Journey to Kalkatta

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869) who lived a life of 72 years came to Kalkatta on 20 February, 1828, at the age of 31. Although not as youthful as one is at the age of 31, yet he undertook a long and arduous journey for an acutely personal reason.  This was the longest journey of his life via seven important places: Kanpur, Lucknow, Banda, Allahabad, Benares, Azimabad, and Murshidabad. To and from Kalkatta, he travelled for over 3000 kilometres on horseback, horse carriage, bullock cart, and boats, and also fell ill many times on the way.

On arrival, he wrote a letter to Nawab Mohammad Ali about the travails of his journey. He ended on a happy note saying that he had got a very spacious house on a monthly rent of six rupees (some say ten rupees) and that it had all that could bring him comfort. On the first floor, it had a big room that the wealthy alone could afford, he said. Also, it had a big lavatory and a well of sweet water in its courtyard. The house was comfortable both for human beings and animals. He probably meant it was a nice house that also had enough space for the horse that he rode from Banda to Kalkatta.

About his residence he wrote that it was located at Cheet Bazar in Shimla Bazar near a pond. The house that belonged to one Mirza Ali Saudagar existed until the beginning of the 20^th c. Its present location is around Maniktala and Beadon Street and it has now been identified as 133 Betheun Row.

Reason for going to Kalkatta

Ghalib looked towards Kalkatta as it was the capital during those days (1774 to 1911) and it was here that he could pursue his case for his pension before the British authorities. His basic plea was that the annual amount of rupees 1500/- which was fixed after the death of his uncle Nasrullah Beg was not paid to him with regularity. Since he was economically hard up, hugely indebted and miserable because of his younger brother Mirza Yusuf going crazy, he made three specific demands concerning his pension: (a) the British administration should first acknowledge the real heirs of Nasrullah Khan, (b) each heir should receive his pension separately, (c) he should be appointed as the caretaker, (d) the amount that Nawab Ahmad Bakhsh Khan did not pay to the real heirs of Nasrullah Khan should be recovered from his property, and (e) since Ahmad Bakhsh Khan was in no way related to Nasrullah Khan, the pension due should be paid from the British Treasury.       

The British officials, Mr. Andrews Sterling, Simon Fraser in Calcutta, Mr. Colebrook and Sir John Malcolm received him courteously whenever he went to meet them. He even wrote a panegyric for Andrews Sterling in Persian which contained 202 shers, ie, 404 lines but none could help as the administration was of the view that his case was untenable. Finally, Ghalib sent his representation to the British government in England for merciful consideration which was finally rejected. Indeed, his case had fallen a prey to official rigmarole as the story of his struggle for pension, as recorded in various sources, shows.

A disappointed Ghalib left Kalkatta on 20/21 August, 1829 and reached Delhi after three months on 18 November.   Here, he was told that his claims were baseless and that his case was finally closed. He was really pained when he heard the British officials say that he was a poet and poets are known to exaggerate.

Love for Calcutta

Kalkatta remained an intersection space in Ghalib’s memory all his life. This is well borne out by what he wrote to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in response to his request to write a blurb for his Aasaar-us-Sanaadeed. Ghalib wrote to him, “M dear Syed, why are so worried about the dead and the gone. Go to Kalkatta and see how the ships move in the deep waters, how telegraphic messages travel thousands of miles in no time, and how industries are set up...”

Ghalib loved Kalkatta’s climate and its mangoes. He adored the manners of the English men and women, their cleanliness and their fashionable ways. He was awed by the magical steam ships and boats with high mast in Hooghly, as also the gas lamps on the road that made life easy. He even noticed the women of loose morals who had their heyday even in those days. This highly observant and sensitive person was also kept happy and high in spirits by his friends in the city like Maulvi Sirajuddin Ahmad Khan who was a scholar, Nawab Akbar Ali Khan who was the mutawwali of Hooghly Imambada, Abul Qasim, Munshi Mohammad Hasan who were respected townsmen, and also the Iranian traders in whose language Ghalib took pride and distinguished himself as a poet and writer. All of them admired him for his talent as a literary figure of extraordinary merit. He admired Kalkatta also because it was one of the most important cities of the East, apart from being the seat of the British administration. In addition, it was a mercantile centre and was distinguished both socially and culturally.

Ghalib was not much interested in travelling otherwise and enjoying spectacles (hawas-e sair o tamaasha so wo kam hai hum ko) yet Kalkatta attracted him. In a letter to Maulvi Sirajuddin Ahmad he shared how he pined for this place after he returned to Delhi. He wrote, “Had I gone there in my prime youth and had I not been taken into marital bond, I would have settled there for good.” He was impressed by architectures and institutions which included Madrasa Aliah, Govt House, Bengal Club, Custom House, Shaheed Minar, Town Hall, College of Fort William, Imperial Bank, Library of Royal Asiatic Society, Writers Building, Belvedere Building, Kalighat, St. George Church, and Sanskrit College. In his letters, he also mentioned Chitpur, Entally, Shimla Bazaar, Lal Diggi, Birju Talaab in great admiration.

Literary Polemics

In spite of all his love for Kalkatta, Ghalib’s life in Kalkatta was not all that easy. He was made miserable by one Mirza Mohammad Hasan Qateel and his associates who, in their acts of rivalry, found technical and linguistic faults in his verses. Literary history does not remember Qateel but for one reason that he was an arch rival of Ghalib, the poet extraordinary. He was also attacked for personal reasons like having more than one name (Asad and Ghalib) and following a certain sect of Islamic faith (Shi’ism). He was even hooted while walking through the streets and was advised to change his residence which he did not agree to do. As matters turned too unpleasant, Ghalib wrote a long poem in Persian called Baad-e Mukhaalif where he amply justified his stance on his poetry and poetics and also wrote about how some people had made his life miserable in Kalkatta.

Ghalib was invited to three mushairas in Kalkatta that were held at Madrasa Aliah on 1, 8, and 15, June 1828. Urdu and Persian poets were given misra-i tarah, that is, a line to compose their ghazals in the same metre and the same qafia and radeef but Ghalib was asked to compose his ghazals in both the languages. When he read out his ghazals, he received applause which irked his detractors immensely. As his arch rivals went on finding faults with his poetry, he simply considered them as fools who hardly knew anything about poetry and poetics. He defended himself and considered it an offence that he should be compared with a poetaster like Qateel. As Qateel and his cohorts took their attack on Ghalib’s phraseology to the pages of a Persian weekly called Jaame Jahan Numa, Ghalib wrote a letter to the editor of the weekly humbly seeking his indulgence to put him good stead as all that was being reported against him was nothing else but malicious propaganda. 

Ghalib’s Genius    

Poets in all languages and places are known to have their detractors. So, was the case with Ghalib. The good aspect is that they are also saved and restored by men of taste. This happened with Ghailb too. He had his admirers who sustained him through hard times. One of them, Maulvi Sirajuddin Ahmad, who was a scholar of repute, asked him to put together a collection of his Persian and Urdu poetry. He agreed to do so and came up with a volume called Gul-e Rana after eight months of his arrival in Kalkatta. This, along with Baad-e Mukhalif, was the gift that Kalkatta brought to him. During those days, Persian was more popular than Urdu and Ghalib had equal expertise in both the languages. It is remarkable that by the age of thirty he already had four collections of his Urdu ghazals to his credit. Later, he wrote mostly in Persian which might also be considered a gift of his stay in Kalkatta where Persian was the language of serious literary expression.

Ghalib maintained an ambiguous relationship with Kalkatta. His stay of a year and half changed the course of his life and poetry. He grew more philosophical towards life and the world and could engage with literature and literary polemics with greater vigour. Even though he left Kalkatta with nothing in hand in terms of the grants he expected from the British administration, apart from the ugly treatment he received from his detractors, this city remained a constant reminder to him for all its niceties. He expressed his sentiments in no uncertain terms:

Kalkatte ka jo zikr kiya tu ne hamnasheen
Ek teer mere seeney mein maaraa ke hai hai
Wo sabzazar hai moattar ke ke hai ghazab
Wo nazneen butaane khud aara ke hai hai
Sabr aazma wo un ki nagahein ke haf nazar
Taaqat ruba wo un ka ishara ke hai hai
Wo mewa hai taaza-i sheereen ke hai hai
Wo baada haai naab-e gawara ke hai hai

To put him in a larger perspective, it may be suggested that Ghalib’s literary identities are many. He was a poet and a prose writer, an epistolarian and a diarist, a lexicographer and a polemist, a critic and a historian, and above all an arbiter of taste. Even though he was a great reader and loved the literature of classical temper, and was naturally given to preserving the vanishing glory of the past, the acquisition of knowledge in his case is more a matter of personal reflections and observations than of culling from the textual sources. He was a persistent plaintiff in the court of life where he seemingly lost his case but the complaints he articulated in his works engrossed the attention of his readers, as they were made sometimes with dignity and at others with defiance. He wrote, as if, to find a way through the crises and possibly to seek his resolution as artists often do at a metaphysical rather than a mundane level.