Google Doodle Honours Mirza Ghalib

New Delhi: Google on Wednesday has dedicated its doodle to one of Urdu literature's most iconic poets, Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, most commonly as Ghalib, to mark his 220nd birth anniversary.

Born in Uttar Pradesh, during the reign of Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah, Ghalib (meaning conqueror) showed a gift for language at an early age and was educated in Persian, Urdu, and Arabic.

In a reference to that, the doodle sees Ghalib, with his pen and paper, knitting his imaginations, with a backdrop of buildings of Mughal architecture.

According to its blog, Google said, "His verse is characterized by a lingering sadness borne of a tumultuous and often tragic life - from being orphaned at an early age, to losing all of his seven children in their infancy, to the political upheaval that surrounded the fall of Mughal rule in India. He struggled financially, never holding a regular paying job but instead depending on patronage from royalty and more affluent friends."

"But despite these hardships, Ghalib navigated his circumstances with wit, intellect, and an all-encompassing love for life. His contributions to Urdu poetry and prose were not fully appreciated in his lifetime, but his legacy has come to be widely celebrated, most particularly for his mastery of the Urdu ghazal (amatory poem)," the blog post added.

Sense of Humour

Altaf Hussain ‘Haali’, Ghalib’s contemporary and disciple for a while, recounts in his celebrated biography of the poet--”Yaadgaar-e-Ghalib”, that the distinguished Urdu poet had a very sharp sense of humour. In response to Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s question as to whether he fasted through the month of Ramadan, Ghalib replied “peer-o-murshad, ek nahiN rakhha”, suggesting “not one”. the repartee could also mean “I missed fasting only on one day”.

Philosophy

Ghalib’s verses in Persian and Urdu are laden with philosophical content. Sample these:

Gham-e-hasti ka Asad kis se ho juz marg ailaaj/Shama har rang mein jalti hai seher hone tak (There’s no cure to the malady of life except death/ the candle (symbolizing life) burns in myriad hues till dawn (symbolizing death)

yeh masail-e-tasawwuf, yeh tera bayaan Ghalib/ tujhe hum wali samajhte jo na baada-Khwaar hota (These dialectics of Sufism and the way you expound them, o Ghalib/ We would have regarded you a devout person, had you not been an imbiber of wine). Legend has it that when Ghalib recited this maqta (final couplet) of one of his most famous Ghazals at Bahadur Shah Zafar’s court, the emperor quipped--”we still consider you a devout person.”

Ghalib’s work was marked for the most part by complexity, but he could be remarkably simple in some of his verses as well:

hum ko un se wafa ki hai ummeed / jo nahiN jaante wafa kya hai (We expect loyalty from the beloved who does not know what it means).

Ghalib was a man of strange contradictions--fiercely independent, yet very humble. As Haali once put it:

KhaaksaaroN se Khaaksaari thhi / sar bulandoN se inkesaar na thha (He was humble with those who were modest; proud with the vain).

( inputs from IANS)