Image credit: Eylul Doganay, "Room Full of You"

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The pleading image

The image pleads to whose wanton design

Every figure is embodied in paper

Alone, here in stone-silence, living

Is to cut a gorge across a mountain every day

 

But even in captivity I trace the arc of my limits

Fire under feet, fetters of blazing eyelashes…

Oh! But to have a will that does not answer

               to want

The will that exists, not in metal, but outside

                                        the sword

 

So cast your nets of meaning far and wide:

My verse obtains from conditions unknown to you

The peacock’s suffering plays a colorful trick

                                        on the eyes

The nightmare of non-being

Is just lurid protest at never waking up

                                        to its reality

 

 

I lived longing for the one who never arrived

I lived longing for the one who never arrived

If I’d lived longer, it would be in longing

                           For the one who never arrived

 

Living by your promise I learned it was a lie

Joy would have killed me if I believed

                           In the one who never arrived

 

Your arrow was half-drawn, your aim unerring

I live with the wound opened

                           By the one who never arrived

 

Those who were my friends now give me advice

No one consoles me, hears my cries

                           At the one who never arrived?

 

On mystical questions, Ghalib, you have no match

We would call you a saint but you drink

                            To the one who never arrived

 

 

At Last

My every breath is a wish

Every wish my last

After losing every wish, I breathe –

                              At last!

 

Assassin—have no fear

You will bear no stain:

Blood, through my eyes, has sieved

                              At last

 

What do Adam’s tears at exile

Compare to mine? I’ve no

Hope of returning when I leave

                              At last

 

Your snakelike locks maintain

Your reign of terror. Someday

They’ll be undone and we’ll believe

                              At last

 

They have thrust in the knife

Out of mercy for me

How long now before it is retrieved

                              At last? 

 

At daybreak I’m off, pen

Behind ear, to find

Any excuse to write them a missive

                              At last

 

In love, living and dying

Are one and the same: I live

To see the one who’ll deceive

                              At last

 

 

The lawful don’t stray near

The tavern but I’m aware:

Unbeknownst, our paths crossed that eve

                              At last

 

 

The messiah’s breath keeps

The cradle rocking

 

Resurrection is a dream

In the ruby-eyes of broken idols

 

Nothingness lies beyond

The desert of wants, Ghalib

 

The wild-horse gallops

Unwearyingly,

 

Soaking the saddle-place

With sweat

نقش فریادی ہے کس کی شوخیٔ تحریر کا

کاغذی ہے پیرہن ہر پیکر تصویر کا

کاو کاو سخت جانی ہائے تنہائی نہ پوچھ

صبح کرنا شام کا لانا ہے جوئے شیر کا

جذبۂ بے اختیار شوق دیکھا چاہیے

سینۂ شمشیر سے باہر ہے دم شمشیر کا

آگہی دام شنیدن جس قدر چاہے بچھائے

مدعا عنقا ہے اپنے عالم تقریر کا

بسکہ ہوں غالبؔ اسیری میں بھی آتش زیر پا

موئے آتش دیدہ ہے حلقہ مری زنجیر کا

شوخیٔ نیرنگ صید وحشت طاؤس ہے

دام سبزہ میں ہے پرواز چمن تسخیر کا

وحشت خواب عدم شور تماشا ہے اسدؔ

جو مزہ جوہر نہیں آئینۂ تعبیر کا

 

 

یہ نہ تھی ہماری قسمت کہ وصال یار ہوتا

اگر اور جیتے رہتے یہی انتظار ہوتا

ترے وعدے پر جیے ہم تو یہ جان جھوٹ جانا

کہ خوشی سے مر نہ جاتے اگر اعتبار ہوتا

کوئی میرے دل سے پوچھے ترے تیر نیم کش کو

یہ خلش کہاں سے ہوتی جو جگر کے پار ہوتا

یہ کہاں کی دوستی ہے کہ بنے ہیں دوست ناصح

کوئی چارہ ساز ہوتا کوئی غم گسار ہوتا

یہ مسائل تصوف یہ ترا بیان غالبؔ

تجھے ہم ولی سمجھتے جو نہ بادہ خوار ہوتا

 

 

ہزاروں خواہشیں ایسی کہ ہر خواہش پہ دم نکلے

بہت نکلے مرے ارمان لیکن پھر بھی کم نکلے

ڈرے کیوں میرا قاتل کیا رہے گا اس کی گردن پر

وہ خوں جو چشم تر سے عمر بھر یوں دم بدم نکلے

نکلنا خلد سے آدم کا سنتے آئے ہیں لیکن

بہت بے آبرو ہو کر ترے کوچے سے ہم نکلے

بھرم کھل جائے ظالم تیرے قامت کی درازی کا

اگر اس طرۂ پر پیچ و خم کا پیچ و خم نکلے

مگر لکھوائے کوئی اس کو خط تو ہم سے لکھوائے

ہوئی صبح اور گھر سے کان پر رکھ کر قلم نکلے

ہوئی اس دور میں منسوب مجھ سے بادہ آشامی

پھر آیا وہ زمانہ جو جہاں میں جام جم نکلے

ہوئی جن سے توقع خستگی کی داد پانے کی

وہ ہم سے بھی زیادہ خستۂ تیغ ستم نکلے

محبت میں نہیں ہے فرق جینے اور مرنے کا

اسی کو دیکھ کر جیتے ہیں جس کافر پہ دم نکلے

کہاں مے خانہ کا دروازہ غالبؔ اور کہاں واعظ

پر اتنا جانتے ہیں کل وہ جاتا تھا کہ ہم نکلے

 

 

لب عیسیٰ کی جنبش کرتی ہے گہوارہ جنبانی

قیامت کشتۂ لعل بتاں کا خواب سنگیں ہے

بیابان فنا ہے بعد صحراۓ طلب غالبؔ

پسینہ توسن ہمت تو سیل خانۂ زیں ہے

Translator's Note

Translating Ghalib is an impossibly challenging undertaking; the dearth of English translations of one of South Asia’s most renowned bards, and one of Urdu’s greatest poet loudly attests to this assessment. It has taken me seventeen years, since my early twenties when I started delving in earnest into Ghalib’s monumental body of work, far afield of his popular ghazals picturized in Bollywood movies, to attempt a translation.

There are many features of Ghalib’s verse that confound translationFor one, Ghalib’s diction is entirely original (to call it arcane simply because it’s “strange” would imply prior usage), developed out of melding Farsi and Hindustani words. Second, Ghalib tends to suppress grammar, or eliminates it altogether when he can, so that it’s often difficult to distinguish between subjects and objects, causes and effects, thus rending linearity and muddling relations. But most of all, it is the endless dialectical inversions, masterfully placed in the ghazal form, that create an explosion of meaning. How do you translate an explosion?

All translators make choices, but a translator working on Ghalib is forced to choose from vast sets of possible meanings. The only way to do this is to lose compulsion for certainty, or even approximation (fitting for a poet whose verse militates against certainty). Given the abundance of meaning and the mechanical complexities, one might give up and say that exegesis—not translation—is the proper mode of engaging with Ghalib’s work. And indeed there’s no shortage of learned commentaries on Ghalib, scholarly articles in Urdu, English and other languages, that one could look towards for understanding Ghalib. That is: if understanding is the goal.

For Ghalib, understanding, apprehension, meaning are lesser aspects of experience, lampooned in the ghazal naqsh faryādī (“The pleading image”) as follows:

āgahī dām-e shanīdan jis qadar chāhe bichhāʾe (1)
muddaʿā ʿanqā hai apne ʿālam-e taqrīr kā          (2)

A semantic breakdown of the verse taken from eminent Urdu scholar and Ghalib expert Professor Frances Pritchet’s website “A Desertful of Roses” further shows the devices I mention above at play. 

1a) let intelligence spread the net of hearing to whatever extent it might wish
1b) no matter to what extent intelligence might spread the net of hearing

2a) the intention/meaning of my world of speech is the Anqa [n. a phoenix, adj. rare]
2b) my world of speech has no intention/meaning at all
2c) 'intention/meaning' is the Anqa of its own world of speech
2d) the Anqa is the intention/meaning of its own world of speech

Ghalib’s work refuses interpretation and welcomes creation, and this observation has guided my translation. It’s far from possible in any translation of Ghalib’s verse to capture the many fields and possibilities of meaning within but I’ve tried my best to reproduce a few of his devices—such as mirroring, self-referencing, irony, and the uncanny—to lay a basic foundation for English readers to enter his world. I have also attempted as much as possible to hew close to the rules of ghazal, the form used in the originals.


Umair Kazi

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