me in a trance,

Floundering at my desk on a writing day.

But that day is still a fortnight away,

A fortnight in which to hike and see some stalactite,

Little penguins, shark whale and manta ray,

Ahoy there, Muse, recharged, we'll resume the rewrite!

Jagjit Singh, a Friend For All Seasons

Jagjit Singh or Ghazaljit Singh as Gulzar once called him - he should know for the two worked on several albums together and shared an easy camaraderie. Or Ghazal King, as he was popularly called, because, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in his tribute to the maestro, he made ghazals accessible to everyone.

In the palimpsest that is India, ghazal arrived to its shores on ships that sailed from Persia, on horseback as marauders galloped down from central Asia, in the songs of mystics who roamed Hind in the wake of the conquerors. With the eclipse of Persian in the Mughal court, the ghazal of Rumi and Hafiz transitioned to a polyglot language which was birthed in the Indo-Persian-Arabic roiling on the subcontinent, Urdu. 

Ghazal in India is supposed to have begun with Amir Khusrau in the thirteenth century and its golden period is the 18^th and 19^th centuries when luminaries like Mir, Dard, Ghalib, Momin and Zauq elevated this form of poetry. 

For the uninitiated, ghazal is a short poem, rarely exceeding a dozen couplets in the same metre. It always opens with a rhyming couplet called matla which sets the mood and tone of the poem. The last couplet of the ghazal is called makta and often includes the pen-name of the poet and is usually more personal than general in its intent.

Also, though a ghazal is commonly understood to be a love poem, (in Arabic the word literally means talking to a woman) it deals with the whole spectrum of human experience. Ghalib has such a vast oeuvre that it is said there is hardly any situation or state of mind which he hasn’t rendered in his inimitable style. Which, in turn, explains why he is the most quoted of all Urdu poets.

For a whole generation of Indians Ghalib came alive when Jagjit Singh sang his ghazals for the eponymous TV serial directed by Gulzar in 1988. His mellifluous voice gave new life to Mirza Ghalib’s lyrics as entire India nodded and hummed to ‘Zulmat kade mein’, ‘Dil-e-nadaan tujhe’, ‘Bazeecha-e-atfal hai’, comprehending some of the lyrics and suspending incomprehension for the balance, as the voice and words alighted straight from the ears to the heart. 

Jagjit Singh is rightly credited with reviving ghazals in India, with giving them a home again in Bollywood, and with filling our drawers and shelves with cassette tapes, then CDs, now ipods of his melodious renditions.  

In my childhood I was surrounded by Mehdi Hassan and Begum Akhtar and in my adulthood I discovered Abida Parveen. But Jagjit Singh was a friend I made in adolescence, and since then he has remained a steadfast ally. He made the genius of Mirza Ghalib accessible to me; he molded the pain of being away from home by his rendition of Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s Birha da Sultan; he lifted ordinary Bollywood films with his magical singing; his rendition of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s ‘Meri tanhaiyon tum hi laga lo mujh ko seeney sey’ has provided a balm on many a sad day; his Punjabi tappe cheer me up; his teaming with wife Chitra a continual delight both to listen and to watch …

 I have had the good fortune to attend some live performances of the maestro and the delight with which he rendered the ghazals was always palpable – it got the audience clapping hands and jigging shoulders while seated until, eventually, the tapping feet led to dancing in the aisles. For all lovers of Urdu poetry, of ghazals and ghazal-gayaki, he was our rockstar.

Now that he has passed into that great unknown, perhaps his journey will take him to a caravanserai where Rumi and Ghalib are in a mushaira and an enthralled audience is deep into wah-wahs, and Jagjit Singh will pick up the matla, and, with his trademark glint, will begin strumming the rhyming couplet, ta-nana-ta-nana-na-nana …

As for me, I shall always have the company of the friend I grew up with. Jagjit Singh is a friend for all seasons as he so beautifully extolled in Mirza Ghalib’s couplet,

Yeh kahaan ki dosti hai keh bane hain dost naasih,

Koi chaara saaz hota, koi ghamgusaar hota.

What use is this friendship where there is much advise,
O for a friend, who’ll share with me my sighs.

P.S. Note his trademark wit right at the beginning of the above video

To Stay Relevant Through Changing Times, Cultivate a Dil Jo Bachcha Hai Ji ...

During my summer break in India I had a chance to talk to a class of 18-year-olds. I was there as a writer, talking to them about the writing process via my books. My second novel, The Long Walk Home, is historical fiction. It tells the story of Punjab’s twentieth-century history by refracting it through the life of one ordinary Punjabi gentleman.

That particular period is marked by several turbulent events which, in turn, provided me as a writer with intriguing plot points to wrestle with. The narrative arc begins with pre-partition and comes all the way to the present. However, facing a class of young people, all of them born after 1990, my challenge was how to engage them with my novel considering that by the time they were toddlers Punjab’s last watershed event in the separatist Khalistan movement had been laid to rest.

As I held up the book for them to see, my eyes fell on the back cover and the arabesque whirls and curlicues swam before me. These were from a blurb written by Gulzar for the book. My editor had seen it worthwhile to send the book to the legenday poet, lyricist, film-maker, in the hope that it would connect with him and win the book some advance praise.

I was to get lucky. Gulzar saab liked the book enough to want to write a shayr in its praise. It is his considerable genius that he took four lines to say what took me 400 pages. But, that's another story. Suffice to say that when I heard that he had written a shayr for the book, and would like to speak with the writer, I fair enough fell off my chair. Me? Speak with Gulzar? I stuttered to my editor. And he had mooted the idea?

Panickng, I turned to the one person whose counsel I rely upon when I'm bouncing off walls - hubby. He knew what this meant to me. Ever since he'd got to know me in management school he'd heard me hum, narrate, opine with some Urdu shayr or ghazal and he knew that in the pantheon of poets I revered were two men. It must have been a relief to him that one was dead and long gone, and the other was a living legend, a poet whose Bollywod lyrics the whole family had grown up with.

Hubby was not off the mark - in that commonly understood sense of family, Ghalib and Gulzar had breathed in my household the same air as did we siblings and our parents.

So, that frantic spring morning hubby told me to sit down, take some deep breaths, and write down the conversation I intended to have with Gulzar, blabbering not being an option. I did just that. However, after my nervousness decamped I realized I was speaking with a professional. Gulzar Saab was courteous, said he had liked the book and had written a shayr since, as a poet, that was the way he felt he could justify what he felt for it. However, his concern was whether I'd be okay with an Urdu shayr on the cover of my English novel - would it alienate my English readers?

I was gobsmacked, touched, and infinitely humbled. Here was a man widely regarded as India's greatest living poet and his concern was for how my book would be received by my English readers! When I managed to mumble that it would be my and the readers privilege, he said okay. Thereafter, he oversaw the design of the cover to ensure that the shayr, written in Urdu in his hand, and transliterated below, blended with the overall aesthetic.

That, to my mind, revealed more than anything else can, about a famous person. Humility, truly, is the mark of a genius.

The book was released and won critical acclaim and hit several bestseller lists. In its wake, I got a chance to meet with Gulzar saab. Right before the meeting I was seized with apprehension once again. It was a nebulous fear - what if my ideal was different from my construct of him? Every artist that we admire acquires a flesh and blood persona in our minds - it is spun out of their art that we have consumed, which we use to adorn them with characteristics and qualities we’ve encountered in their work. A gap, therefore, has to exist between what we have created in our imagination and what actually exists.

Gulzar saab had invited me to his beautiful bungalow on Pali Hill. Set back from the road, its sloping roof is nestled in lush greenery. I blogged about that interaction here. Suffice to say that in the first few minutes all my apprehensions slipped away. Gulzar saab is a genuinely warm person with an easy laugh and banter and as we discussed books and writing, I realized I was getting seriously lucky. The chance to meet an artist whose work I admire was translating simultaneously into the happenstance of engaging with an admirable person.

I crowned Gulzar saab my Ustad, the Urdu word to my mind a fitting descriptor for a mentor-cum-Guru.

So, returning to that balmy Bengaluru morning when I was facing forty pairs of curious eyes, I latched onto that flowing Urdu script. Surely, the girls could not be unaware of Gulzar?!

And I started by taking them through the book's synopsis and how it was summed up perfectly by a shayr from Gulzar. Did they know Gulzar, I asked. A round of head nodding, perky eyes, several smiles - but of course! I asked them which Gulzar song they remembered and the offerings ranged from the Osacr-winning Jai Ho to the youth anthem Dhen Te Nen to the lilting melodies of Aandhi and Mausam and – Goli maar bheje mein!

Needless to say, I had wind in my sails thereon!

A few days later I was in Mumbai where I went to meet Gulzar saab again. I narrated the incident and asked him how he had managed to stay so relevant. After all, he had begun his career five decades ago? (The first film for which he penned the lyrics was Kabuliwala in 1961). He gave a short laugh, grinned and said the reason was simple - he was a child at heart!

I sensed it as instinctively correct yet I could not break it down. Besides, my eight-year-old daughter had come along for the visit and Gulzar saab was enquiring about her school and the stuffed tiger she had brought along. Over sugarless tea we chatted about his current work - he is translating Tagore into Hindustani and English, both poetry and a short story collection for children. Many people aren't aware that Gulzar saab’s fondness for Bengali literature inspired him to learn the language. 

I noticed a bust of Ghalib that had not been there during my previous visit. Gulzar saab mentioned that he had commissioned a sculptor from Sholapur to make a bust for Ghalib's home in Ballimaran in Chandni Chowk area of old Delhi. He has been at the forefront of a group of people engaged in attempting to free the old haveli of encroachers. Last year the bust was installed in Ghalib’s home which now houses a museum. Pleased with the result he’d requested another for his home.

I suggested I'd like a picture of him beside Ghalib but he said no, let it be of all three of us. So my daughter clicked a picture of me in the company of my two maestros.

Gulzar saab gifted my daughter a Buddha figurine and suggested she keep it on her study table where it would bless her. I updated him on my next book and its expected release in December. As Gulzar saab rummaged in his study for some book that he could gift Malvika we sighted a cushion in one corner where a dog was nestled. It was Pali, Gulzar saab's pug which had passed away. Pali was his faithful companion and that was where he bided his time as his master wrote at his desk daily. Now Pali's spirit was still in the study as the bronze cast of him snuggled in one corner.

Malvika was touched by the story - she loves all animals, above all dogs. It was time to say our byes. We petted Kalia, Gulzar saab’s other dog, and once outside, I asked my daughter if she had got bored. No, she shrugged, as she clutched the Buddha figurine and an aromatic candle she had got as gifts, I had a good time.

Well, I'd had a good time too. Come to think of it, I have always had a good time with Gulzar saab’s poetry… Be it Tere bina zindagi se koi shikwa to nahin, which had me scratching my head when I first heard it as a pre-teen; Tujh se naraaz nahin zindagi hairaan hun main, which has been like a balm in the face of life’s knocks; Jungle jungle pata chala hai, chaddi pahan ke phul khila hai, which makes me grin ear-to-ear even today; Kajra re, to which I’ve oft danced with my daughter; the lilting Dil to bachcha jai ji; the TV serial Mirza Ghalib which ensconced me into the fold of Ghalib; the wonderfully nuanced sketches of human relationships in Aandhi, Mausam, Masoom, Ijazat …

In the preamble to a song – Dil dhoondta hai phir wahi – from his film Mausam, Gulzar saab says: 

misra Ghalib ka hai, 

aur kaifiyat apni apni

The couplet is by Ghalib, and

each listener brings to it his own

Albeit a very prosaic translation but the essence is evident. And that, I think, is the reason Gulzar saab has stayed relevant through changing times – his poetry, that subliminal distillation of life’s experiences, speaks to each one of us.

Sach to yeh hai ki, geet Gulzar ka hai aur kaifiyat apni apni … 

On that note, a very happy birthday Gulzar saab!

It’ll be a Good Year, A Seer has So Ordained …

It’s that time of the year again: fir trees, white-green-plastic-flown from Norway; piped carols in stores; Santas at supermarkets; iridescent lighting on skyscraper facades. We’re spending Christmas in Hong Kong after several years and I am glad. It’s gorgeous at this time, the city dressed up to party! A ferry ride from Kowloon to HK island in the evening is a must do if you are here – the usually impressive HK skyline gets a twinkling-lights facelift. And then there are the fireworks!

It’s also the time for parties, meeting friends and catching up with family and therefore, invariably, time for copious conversation as well. So while you may want to brush up on your talking skills – I recommend How to have a Beautiful Mind by Edward De Bono – you might also like to have some shayrs up your sleeve, to be artfully slipped into chats as a sequitur, rhetoric, irony, metaphor, euphemism …

You know how it goes: pub and poetry, shayr and sharaab, Ghalib and ghazal!

Why Ghalib, you might ask? In the pantheon of poets you could summon anyone from Rumi to Faiz – this party is certainly one where the more the merrier – but Ghalib, like Shakespeare, has opined on every topic under the sun, from art to zephyr, bazeecha to zulmat. He has trawled through tulips and thorns, death and destruction, love and anguish, life and longing, and come up with shayrs that plumb our universal humanity. Ghalib has wit, passion, rhyme and meter and the ability to reveal the universe in two lines – pray why would you go elsewhere? As Ghalib himself said:

Hain aur bhi duniya mein shukhanwar bahut achhe,

Kahte hain ki Ghalib ka hai andaaze-bayaan aur.

Be there many poets in the world,

But Ghalib, it is said, has a diction that is singular.

Ghalib is handy, and how.       

Amongst the topics of conversation will likely feature the important events of 2010, farewell to the present year, and hopes and wishes for 2011.

Let’s start with the highlights of 2010: Haiti earthquake, Pakistan floods, Chilean miners, Dubai property crash, the PIGS Euro crisis, CWG scam, Tea Partiers, Assange and Cablegate, World Cup, Winter Olympics in Canada, eruption of Eyjafjallajokull and Mount Merapi, the BP oil spill, Nobel Peace Prize and China, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, North Korea’s shelling of South, US-China currency tango …

Ghalib can be deployed with dexterity in any confabulation around the above topics. Witness:

• US-China interaction: Wen Jiabao could aptly tell Obama

Har ek baat pe kehte ho tum ki tu kya hai,

Tumhee kaho ki ye andaaze-guftagoo kya hai?

To everything that I say, your retort remains: Who are you?

Pray tell me, what kind of conversation is this?

Obama could in turn salvo the above shayr to the Tea Partyers!

• The scam masters of India; or Kalmadi, Raja & Inc.

Hazaaron khwaahishen aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle

Bahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle.

Thousands of desires, each worth dying for,

Many a wish have I realized, yet I yearn for more.

• And the ennui and resignation of Indians is best summed by:

Raat din gardish mein hai saat asmaan,

Ho rahega kuchh na kuchh ghabrayen kya

Day and night the planets are in motion

Something will work out, why worry ourselves

• The dalliances of Messrs Berlusconi, Putin & Tharoor

Ishq ney Ghalib nikamma kar diyaa,

Warna hum bhi aadmi the kaam ke.

Love has rendered me useless Ghalib,

Otherwise I was a person of much worth.

• BP’s desperate attempts to mop the spill while the Gulf of Mexico perished

Chipak raha hai badan par lahu se pairaahan,

Hamaari jeb ko ab haajta-e-rafu kya hai?

The garment sticks to the body with my blood,

What use is it darning the collar now?

• PIGS countries tell the European Commission

Unke dekhe se jo aa jati hai munh par raunaq,

Who samajhte hain ki beemaar ka haal accha hai.

A smile lights my face when I sight her,

And they take it to mean all’s well with blighted me.

The Greeks could tell Merkel the same!

• Chilean miners

Zindagi apni jab is shakl sey guzari Ghalib,

Hum bhi kya yaad karenge ki khudaa rakhte they.

My life took such a turn Ghalib,

That I realized there is a God who shaped it thus.

So how was 2010 overall? Eventful, insightful, we won some, we lost some – a year like all the others! Time to bid farewell then, and ring in the new.

Hum ko maaloom hai jannat kee haqeeqat lekin,

Dil ke khush rakhney ko Ghalib ye khayaal achcha hai.

The realities of Heaven are known to us Ghalib,

But to beguile the heart, it is a good thought.

            And here’s a handy one for 2011:

Dekhiye paate ushaaq buton se kya faiz,

Ek Barahman ne kaha hai ke ye saal achha hai.

Let’s see what blessings the desirous get from the unresponsive ones,

A seer has ordained the year will be a good one.

December 27 marks Mirza Ghalib’s 213^th birthday. As a writer I am indebted to him for the manner in which he reveals himself anew with every fresh reading of his work. When I first encountered the following shayr –

Aate hain ghaib se yeh mazaamin khyaal mein

Ghalib sarir-e-khaama nawaae sarosh hai.

These thoughts, Ghalib, are heaven-sent,

My pen is the scribe of the voice of Gods.

– I took it to mean that Ghalib had claimed his writing was of a standard that was of the Gods. Not unusual for a man who was aware of his genius and entirely unaffected by false modesty. However, subsequent readings over the years have revealed to me another facet – one in which Ghalib states that he is a vessel for the divine discourse, channeling what he is receiving from the Heavens above. Remarkable humility, Mirza Nosha, for one who is regarded as the greatest Urdu poet. 

Salutations my friend on your birthday!

And to all my other friends, wishing you a Merry X’mas and a very Happy 2011. It’ll be a good year, a seer has so ordained …