Some of us are concerned with maintaining the pure ghazal (the "real" ghazal in Agha Shahid Ali's terms). We have several decisions to make. This post discusses only a few of those decisions.
The first decision is what stage of which culture of the ghazal's history shall we choose to represent the pure ghazal? Many consider Ghalib to be the ghazal-writer par excellence. His culture, 18th century Indian culture of the Muslim rulers, had several stereotyped images for poets to use, notably the nightingale, the rose, wine, and the unavailable Beloved. These images were laden with cultural meanings.
The theme of love goes further back in ghazal history, to the meaning of "ghazal" in Arabic, which I've seen variously translated as "talking with women" or "flirting with women," thus the theme of romantic love as central to the ghazal. The unattainable Beloved easily blends into the Divine Lover, becoming an image for the poet's relationship to God. There can be a lot of ambiguity in a ghazal as to whether the Beloved is another person or God, or an image referring to both.
In Ghalib's society, marriages were arranged and moral women were strictly secluded ("parda" or "purdah"). One couldn't fall in love with a "good girl," or if one did, one must love from a distance. The alternative was to love a courtesan. These were women who were not "good," but were educated, sophisticated, and available. {The link will open a PDF file of the most relevant article a quick Google search could find.)
What is the contemporary ghazal writer to do with this theme? Some still live in societies that practice arranged marriages and purdah; many do not. Personally, I've been married faithfully for almost 50 years. My Beloved is my spouse. Other poets are in different situations, many of which differ in many ways from Ghalib's. Poetry comes out of the poet's total experience, not out of a defined form.
I hope to post further "Maintaining the Pure Ghazal" pieces in the near future. Your comments are welcome.
Very true. Ghazal themes in India/Pakistan have seen a dramatic change over the turn of the century till contemporary times. Contemporary poets now use the Saaqi, Shabaab and Sharaab more as a reference to the traditional times. New themes and topics related to modern times feature more prominently in their works these days. Though philosophy remains untouched by time, the perspective and way of expression changes. For example consider Nida Fazli's famous sher:
Ghar se masjid hai bahut dur chalo yun kar len,
Kisi rote hue bachche ko hasaayaa jaae.
Roughly goes like:
The mosque is far away from the house, thus,
Let us try and make a crying baby to laugh instead.
So this thought is going to remain intact for centuries to come, its interpretation and context might differ in the times to come.
Posted by: Niranjan Sarkar | Sunday, 20 September 2009 at 03:28 AM