— Tell me.
— You’re imposing yourself on Mirza sahib.
— You think so?
— I do.
I had asked Begum a few more questions. She only kept repeating, ‘What do I know of literature? If Ismat were here …’ Ismat, Ismat, Ismat. The same name over and over. My greatest friend, my biggest enemy. She knew I was dying but she wouldn’t reply to my letters. I knew she had begun to loathe me for coming away to Pakistan. But Ismat was Ismat. Who else but she could write a story like ‘Lihaaf’—‘The Quilt’? What a lot of trouble it had led to! From the mullahs to the progressive, everyone had pounced on her. A story about homosexuality? And that too, between women? Ismat really had stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Eventually I summoned Mirza sahib and made him sit down with me.
— Kya mian? What do you want? Mirza sahib began to laugh.
— I’m writing a novel about you. May I read some of it to you? If you say it isn’t working at all, I’ll give up.
— Read it then. Is there anyone who doesn’t want to hear his own story?
When I finished, Mirza sahib began to pace up and down in the room. ‘What do you think?’ I asked him.
Still pacing up and down, Mirza sahib recited a sher:
You turn the goblet round and round to show me the
coloured patterns
I capture them in the mirror of my astonished,
bewildered eyes
Then he said, ‘Keep writing, Manto bhai. People cannot touch one another even in real life; it is futile to expect you to touch me through your story. Still, keep writing. Writing is the road to the Din.’
So there was a path to the Din even for me? Even after all my sins?
I was quite amused by this section of Manto’s novel. I told Tabassum that while I wasn’t going to be able to write a novel about Mirza Ghalib, I did want to write one about Manto.
— Why, janab? Tabassum asked with a smile
— I haven’t come across a bigger devil. Exploring a devil is a special joy.
— What do you consider yourself to be?
— What do you think?
— You tell me.
— It would have been easy if I knew. Just like Manto referred to everyone and everything as a fraud, I’m a fraud too. You could say writing is my business of fraud.
Back to Mirza sahib. He did not stay very long in his father-in-law Mahroof sahib’s house. For one thing he couldn’t stand his father-in-law; for another, he had begun to think of himself as a big shot after his arrival in Dilli. Yes, there was this streak in his character; as I said, he could never forget that he was descended from Turkish soldiers. The lofty disposition was in his blood. So he couldn’t bear to live in his father-in-law’s house. He rented Sabban Khan’s house next to Habash Khan ka Phatak at Chandni Chowk to live life the way he wanted to. Umrao Begum languished in the ladies’ chambers with her Quran and Hadith and Tasbi.
It must be admitted, friends, that Mirza sahib never really spared a glance for his wife. He was perpetually occupied with his ghazals and drinking and mushairas and courtesans and the good life. Do you suppose Umrao Begum never wanted to talk to her husband or be close to him? Certainly she did. But Mirza sahib’s neglect and cruelty were boundless. He slept with his wife—who gave birth to not one or two but seven children, none of whom lived beyond a year and a half—but he remained besotted with his lifestyle. I can understand why Umrao Begum gradually locked her life into the Quran, why she even segregated the utensils she ate out of. The birth and subsequent death of each successive child had pushed her ever deeper into the darkness within herself. Mirza sahib was not interested in paying attention to her. He made fun of her instead. On one occasion, he was determined to move to a different haveli, even inspecting it himself. Umrao Begum asked, ‘Did you like the house, Mirza sahib?’
— The diwankhana is fine. But I didn’t take a look at the zenana mahal.
— Why not?
— What use is it for me? It’s your mosque, you’d better take a look. Mirza sahib laughed.
— Mosque?
— Of course. You’ve turned the ladies’ chamber into a mosque. Don’t argue anymore, go and take a look for yourself.
Accepting her husband’s suggestion, Umrao Begum went to inspect the house. On her return Mirza sahib asked, ‘Well? Did you like it?’
— Yes. But …
— But what?
— Everyone’s saying there are spirits in that house.
— Who’s saying there are spirits?
— The neighbours.
— Have they seen you?
— Yes.
Mirza sahib burst into laughter. —Oh Begum, is there a more powerful spirit than you in the world?
What can a woman say when her husband speaks this way? Suppressing her tears, Umrao Begum returned to the ladies’ chamber. I cannot forgive this Mirza sahib, my brothers. Not that I could give Shafia Begum all that I should have as a husband, for I did as I pleased. But at least I never insulted her this way. Mirza sahib could humiliate people effortlessly, at least in his youth. Of course, if you hand out insults you must be prepared to face them too. However, he could not swallow humiliation. But don’t start judging Mirza sahib because of all this. Photographs are black-and-white, but life isn’t like that—there are shades of grey everywhere. And Mirza sahib’s life was much bigger than our daily grind; as they say, it was larger than life. You can criticize his life, you can raise questions about it, but you cannot but acknowledge his existence as he rolled and tumbled in a shark-infested ocean.
Mirza sahib had to swallow no small amount of humiliation in order to establish himself as a shair in Dilli. His ghazals and he himself were insulted at one mushaira after another. Why? Because connoisseurs of his writing had not yet been born; what could the dwarfed poets do to retaliate? They cast aspersions on the poetry, they stuck the label of incomprehensibility on it, they mocked it. Let me tell you what happened at one particular mushaira. The famous poets and the crème de la crème of Dilli were present. A succession of poets read out their ghazals. Cries of ‘kyabaat’ resounded, waves of applause rose in the air, but Mirza sahib could make out that the poetry was hollow, stuffed only with ornamentation, like women whose beauty was lost beneath an overdose of jewellery. When it was Mirza sahib’s turn to read, Agha Jan Aish, a doctor, stood up, saying, ‘I would like to say something before such a great shair reads his ghazals. I seek your permission.’
‘Please go ahead,’ a chorus rose in the air.
— Arz kiya hai?
— Ershad, ershad.
Agha Jan began to read,
Meaningless is the poetry that only the poet understands
You can enjoy it only when everyone gets it
I understand Mir, Mirza too, but whatever Ghalib writes,
God save him, only he knows whether anyone understands
There was a wave of laughter. Can a poet possibly read after this, my brothers?
Let me tell you what happened another time. Abdul Qadir, the maulvi of Rampur, arrived and said, ‘Mirza sahib, I simply cannot understand one of your Urdu shers. If you could explain.’
— Which sher, janab?
— The one where you wrote:
Take the fragrance of the rose
From the egg of the bull
There’s some more fragrance in there
Take it from the egg of the bull
— This isn’t my sher, Qadir sahib.
— But this is what I read in your diwan. Would you like to check?
Mirza sahib realized that this was a ploy to laugh about his poetry. But he did accept his friend Fazl-e-Haq’s criticism. You can hardly change an artist by attacking him. If you can tell him as a friend, if you’re equipped to speak on the subject, an artist will accept what you have to say. Mirza sahib changed the idiom of his poetry as a result of Fazl-e-Haq’s criticism. For, a friend’s criticism is not a joke, it is a hand of support. And Fazl-e-Haq under
stood the intricacies of the language of poetry. But did someone who wasn’t familiar with it have the right to criticize Mirza sahib’s ghazals? You have to be an expert to talk about physics or chemistry, but when it comes to poetry, how can you get by spouting any nonsense you want to? You cannot be entitled to pass judgement until you have studied how the language of poetry was created and how it evolved in history. Just because the poet has only a pen, while scientists are surrounded by an array of instruments, are you entitled to talk about poets carelessly? That was why Mirza sahib wrote in a sher after swallowing so much humiliation:
There were strong rumours that Ghalib would be massacred
I went to see too, but the show was called off
Mirza sahib had gone to Dilli full of hope. Soon he realized that his optimism would not bear fruit. There was no room for him at the royal court in Dilli. Alone in his diwankhana, he muttered, drunk:
Even if I never become worthy of understanding the meaning
May my eye for beauty in different forms never weaken
15
Love has snatched light out of the darkness
Without love there would have been no flowers
ou were right, Manto bhai, I wasn’t asleep, I had merely shut my eyes. I didn’t feel up to talking. After 1857 I didn’t feel the urge to stay awake, in fact my only prayer to the lord was, Al-Rashid, lead me to my grave now. But even after losing my friends and family, I had to stay alive for twelve years more. Naturally. Did anything in my life ever go right? That was why I learnt to observe myself in the third person, even deriving joy from my own misery. Laugh if you like, but I began to see myself through my enemies’ eyes. With each whiplash of fate, I shouted to myself, ‘There, see, that dog Ghalib has been beaten up again. How vain you were, Ghalib. There isn’t another shair like you; who can match up to you in Farsi? And now see what’s been written next to your name. That you’re an inhabitant of dozakh, you swine.’ I’d burst into tears as I abused myself. Then even the tears dried up eventually; my eyes turned as arid as a desert. I used to pray to Him, no more tears, Allah, may blood flow from my eyes now, I want to die like an orphan with blood smeared on my face and my hands. But God was determined to show me hell on earth before sending me to my grave. Do you know why? I had committed only one sin—while the lord wanted to completely erase this mortal life, I had wanted to give a few moments from this life the taste of eternity—through my ghazals. How could the lord not punish me for it? Of course he had to. Who do you think you are, Mirza Ghalib, trying to create another universe next to the lord’s with your words? You’re an imbecile, a bewakoof. You write poetry, make up stories, paint pictures, compose melodies—what else are you but an imbecile? But what can one do, Manto bhai? I adore words, you see, I sieve out colours from words, I can hear melodies by entering deep within them, I can see the darkness too—that I can do all this is Allah’s gift. Must he punish me still? I understood the significance of this punishment much later. You have seen what cannot be seen; you have heard what cannot be heard; you have sensed what cannot be sensed; for this you must be punished. Because you tasted eternity, you must live through life in hell. Just as Al-Hallaj had to be punished. You want to build a new universe, but you will not bear its burden—how can that be possible?
But none of this occurred to me during the first eleven or twelve years after coming to Dilli. When you said a little earlier that I used to weep in the diwankhana, you were exaggerating. No, Manto bhai, I hadn’t learnt to shed tears as yet. I was disappointed and annoyed, I even felt very lonely at times, but clouds had not yet gathered in my eyes. First the earth has to be soaked, the vapour has to be created and made to rise to the sky, and only then will the clouds appear; all this takes time. And those were my salad days. Everyone used to look at me with wide eyes. Do you know why? My complexion was like a jasmine’s. When you see this Ghalib, stooped and wrinkled, you’ll never guess what that Ghalib looked like. Tall and slim, a head of curly hair, I could feel the touch of velvet when I ran my fingers through it. I knew that many of the ladies would be staring at me behind their curtain, Manto bhai. And why shouldn’t they? How many men could Dilli boast of, who were capable of competing with me? All of them dressed the same way, with their long hair and dense beards. All sheep, you see. So how was it possible that people would not stare at Mirza Ghalib when he went down the road in a palanquin? A thin kurta and pyjamas, with a jaamdaani design on the kurta, replete with floral and other patterns, and an Astrakhan hat. I tried to bring out my uniqueness in everything I did. I learnt all this from the Mirzanama. It was quite a book, my brothers, it had all the rules that told you how to be a proper prince, a proper Mirza. Do you suppose anyone can be a Mirza? It has its own methods. Your very dress will reveal whether you’re a Mirza or not. A Mirza will not converse with anyone except his peers. And in order to convey the fact that he’s different from the common man, the Mirza will never travel anywhere on foot, but always use a palanquin. If there’s something he likes at the market, the Mirza will buy it no matter how much it costs; he will not haggle over the price like others. What else must he do? He must invite rich people home for mehfils. Get this straight: the tobacco that is served must be fragrant and mixed with hashish. Ground pearls must be stirred into the wine. To be a Mirza you must be able to recite passages from Saadi’s Gulistan and Bustan from memory. Even more important, when you speak, your grammar must be flawless. You will have to quote stanzas from ghazals from time to time. Your favourite among flowers must be the narcissus. And your favourite among fruits, the orange. To him the fort at Agra is the greatest in the world, and the finest city of Persia is Isfahan. The Mirza will always loathe those who put gigantic turbans on their heads.
When I grew old, I wanted to laugh when I set eyes on this Mirza Ghalib. You know what, when a man is immersed in a dream, this is how he thinks of himself as unique. And then, when the dream is shattered, he slowly learns to put his feet back on the ground, realizes that the desire to be different from everyone else is nothing but the arrogance of youth. The truth is that every person is unique; no two persons are alike. Everyone is different in their own way. You have to pass through many Karbalas on the journey of life to learn this truth, Manto bhai.
No, please don’t be upset, my brothers, I will tell you the story you want to hear—of the Mirza Ghalib whose skin was the colour of jasmine. But remember, when you stand outside your own life and observe it, the story can never progress along a straight line—it is led by words branching off in different directions. I am looking back on a life that has ended. Since no new road will appear in this life anymore, many alternatives will present themselves to me; what if it had happened this way and not that, what would the outcome have been? I cannot reject any of these thoughts now.
You were right, Manto bhai, after leaving Mahroof sahib’s house I finally got the chance to spread my wings. I was choking to death over there. A man who wants to compose ghazals as well as lecture you cannot be tolerated very long. Their lives are like measuring tapes, and they want to trim the lives of other people to the same measurements. But I was an orphan, I had never seen my father; to me life was not something to be measured out. When I rented Sabban Khan’s house, I tasted independent life. Who could stop me now from drinking and gambling and visiting brothels? Some nights I went to bed with my wife, performing mechanically; she didn’t even want anything more. To her, two bodies came together only for the purpose of giving birth to children. They were born accordingly, and even died within a year and a half. How could they have survived, after all? They were not born in love. But it was also true that I paid no attention to their survival. If some of them had been alive, maybe my relationship with Begum would not have turned so cold. But I was drunk on the desire to be different. It’s the kind of drunkenness in which you will not consider a man a human being, you will try to dismiss everything you see and hear with laughter and ridicule. I was fully capable of this. Let me tell you a story, then. One evening a pries
t gave me a terrible lecture about drinking. Since alcohol is haraam, you will have to go to hell. When he had ranted for a long time, I couldn’t be quiet anymore. ‘What’s so bad about drinking, mian?’ I asked.
— The drunkard doesn’t understand that.
— Who does?
— The lord keeps an account of all this.
— What accounts does he keep?
— Accounts that render a drunkard’s prayers futile.
My pent up laughter burst out now. I said, ‘I have wine, mian, it can make me forget everything; why do I need to pray?’
Now I do realize that a drunkard’s prayers are indeed never met. The drunkard’s consciousness is stuck in a place from which he cannot perceive anything else. But still I couldn’t give up drinking. Alcohol creates a cloistered environment that you can never escape—you can only whirl about inside it. Caught in this tornado, you become even lonelier with every passing day.
To tell you the truth, I had arrived in Shahjahanabad with a great deal of hope. My reputation as a poet was growing, but there was no dearth of people to insult me at every mushaira. I did not want to write ghazals full of clichés as Zauq and Momin did. To me each word was like a crystal; when the light of the heart fell on a word, it gave birth to a rainbow. When I wandered about in Kale Mahal or on Akbarabad’s roads, I could hear the sounds of cascading tears concealed within words, Manto bhai. Do you know who wept inside those words? Souls that had been lost in the sky and the air and space. I could hear their sighs as I wrote my ghazals. Why would the people who sent mushairas into raptures every single day ever want to understand me? They had only one task—throw that bastard Ghalib out, humiliate him, he must never be allowed a place in the king’s court. The swine doesn’t care for anyone, doesn’t consider anyone his master. Indeed I don’t, I know that I’m the best after Amir Khusrau, I and I alone can hold aloft the banner of the Farsi ghazal. I don’t consider anyone without the guts to write ghazals in Farsi a poet, Manto bhai. There was no one in my life I could say these things to. I would say them to myself, alone, for my own benefit.
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