Ghalib

ASADULLAH KHAN GHALIB known by his pen name, Ghalib, is the famous romantic and mystical poet of the Mughal Empire in India. He was born in Agra in 1797 in a time of political transition. His lifetime saw the rise of the British colonial empire in India and the concomitant decline of the great Mughal Empire, which had been reaved by internal dissent, succession battles, and waves of invasion from Persia, Afghanistan, and the Marathans of the south and which was finally eliminated after the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857. Ghalib was the proud descendant of a Turkish military family that traced its lineage back to Tur, the son of Faridun, the legendary Persian king whose rule began with his defeat of the demon king Zahhak (as related in the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of the Kings). His poems are characterized by great wit, puns, and a mystical, erotic imagery so passionate as to veer at times into the surreal. He is the acknowledged world master of the ghazal. The ghazal form is the most important short poetic form in Arabic, Persian and Urdu poetry, as the sonnet is in English. It is characterized by an initial couplet with a rhyme-repeated phrased combination, followed by a rhyme-repetition in the second line of each succeeding couplet, and a “signature” in which the poet addresses himself in the final line of the poem.