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Tuesday, 19 February 2019

Ghalib's 150th anniversary- what changed meanwhile?

Like Mao's re-gifting to the Prole, his un-relished Pakistani mango
Or Ghalib re-gifting Gandhian Ind, an incompossible Mughal Hamlet
Poet's recoil from Revolution's Cultural Contango
Art's demotic devolution, the Heart's Parrando bet


Envoi-

Midons! Thy Eden muggled,what Carol housels Eve?
The two mangos she smuggled weren't up her sleeve.













Ali Mir wrote in Scroll.in-

Ghalib accompanying Bahadur Shah Zafar, in the orchard of Baagh-e Hayaat Bakhsh, whose fruit was reserved for the nobility. Ghalib peered at the mangoes with sufficient intent for Zafar to ask what he was looking for. Ghalib replied in a calculated fashion:

I have heard the elders say:
bar sar-e har daana ba-navishta ayaañ
ka-een fulaañ ibn-e fulaañ ibn-e fulaañ

(On every piece one can see written quite clearly
That this is for so-and-so, son of so-and-so, son of so-and-so)

Perhaps, said the canny old man, I can spot the names of my ancestors on these fruits. Zafar got the message and Ghalib his case of mangoes.

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