Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib is
regarded as the greatest South Asian Poet of Urdu-a language which is widely
used and understood in entire region. He is also a Poet of Persian and a prose
writer both in Urdu and Persian with a unique and distinct style of his own. As
a Persian Poet he is well-known in Iran and Central Asia also. Actually, his
ancestors hailed from Transoxiana, a part of Central Asia and migrated to India
in the middle of the 18th Century some fifty years before his birth. Ghalib
lived in Delhi during the twilight of the Mughal rule in the Sub-Continent as a
Poet and writer was a ture and most authentic representative of the central
tradition of the literary and cultural history of the period.
As the greatest Poet of the 19th
century, Ghalib has not only been a constant subject of literary criticism in
the 20th century but has also attracted wide-spread attention of the common
reader of Urdu who loves, admires and quotes him whenever he can even without
having read or understood him thoroughly. No other Urdu Poet dominates the
literary scene in the same way and lives in the hearts and minds of people as
Ghalib. His charisma as a Poet in the literary world of the Sub-Continent is
unprecedented and unmatched.
Ghalib had a strong personality
and he was conscious of it. This consciousness was responsible for Ghalib's
urge to express himself in his own individual manner. So he deviated from the
tradition of Urdu Poets and gave expression to the thoughts and feelings of his
individual personality rather than to the thoughts and feelings of the
community in general.
Ghalib did not defy tradition but
the carved out a new and different path for himself. As a result he discovered
new realms of thoughts and feelings and endowed new dimensions to the ones
already discovered. He added new shades of meaning to words so much so that a
study of his poetry becomes a veritable exercise in appreciating meanings of
meanings. What he says is of course significant but equally significant is what
he leaves unsaid. He creates a sense of the infinite while dealing with the
finite.
In the last phase of his life
Ghalib the poet became Ghalib the letter writer. The sad music of Ghalib's soul
expressing itself in the other harmony of prose epitomizes not only his
personal mood or temper but in fact the mood and temper of a whole generation
in the period after the great upheaval of 1857 which brought an end to the
Mughal rule in the Sub-Continent.
In short Ghalib's world is a
world inhabitated by intensely human experiences of a lively and rich
personality with a new and refreshing mode of thoughts and feelings. Ghalib was
conscious of his personality but he was not a prisoner of it. He had the
breadth of vision and a catholicity of outlook which enabled him to see beyond
himself. He had a truly sensitive, free and open mind ready to perceive and
imbibe. That is why while Ghalib always remained Ghalib, he could also be you
and me and many others. Like Shake-spear he was not wedded to a particular view
of life nor did he make an attempt to systematise his thinking. He was large as
life and had a real zest for it and a rare insight into it affairs. He was
neither an optimist, nor a pessimist. He was a through-bread realist in his
personal life as well as in his poetry and prose.
On the occasion of 150th Death Anniversary of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (Urdu Eminent Poet). Pakistan Post is issuing a Commemorative Postage Stamp of Rs.8/- denomination on February 15, 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment