Mirza Ghalib

After a very long time I met someone who quoted a Mirza Ghalib Ghazal to me. There was a time when Ghalib’s poetry had consumed me and shaped my very thought. The effect of the recital were electrifying (with my mind again marveling the artistry of the great poet), nostalgic (remembering the time spent discoursing these with my friends) and regretful (for having forgotten most of the marvelous work).

I will attempt to translate the quoted couplet

“aah ko chaahiye ik 'umr asar hone tak

It takes a lifetime for a expression of the heart to have effect (meaning most simply that I can never express what I feel)

kaun jeeta hai teree zulf ke sar hone tak ?”

Who can live long enough to trace their gaze along a single tress of your hair. (because your beauty will overwhelm any beholder)

Mirza Ghalib

Mirza Ghalib was a great classical Urdu and Persian poet of the Indian subcontinent. Most notably, he wrote several ghazals during his life, which have since been interpreted and sung in many different ways by different people. He is considered to be the most popular and influential poet of the Urdu language.

Before Ghalib, the ghazal was primarily an expression of anguished love; but Ghalib expressed philosophy, the travails and mysteries of life and wrote ghazals on many other subjects, vastly expanding the scope of the Ghazal.

Ghazal

In poetry, the ghazal (Arabic/Persian/Urdu: غزل; Hindi: ग़ज़ल; Turkish gazel) is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain. Each line must share the same meter. The Arabic word "ghazal" is pronounced roughly like the English word "guzzle", but with the first, g-like consonant further back in the throat.

In its style and content it is a genre which has proved capable of an extraordinary variety of expression around its central themes of love and separation.