June1, 1998
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GHALIB BICENTENARY Gaga Over Ghalib The festival is a reminder that moralists didn't condone artistic licence 200 years ago -- and still don't. By S Kalidas
When Kathak prima donna Uma Sharma decided to organise a multifaceted tribute to Ghalib on his bicentenary, there was a mixed response from the world of arts and the public. Funded by the Delhi Government and the Union Government's Department of Culture, the festival explored the bard's legacy through dance, music, poetry and recitations from his prolific and varied writings. What made the festival both interesting and yet painfully uncomfortable was the fact that Sharma spread the events across three venues associated with Ghalib -- the Red Fort, his tomb at Nizamuddin and the narrow winding lane in Old Delhi, Gali Qasim Jaan, where he stayed for the better part of his life. "The whole effort was to recreate the ambience of mid-19th century Delhi," says Sharma, who picked on the knowledge of people like P.N. Haksar, A.M. Khusro and Pavan Varma, whose highly readable book on the life and times of Ghalib has proved to be a best-seller. Typically, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) resorted to all kinds of bureaucratic pinpricks and ultimately acquiesced after HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi intervened on Sharma's behalf. The festival opened on a makeshift stage erected on the path leading to the naubatkhana entrance of the Red Fort (Sharma had wanted to use the lawns in front of the diwan-e-aam but was refused permission by the ASI), with Sharma dancing to some of Ghalib's most well-known ghazals. Ghalib was, in his lifetime, the toast of many a kotha (courtesan's salon) from Karachi to Calcutta and even had a couple of love affairs with tawaifs (courtesans) in his youth. His romantic poetry was sung and danced to widely by these women artistes to entertain their patrons. It was this connection that Sharma was invoking when she danced to Ghalib's famous lines, Muddat hui hai yaar ko mehmaan kiye hue (It's been so long since I hosted my beloved). "Ghalib has been an obsession with me ever since my guru Shambhu Maharaj taught me how to interpret ghazals through dance," says Sharma, adding, "I think in my last birth I must have been either his wife or his mistress." Obsession notwithstanding, Sharma's abhinaya (mimetic interpretation) failed to rise to the level of Ghalib's verses. The mushaira that followed was rather perfunctory, despite the presence of many leading lights of contemporary Urdu and Hindi poetry, such as Ali Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi, Bekal Utsahi and Gopaldas Neeraj. The USP of the mushaira was the participation of a major poet from Pakistan, Faraz Ahmed Faraz. Urdu poetry has a tradition of imbuing the romantic with the political and, given the post-nuclear test scenario, there was some rather radical exchange of rhetoric directed at the HRD minister, who was the chief guest. "You have fought the Mahabharat, I know," said Faraz, "and we too have not forgotten Karbala. But it's time to bury the hatchet, and I offer my hand in friendship to you." The memorable feature of the festival was easily the evening at Ghalib's tomb, where Pakistani actor Zia Mohiuddin read out a selection of Ghalib's letters. Ghalib was a prolific letter writer and his style -- contrary to the stiff formality of the age -- was direct and enchantingly conversational. He did not hide his faults and foibles, describing with frank wit and detail his love for wine, food and women. In fact, his letters are perhaps one of the best first-hand sources we have of life and culture of Delhi during the time of the war of 1857. Mohiuddin cast a magical spell with his cadence and diction, bringing Ghalib to life through his own words. In the long journey of Indian literature, if one were to look for a high point between Kalidas and Rabindranath Tagore, Mirza Asadulla Khan Beg (1798-1869) -- better known by his nom de plume of Ghalib ("the conqueror") -- would easily occupy the highest peak. Not only were Ghalib's poetry and prose celebrated by the literary elite of India and the world for their classicism, breadth of vision, depth of metaphor and cunning wit, but at the street level too, his utterances became popular quotations, casually rolling off the lips of paanwalas, prostitutes, mendicants and beggars. Ghalib's was a complex persona. An aristocrat by breeding and temperament, he nursed a deep sense of neglect and had a very tenuous relationship with both Bahadur Shah Zafar and the British. Yet, he was convinced of his superior worth and could be easily piqued if he did not get his due: Hain aur duniya mein sukhanwar bahut achchhe/ Kahte hain ki Ghalib ka hai andaaz-e-bayan aur (There are many good poets in this world/ But they say Ghalib has a style all his own). He was a self-confessed liberal and a libertine, and that put him constantly at odds with the moral establishment of the time. But then artistes, philosophers and madmen always tend to get into trouble with the state and self-appointed moralists, as we are witnessing now in Mumbai and elsewhere. And this is the legacy of creative subversion that needs to be protected. For today, while Ghalib continues to be a voice to reckon with, where are the qazis and mullahs who made his life so miserable in his lifetime? The citizens of Delhi have for long clamoured for the Government to take over the properties associated with Ghalib and set them up as public monuments. "Despite an order of the high court last year, the administration has done nothing in this matter," says Nawad Yar Khan, a local resident, whose ancestors -- related to Ghalib -- were hanged by the British in 1857. "If Anne Hathaway's cottage can be preserved for posterity by the British, why not Umrau Begum's?" he asks, referring to Ghalib's long-suffering wife. Indeed, if we continue to neglect our past, one day we may wake up to find that we have no future. |
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Haan woh nahin khuda
parast,
Two centuries after his birth, troop
down his street they did. The socialites in their designer saris, the politicians with an
eye on the vote bank, the musicians and dancers to sing and dance to his ghazals and the
reporters to cover the event. However, it was not the most appropriate time to remember a
romantic poet. The temperature was sizzling well above 40 degrees Celsius and India had
just conducted five nuclear tests in the arid desert of Pokhran. But then, it was perhaps
also in some ways quite befitting. For this master of the pen epitomised in his colourful
life and brilliant lines all the pain and turbulence of Indian cultural history when the
sun set on the Mughal empire and ushered in British colonial rule. 
