Ghalib netted
By: Mahmood Farooqui January 28, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope the poetry of Ghalib holds rewards for you too, but years of teaching have shown me that it's not up to me. If Ghalib wants you, against all odds he will reach out and grab you; he chooses his own readers, as he makes clear" � Frances W Pritchett Frances W Pritchett is certainly the best Urdu writer I have ever read in English, and arguably too, the best contemporary writer about Urdu, period. Nets of Awareness, her book on classical Urdu poetry is so good that I actually stole it out of a library. A reprehensible deed, no doubt, but I wanted to reserve the privilege of reading it for myself, and more than reading it, to enjoy the distinction of passing it around and introducing it to all who had not heard about it. I was (I am) content to bask in her reflected glory. I had first come across her as a translator of the Dastan-e-Amir Hamzah, which she has retold in a lucid and unobtrusive prose, with a learned introduction on the story and its antecedents. Indeed what little I know of that tradition and all I have so far written is but a charba, a poor pr�cis, of what she wrote. However, since she studied and was trained in Urdu at a University in America, where Urdu, Hindi and classical poetry have not been compartmentalised into moribund departments, she has studied and written about not only Urdu literature but also medieval poetic traditions, romantic and devotional, which are not easily categorised into Hindi or Urdu. So she has also written brilliantly on Hindi literature and produced evocative and arresting translations of some of the best Hindi writers like Premchand and Kamleshwar. I write all this only by way of a preamble to introduce something that she has called the `biggest academic exercise' she ever undertook. Except it is not an academic exercise at all, or not merely that. She has taken it upon herself to introduce, translate, expound and provide a gloss to all of Ghalib's ghazals. She annotates a couplet of Ghalib, in Urdu, Devnagri and Roman, and then adds a glossary, after which she reproduces the glosses of each of the great Ghalib experts before elucidating her own interpretation of the sher. This is definitely the place for beginners as well as aficionados to check their Ghalib for themselves. This Internet project is called A Desertful of Roses, the Urdu ghazals of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib and is best introduced in Pritchett's own words �"This project begins in sheer pleasure, as a chance to combine superb poetry with some gorgeous architecture and share it with anyone anywhere in the world. I make no assumptions about you, the reader, except that you are interested enough to take a look, and to find what you can or what you wish. Hours and hours of my life will go into making this site, and many of them will be hours of absolute delight. So I will already have had my reward� It was originally planned as a book and I began to work systematically on it in fall 2000. Then came the events of September 11, 2001. I felt then that I wanted to start making it available immediately rather than after several more years, and to everybody rather than chiefly to a small number of scholars." The Desertful of Roses is only one portion of the immense sea of riches that comprises the site maintained and run by FWP. Supported by the Columbia University as part of its South Asian program, the site is a virtual summum bonum of all things South Asian. Having gone into it, I have opened a few pages and I list them randomly to provide a flavour of the variety contained therein. Sources of Indian Tradition (religious, social and political), Maps of South Asia, of all times, Languages and Religions of South Asia; a complete, stunning collections of the most stupendous calligraphy produced in the Islamic world, South Asian Art and Architecture and a virtually complete guide to Urdu and Hindi literatures and literary cultures. In addition, the entire site has been beautifully decorated by photos and images of South Asian Architecture, some of them highly familiar but presented here in a manner, and from an angle, that makes them startlingly novel and fresh. It is a visual delight, an intellectual feast, an artistic nourishing soup and a soul-satisfying site-seeing trip, all in one place and time. It is an outstanding labour of love where devotion to South Asian poetry and art drips over from every word and imprint that has been put up there. The site, indeed the master key to South Asian literatures and traditions in general, can be reached at www.columbia.edu/~fp7/ As I read through this column I feel what I have written does less than justice to what was an overwhelming experience for me when I first accessed the site. Not only all of Ghalib, and most of Mir, but also a lot of Premchand, Rashid, Krishna Baldev Vaid, Faiz and Amir Hamza and Qissa-e Gul Bakawli, a mere fingertip away, arranged by somebody who has clearly reached the highly prized status of the classical Ustad, someone who could guide aspirants like us in a lifelong journey. But as this column takes a break, I can do worse than pay obeisance at the Ustad's feet. At least a beginning would have been made in undoing, as Mir puts it, my lack of awareness of myself. `Aap Bebahra hai jo mutaqid-e-fran nahin' (from http://web.mid- day.com/columns/mahmood_farooqui/2005/january/102403.htm) ------------------------ Yahoo! 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