Preface to Ghalib's Urdu Odes

                                                                                                  PREFACE


Ghalib was born in 1797 in Agra, India as Asadullah Khan, in the landed gentry in the dying days of the Mughal empire, and remained  financially well off for most of his life. He later moved to Delhi, the capital of the Mughal Empire, and soon became the favorite of the last Mughal king, himself a renowned poet. He was married at an early age and had seven children, none of whom survived. He died in Delhi, India in 1869 at the age of 72 years.
He started writing poetry in his teens under the pen names of Asad and Ghalib, and wrote mostly odes or ghazals in Persian and Urdu but, although he wrote less in Urdu, it was for his Urdu odes that he became famous and immortal. He wrote in the classical Eastern tradition, mainly about love and beauty but was also deep and philosophical.
Translation by its very nature cannot capture the taste and flavor of the original. It is not possible to translate the beat, the rhythm, and the flow in another language, and especially in English which is so different from Urdu. However, I have tried to preserve some of it by translating the couplets as couplets. Also, in the translation I have used the pen name of Ghalib only in order to avoid confusion.


Ghalib’s love is primarily romantic and beauty feminine:

Oh, my gal is like the harvest moon
And she has more shine than the sun at noon

Yes, the moon looks lovely when it is full
But she’s always gorgeous and beautiful

But like a garden in the moonlit night
GHALIB, her face is a lover’s delight

When flies in the breeze her curly hair
The musk of Tatar you smell everywhere

Her brow is a bow; her glance a dart
She can jab, and stab, and wound your heart

Oh, the way she smiles and the way she winks
And her beautiful eyes the way she blinks

She’s tall and slim like a cypress tree
And a riot she causes wherever is she

My heart is on fire; it is like hell
And she is a bombshell, that beautiful belle


But as is so typical of the beauties in the Eastern poetry, his gal is cruel and callous:

Oh, cruelty and malice, she has them all
But then she is also a beautiful doll

And whenever I am a little bit jealous
She becomes very spiteful, cruel, and callous

She wants not only my heart to bleed
But also my blood in my tears indeed

When I tell her I love her, she takes her dart
And goes on to test my poor little heart

And while she’s sleeping, if I kiss her feet
She wakes up and tells me that I’m a cheat

My peace of mind she does subvert
She’s so very coy; she’s such a flirt


But love is not love if it is happy and successful; indeed it is bad, mad, and very, very sad:

You can’t have love without the ache
Your heart must yearn; it also must break

With sorrow and pain though love is rife
Escape them you cannot; they’re a part of life

O deadly and ruinous are the ways of desire
And the outlook for a lover is all too dire

From pain and suffering he cannot part
And the sorrow is always eating his heart

And though dying is hard for so many guys
Think how many times a poor lover dies

And she lives in Heaven, that infidel
While here I’m burning in the fire of hell


But Ghalib is philosophical and takes it in stride, and can even be a little funny:

Oh, what’s a lover if he does not yearn
And what is a fire if it does not burn?

It’s easier to hide in your clothes the fire
Than to hide in your heart a burning desire

An eternal bliss only death can claim
For life and sorrow are one and the same

And since nobody dies without a cause
Without reason, GHALIB, a lover can’t go

The realm of beauty is without any bound
And it’s love that makes the world go round

When the angels quiz me after my death
I wish they won’t test for liquor my breath

On the Judgment Day when angels I’ll face
I’ll need a lawyer to plead my case


Ghalib can also be mystical when he wants to:

O don’t be stingy with the cup of mine
For your heavenly vat has plenty of wine

Yes, we’re all topers: we drink very hard
Even angels for us have a lot of regard

At the sound of music we go in a trance
We hear from God and dance and dance

Oh, we’re the observers, and we’re the observed
We see our backs, our sights are curved

We think we’re awake, or so it may seem
But still we’re dreaming while awake in a dream


And I see in there the image divine
Whether it’s a temple, a mosque, or a shrine


And then he asks difficult questions and finding no satisfactory answers, in the end he, as a strong believer in Hindu Maya or illusion, concludes:

Oh, in Your being I have no doubt
But tell me, O God, what is it all about?

Why do we have these beautiful girls
And what are the brows and the raven curls?

And why do they have such charming eyes
And why do they enchant and mesmerize?

And what’re the clouds, and what’s the breeze
And why are there flowers, bushes, and trees?

And why do the lovers hold them so dear
The girls who’re faithless and insincere?

The reality of being is greatly in doubt
It’s hard to know what it’s all about

Oh, it is not so very difficult to guess
That everything ends in nothingness

And in the end there’s nothing to explain
It’s all subjective, this joy, this pain

So let’s not have any more confusion
The world is naught; it’s just an illusion


BUT ALL IS NOT LOST; THERE IS ALSO THE BRIGHT SIDE:

O with great fanfare the spring is here
And the moon and the stars are coming to cheer

The bounty of God you cannot deny
Oh, what a beautiful way to beautify?

With splendor the earth is flying high
It has become as dazzling as the glamorous sky

It’s bright and beautiful, and happy, and gay
And everything is green, and gone is the gray

In the springtime rain, having taken their showers
The flowers are admiring their fellow flowers

The breeze is bursting with fragrance divine
And the air is drunk with the smell of wine