Mirza Ghalib was a classical Urdu and Persian poet from the Mughal Empire. When I first read his “ghazals” I had a very difficult time understanding them. When I read them straight through they didn’t make sense to me. When I read each one on its own it helped me understand it better. I realized through these verses that he was very lonely and had an overwhelming sense of loss of community and God.
In Verse five stanza one he talks about a small drop of water. He talks about the “waterbead” wanting to “die” in the stream. To be consumed by the whole is the ultimate joy of the part, which is why the tiny drop wants to die in the stream. Which you can also connect to how an individual wants to be a part of a community. He then explains how pain becomes its own medicine. When pain exceeds a certain limit it becomes its own remedy. Some research I did explained how an ”individual” dies at the end of pain but this pain turns into joy because he/she is returning to “God.” He is basically saying pain is so much that it manages to cure itself.
The second stanza he is saying once our weakness crosses a limit instead of crying all anyone can do is “sigh.” He says that “water” which symbolizes tears turns into “air” which symbolizes sighing. The third stanza he goes back into talking about death. He says after it rains the clouds start to “thin away” and almost die out so he is saying how the clouds have cried and died in their own grief completely.
In his fourth stanza he talks about the wonders of clean air and to understand it he says to see how moss on a mirror grows in spring. In Ghazals mirrors symbolize” truth and clarity.” In the last stanza he refers to a rose, which literally symbolizes everything, that is beautiful during spring but in this type of poetry it is many times a reference to a beloved, which is God. The rose is what we perceive as beautiful which leads us to understand how we see the world. He says “All colors and kinds, what is should and be open always” which means our eyes should be accepting of what we see and be open to experiences.
This was a hard poem to understand but I read it line by line. Once you pull apart his poem it’s easier to comprehend and you can feel the emotions he is trying to convey in his poem.
I totally like the way you interpret Ghalib’s Ghazals in your blogpost. Personally I’m a big fan of Ghazal and i know Ghalib’s ghazal is very intense and they way you mentioned that it do has a sense of loss, love and pain.Pretty much every Ghazal i have listened so far,they all have in general one theme Which is Love and most of the time the love was unattainable and the pain of loss of love.In Ghalib’s Ghazals we can see the expression of sorrow and also the pain which he is kind of enjoying. I would like to quote one of your sentence which i liked very much and which is perfectly goes with Ghalib’s Ghazals, “When pain exceeds a certain limit it becomes its own remedy”.Ghalib’s ghazals give me a strange feelings of sorrow which Ghalib is pampering and spread in his ghazals he stated “No wonder you came looking for me,you who care for the grieving,and i the sound of grief”.I’m sure his sorrow definitely touch the reader and the listener.