“Books are the mirror of the soul”

 There are few things in life which can tell one about oneself as convincingly as books, if only one knows how to read correctly. When I read a book, I read more than the letters and the plots, I read a lot more about me. As I read, the words come together and form a narrative closely linked with the reality I was wishing to escape from or trying to grasp a clearer hold of. My apprehensions about my career, my fear of ending up doing nothing of value joins some hostess’s anxiety of being reduced to an organiser of an evening full of futile entertainment. Maybe she wanted to be more than a hostess, maybe she chose the flowers herself because that’s the only thing she can seek appreciation through. She wants to be more than that but how could she ever be, so she’ll be the best in what she can be. This is my review of a book I liked more than I understood. But my Mrs Dalloway is so different from the next reader that I should doubt my understanding. And I would. Had I not understood that what I see is what I wish to see. Woolf could’ve whispered in my ear that Dalloway can never be touched by my everyday anxieties and I still wouldn’t separate them. Because what’s a character that cannot tell me what I am and what I’m not? And what’s a book that doesn’t show me myself.

But do books show or tell? Or maybe Woolf is right in that books reflect, somewhat like mirrors. Mirrors are some of the most fascinating things for a child. The first sight of their own reflection is an absurd image because it moves with them, its eyes seem to be staring into the soul. The realisation slowly sets in that this image isn’t a trick of the mind but our own self. And we finally perceive what we are and how we’re seen by everyone around but us. This must be the strangest power an entity can hold – making us see our own possession. I believe books hold the same power. Like a fascinated child, we explore the lines and look for things to make sense of the absurdity someone once wrote down. Authors and their intentions stop holding meaning beyond an extent as these carefully constructed worlds are handed off to a reader who comes in either with naïve notions or high headed expectations. For people like me, reading books is usually a scavenger hunt because we locate the pieces that can fit together for our strangely preconceived interpretations to fall into place. I wonder how I know how to create this coherent meaning suitable to my worldview. Maybe Woolf is again right in pointing that the origin and source of these interpretations lie within one’s soul. Where else would that empathy come from which I felt for Lawrence’s Mrs Morel even when she suffocated her son with adulation. The never-ending battle between mother and son was inevitable but had no wrong sides for me. Sons and Lovers, for me, became the first book which showed humanity in its rawness. All characters were shades of grey and understandably so. For someone who resists absolutes and binaries with all their might, complexity is the ultimate refuge and books about Dalloways and Morels offer me just that.

But if books reflect then reflections are never perceived in the same way by two people. You may look at your face in the mirror and get fixated on that spot of skin which is still blotched from that time when you had carelessly popped the zits on your face. While your mother could stand behind you, look at the same reflection and see a child who grew up too soon to start worrying about zits. Books too are subject to similar inconsistencies of perception. There are times you can’t make yourself see what others are seeing, making you a part of unpopular opinion holders. The Kite Runner was a similar experience for me. I didn’t appreciate the book as intensely as those who suggested it to me. The book ended up teaching me that I’m a stickler for rawness and authenticity. The series of coincidences kept reminding me about the impracticality of the situations and prevented the book from becoming a favourite as I’d hoped it would be.

Just as one’s mirror image is flipped yet rooted in reality, I realise that this matter of the soul cannot always be beyond the expectations of one’s realism. But the soul isn’t ruled by the mind alone, the heart is equally compelling. And this is why books seem to exist in a plane where the yardsticks of realistic and unrealistic lose conventional meaning. Whatever hits home is realistic and whatever doesn’t fit into one’s pursuit of pleasure from reading is rejected. Books are the mirrors that reflect our souls both explicitly and from between the lines. The latter is deemed difficult, but what eludes us the most is reading what lies at the forefront. But once we learn to grasp the reflections from those pages, we end up with a knowledge which is at times inconceivable but always invaluable.

 - Asna Jamal

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Let yourself be silently drawn by the strongest pull of what you really love

If one was to ask an academician, Maulana Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī was the master of Love. However, for most people, Rumi was a mystic Sufi saint, whose lyricism and scholarly abilities have nurtured the future of thousand poets and artists in modern age. Rumi had always been a great scholar, teaching law and theology to his students. Being an erudite, his eloquence attracted many disciples, despite the fact that he was still in his early twenties. But the appearance of Shams transformed him into a devotee of music, dance and poetry. Albeit with his disappearance for the first time, Rumi immortalized Shams by celebrating him in his poetry as the embodiment of the divine beloved. History has it when Rumi and Shams met again, they fell at each other’s feet, not knowing who the lover was and who the beloved. Rumi named an entire collection of his odes The Works of Shams of Tabriz. Strangely, apart from researchers, little is known to the world of his lover, his companion in mysticism, his beloved disciple, Shams ad-Din of Tabriz. Some even wonder if he had been a real person, at all.

Shams, which literally translates to ‘the sun’, was a wandering dervish. A fireball, who had a remarkable curiosity and was a keen observer. Calling himself an interpreter of dreams, Shams had always known about his innate difference between himself and the rest of the world. He once asked his father to go back to his coop, if he wasn’t an ocean like him. Shocked at Shams behavior, his father was worried about his survival in the world. Little did he know that his son was anything but ordinary. Shams repeatedly claimed that he never had dream, instead he just had visions. These very visions were the beginning of his search for love and companionship. To him, ‘a good man was one thing, a lover something else’.

Long before Shams of Tabriz met the glorious Rumi, he was aware of his revered existence. Uncanny as it may seem, the search for his venerated companion made the dervish travel across the entire Middle-East, when he finally met Rumi, in Konya, to devour the sherbet of knowledge and to fill the void that had left his life incomplete. Such was his devotion that he was ready to sacrifice his head in return of the love that he was to receive. As for Rumi, Shams became a part of his dream. His longing grew stronger with each passing day. The finality of their meeting was that they were inseparable. The sohbet (conversation) between Shams and Rumi were endless, leading to the inevitable envy amidst their other loved ones. Their illuminating oneness is still a mystery to millions. They let themselves be drawn to each other, which paved the way for the most beautiful poems in the history of poetry.

“The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”

Interestingly, Huston Smith goes as far to compare Dante and Beatrice to Rumi and Shams. One might always wonder, why Rumi loved or was affectionate towards Shams to such an extent, that he paid no heed to anyone else. Perhaps, the answer is intertwined between the memories of those who claim, it always takes but a lover to find his beloved. It was Rumi’s eyes which found the spiritual magnificence in Shams.

For us millennials, perhaps the most difficult theory still remains. What really is love?
Is it as easy as what Shahrukh Khan narrates in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai?  Pyar dosti hai. Love is friendship. Some of us would surely cringe on that dialogue, and others perhaps would drool over its romance. Maybe we share secrets, ice-creams and coffee, trying to decipher love in letters written over WhatsApp statuses.

Or is Love as unconventional, complex and philosophical as we read through in Rumi’s quotes? Metaphysical, if one may call it. If we are to dive deep into them, we would find ourselves lost in the unnerving ocean of words and their countless meanings. The silence of love has been a matter of discussion between great scholars since time immemorial. Silence too is deafening, when there is a storm of separation between lovers, and perhaps the last conversation they ever share is through the silence of their brimming eyes. Rumi talks of this silence when lovers are drawn into union of love.

As for my part, to define something I am drawn to because of love, only reminds me of my father. The minute little things that he does make me feel the most cherished. Something as mundane as cutting nails becomes precious, if it is Baba who does it. His stories of struggle in Leh, Madras, Gujarat can keep me glued to him for eternity. I think, rice, dal and mashed potatoes are the tastiest if he feeds me. You may call it a stereotypical father-daughter emotional connect. Nevertheless, it is the stereotype I most admire.

To define the ‘pull of love’ in vaguely literal terms, can just bind it to shackles of chains, I believe. True essence of it, is rather subjective to each human. Let us then reminisce Rumi’s words, “Love is the religion and the universe is the book.”

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Reminiscing Faiz: Aap Ki Yaad Aati Rahi Raat Bhar

When the times are dark and the realities get delusional, no other art form but poetry can soothe our disquiet and arouse us to our complacency. Amongst all other languages and literature, Urdu language and Urdu poetry holds a unique place in everyone’s heart and one can never imagine having a complete understanding of contemporary Urdu poetry without recognizing the significance of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s varied oeuvre.

Born on February 13, 1911 in village Kala Qadir, Sialkot, that is now a part of Pakistan, Faiz began his poetic career in the 1930s during British imperialism in India. No later than that he became an iconic voice of a generation. He was one such poet whose revolutionary verses denounced tyranny and strove for justice. He used his melancholic yet musical lines to weave tender strands of hope and promise amongst the youth in those turbulent times. Faiz was also remarkably known for his coruscating and soulful love poems.

By the beginning of the 1930s, the Anti-British sentiment and desire for national freedom was at its peak, several anti-imperialistic and left-oriented groups mushroomed with the intention to inspire writings that advocated for an egalitarian society and stood up against injustice and backwardness. Faiz also became a member of the Progressive Writers’ Movement. Communalism had been sparked off between the Hindu and Muslim communities of pre-partition India and Faiz, a poet merely in his twenties then, got upset due to the political circumstances and he was triggered to write against these forces of communalism and confront the colonial presence.

In those times of oppressive socio-political structure, the Progressive Writers’ Movement was driven by Marxist ideology. The movement was founded in 1935 in London and had some famous idealists as its members- Sajjad Zaheer, Rashid Jahan, Kaifi Azmi, Ismat Chughtai, Ahmed Faraz, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Manto, Mulk Raj Anand, Makhdoom Mohiuddin and Faiz himself.

Faiz’s first collection of poetry got published in the year 1941 by the name of ‘Naqsh –e- Fariyaadi’ (The Image of Complaint). It had significant poems that arouse every emotion in the readers’ hearts – Mujhse Pehli Si Mohabbat Meri Mehboob Na Maang (Beloved, Don’t Ask Me for the Love That Was), Tanhaai (Solitude), Bol (Speak) and Iqbal (Iqbal). Tanhaai and Bol have been ranked high among literary critics. Iqbal had been written by Faiz in his memory where he called his fellow writer Iqbal ‘khush-nawa fakir’ (a sweet-singing fakir).

In 1947, Faiz became the editor of two dailies in Lahore - The Pakistan Times and The Imroz. He also became the Vice President of Trade Union Congress in 1951 and was sent to San Francisco and Geneva during this time as a part of Pakistani Government’s delegation to the International Labour Organization. While everything seemed to be working quite well for him, Faiz got arrested in connection with the Rawalpindi conspiracy case. But getting behind the bars couldn’t cage his stream of thoughts and emotions.

Faiz published his second collection in 1952 by the name of ‘Dast-e-Saba’ (The Touch of the Breeze). Several poems were included in this collection – Subh-e-Azaadi (Dawn of the Freedom), Sheeshon ke Maseeha Koi Nahin (The Heart’s Wine Glass, Once Broken, Cannot be Repaired) and others. The first poem of this collection, when he was denied the tools to write his poetry in prison, shows his undeterred optimism and protest against tyranny. With the Independence and Partition of India, tumultuous circumstances engulfed the subcontinent, mass migration and terrible massacres followed. It was then, Faiz wrote one of his greatest poems Subh-e-Azaadi (Dawn of the Freedom) that expresses deep sense of grief for the ways things had turned out. This poem is known for its ambiguous use of metaphors and context that it tries to portray.

By 1953, Faiz was transferred to Hyderabad jail and was released in April 1955 on bail, and then acquitted in September the same year.

The third collection of poetry by Faiz, published in 1956 by the name of ‘Zindaan-Nama’ (Prison Narrative) had poems like Ay Raushniyon ke Shahr (O City of Lights!) and Koi Aashiq Kisi Mehbooba Se (A Lover to a Beloved).

Faiz was again imprisoned for a short time during Ayyub Khan’s martial law in 1958. He was awarded Lenin Peace Prize four years later. His fourth collection of poems ‘Dast-e-tah-e-Sang’ (Poems from Duress) got published in 1965.

It was probably the Progressive Writers’ Movement from where Makhdoom Mohiuddin and Faiz got to know each other and became close friends.

Makhdoom, known for his remarkable verses Aap Ki Yaad Aati Rahi Raat Bhar and Phir Chhidi Raat, was characterized as a “reluctant Progressive” by Carlo Coppola. He argued that unlike Faiz, Makhdoom knew how to differentiate his romantic and revolutionary poetry. He remarked Makhdoom’s shift from one genre to another to be gradual and complex. After the Partition, he stayed in India while Faiz stayed in Pakistan, but Urdu connected them across borders. 

Both of them had love for their common language and an understanding for each other’s culture and the past as well as the contemporary struggles. Among Faiz’s eight volumes that had been published, his one of the last poems is a beautiful ghazal that Faiz wrote in 1969 when his dear friend passed away. This ode borrows the meter and the refrain from Makhdoom’s own ghazal Aap Ki Yaad Aati Rahi Raat Bhar. In his tribute, Faiz expresses his sorrow and says how his memories keep coming back to him all night.

In the contemporary times, when the present is so dark, the dignity of every individual is questionable, and the freedom to speak up against injustice has been snatched away in this world, the poetry by Faiz is relevant and hence needed to be read more than ever before.

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‘YOU ARE A WIZARD HARRY’

When Joanne Rowling was born 52 years ago on 31^st July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling in a very humble background, no body probably realized that a star was born who would grow up to light the minds of an entire generation and more with magic, an inspiration who would give the dying Young Adult Fantasy genre a new life and hundreds of authors would later follow her footsteps.

Rowling’s story is a typical ‘rags to riches’ one but there is nothing mundane or ordinary about it, when one take a closer look at her long struggle, it becomes very clear that every single hardship that plagued her life defined her character and in many ways, gave fodder to her masterpiece. Her disturbed childhood, with an extremely strained relationship with her father, her mother’s long illness and her seeking solace in books because she felt that no one understood her , later gave her strength to give birth to the character of Hermione Granger, a character who she has confessed to be most alike her. It is of course unlikely that Rowling was thinking of flying brooms, spells or house rivalries when she started school at St. Michael’s Primary School at Winterbourne, but it has been hinted that her then headmaster Alfred Dunn became her inspiration for writing the enigmatic and very esoteric headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. Studying French and Classics at the University of Exeter was never really her plan as she aspired to be a part of the reputed Oxford University, but she nevertheless embraced the opportunity with open arms.

It was on a four- hour- delayed train trip from Manchester to London, that idea of a young boy attending a school for wizardry and witchcraft first entered her mind and she went on to write her ideas, the moment she reached home. It was during that time when she was still writing Harry Potter, that Rowling lost her mother. Harry’s pain and remorse over his mother’s death is very much Rowling’s own. But her struggle that would test her mettle started after she moved to Portugal and found herself in a strained and abusive marriage, a life she walked out of with an infant daughter and a suitcase with the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, carrying with her nothing but regret and a feeling that her life was an utter failure. The concept of ‘dementers’ is the product of her depression and remorse. It was in those years living in Edinburg , Scotland in poverty without a job and with an infant Jessica to take care of , that Rowling actually started writing Harry Potter full time.

Rowling adopted her grandmother’s name Kathleen, for her penname J.K as her publishers believed that young boys would probably not like to read a fantasy book on a wizard boy, written by a woman, but since their publication, the amount of woman writers writing fantasy novels has sky rocketed and the YA genre is laden with promising woman writers.

The Harry Potter books are a brand in itself, to say that their only accolade is to be the bestselling book series of all time would be wrong. Harry Potter is a way of life, being a ‘potterhead’ is a part of one’s being, it’s not merely the largest fandom ever, it is also the most important one for an entire generation. The Harry Potter generation speaks for every dreamer, every curious child who aspires for a letter in a faded brown paper brought in by an ugly owl asserting their acceptance at the biggest school for wizardry and witchcraft. If the mid- 20th century kids looked inside their closet for a distant fairy land with fawns and a giant lion in a majestic place called Narnia then this is the generation which believes that there is an another world in the other side of the wall, a world that watches over us with wonder, amusement and at times contempt, a world we all desperately seek to be a part of. Did Rowling realise what she was giving the world when she wrote Harry, Hermione and Ron? Did she have an inkling that the word ‘always’ would become almost as sacred as a sermon after she made her most complex and difficult character utter them? Perhaps not, perhaps she was merely giving all the characters a part of herself, perhaps in doing so she created something she never really hoped for.

Or may be perhaps she knew all along that she was giving a generation a way of living, a generation who doesn’t remember a life before Harry Potter.

It would hardly be fair to say that Rowling doesn’t have her flaws, her protagonist Harry is extremely flawed himself, but like Harry, it is Rowling’s flaws that make her series so beautiful. In her excessive detailing of every scene, in her over creativity and in her somewhat twisted sense of justice, Rowling made her books a legend. These attributes are so unique of Rowling, that they became beautiful under her penmanship. Edgar Poe’s famous commentary, ‘’There is no exquisite beauty…without some strangeness in the proportion’’ is very defining of Rowling and her works.

As this maestro who has been bestowed with several  honorary titles from the British Crown and alike turns 52, it is well to remember her as a legend who showed the reading public a new world, a world that would be kept alive across the globe by its lovers. Harry Potter shall always live in the hearts of the billion Potterheads and the stories written in Potterverse will never exhaust and in those stories. JK Rowling will live on forever and would continue to be the light that would ignite the imagination.

- Annesha Mahanta

Munshi Premchand: A legacy unprecedented

A most ardent scholar from the realist school of literature, Munshi Premchand spoke to the very heart of the reading public, with his unique humour and devoted observation and commentary on the social life of that period.

Born as Dhanpat Rai in the year 1880 on 31st of July in the Lamhi village near Varanasi to Ajaib Lal (a post office clerk) and Anandi Devi (a housewife from Karauni village), Premchand was brought up with immense love and care especially from his grandfather. It has been noted that he was an ardent scholar of books from a very ripe age and started learning Persian and Urdu at a Madrassa where his formal education began at the age of 7. A very significant and defining incident that gave shape to his thinking and countenance was the death of his mother and his father's subsequent remarriage. His precarious relationship with his stepmother and the repercussions of his childhood played an integral and defining role in his future writings.

It was only after his enrollment in a missionary school that Premchand learnt English and read George W. M. Reynolds’s eight-volume series named 'The Mysteries of the Court of London, and even though he took admission at Queen's College , in Benares, he couldn't really continue his education because of his early marriage and the untimely death of his father.

 His life after his father's death became an epitome of struggle and sacrifices, but Premchand never really gave up on his love for reading and writing, and continued to cherish and pursue his greatest ambition, his greatest dream , amidst all that chaos that had taken over his life.

      As the literature lovers across the world marks his 137^th, birth anniversary, it is important to remember, that this master novelist and story writer who in his life time gave Indian literature 14 novels and 300 short stories, a feat quite magnificent was a man quite ahead of his time and quite ahead of the humble dwellings that he found himself in by the virtue of his birth. Premchand was a socialist, a feminist and in a society where the peasants, widows, and prostitutes were oppressed and looked down upon, he was an advocate and preacher for their rights and equality. His writings are a living proof of how much bothered and worried he was by the social atrocities of his time, and how zealously he hoped to be the beacon of hope and change that he desperately wanted to see in the world, and perhaps that is why his writings were more social than political, something quite unlike the then trend back then

His short stories ‘Idgah’, ‘Kafan’, ‘Do Bailon ki Katha’  and ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’  amongst others reflects his genius and his brilliant command over the written word which consisted of a delicious combination of Hindi and Urdu. In these stories Premchand creates an enchantment using the mundanity of human relations. There is something in Hamid saving his pocket money to buy a chimta for his grandmother who had burned her fingers while making chapattis, something in the projection of an Indian farmer’s attachment to his cattle and something in his profound understanding of a child’s psychology, that still moves the reader to tears and reflects an undeniable candor, even after a hundred years since their publication and perhaps it is the very reason that his short stories are still a very prime part of the school curriculum across the country.

       Premchand was a feeling author, he felt the pain of those around him with an intensity that was very much unique of him, and he channelised this very moving intensity into his writings. His novels ‘Karmabhoomi’  set against the backdrop of Satyagraha movement and ‘Nirmala’  which takes up the daunting issue of dowry depicts how well this maestro understood his subject and how much he stood apart from his contemporaries like Jaishankar Prashad and Sharatchandra Chattopadhyaya. These novels along with ‘Sevsadan Mansarovar’ are a symbol of Premchand’s formulating genius and writing but it was with his ‘Godan’ and ‘Gaban’, that he reached his cult status. Considered to be his magnum opus, these canonical works brought out the best of Premchand. His definition of literature as ‘sahitya jeevan ki aalochana hain’ (literature is the device to examine human life) is nowhere better stressed upon than in these novels, where Premchand muses over humanity and nature with a brilliant but almost sad commentary and with a rare but endearing humour. His characters are not ideal; they are aesthete but lacking virulence, very much like his writings and in them he created something universal, they speak to all ages, because in them the reader finds oneself, regardless of the timeline. There are no ghosts in Premchand, his works palpitates with blood, and it is as warm as a living flesh and as serene as the morning sun.

But when one takes a look at his essays, they seem to portray a new side of Premchand; a picture of a human being in search for truth, a restless artist whose views resonates with that of George Orwell. ‘Saahitya ka aadhar’, ‘Saahitya ki pragati’ and ‘Saahitya aur manovigyaan’  talks about his belief that literature could bring beauty to this world and make this world a better place. He was very much like the romantics, William Wordworth, John Keats and Lord Byron in his juxtaposing truth and beauty. Empathy and aesthetic went hand in hand for him and he chased this very sensory pleasure to attain an enriched conscience, not only for himself but also for his indifferent and somewhat clueless middle class reader.

Munshi Premchand stands alone with his remarkable sensitivity, precocious literary abilities, and colloquial diction lacking any esotericism and with a vision bright and vivid. Though his life was cut short at the age of 56, his works surely has attained a greater significance since then, an almost revered importance that makes him live in his writings and would continue to do so.

In his strange ability to leave the reader spellbound, in his role as a torch bearer to the numerous marginalised people and in his search for the greater good, laid a heart of a voracious reader, a reader who loved the very essence of texts, a worshipper of the written word and a priest of the religion that is literature, Munshi Premchand remains a figure quite unmatched, a picture of thought and justice, a novel that would probably never cease to mesmerise its reader.

- Ms. Annesha Mahanta

The Dominant One

                                         Haiñ aur bhī duniyā meñ suḳhan-var bahut achchhe

Kahte haiñ ki 'ġhālib' kā hai andāz-e-bayāñ aur

(Indeed the universe own many great eloquent, but they say,

‘Ghalib’ possess a unique style of narration)

Mirza Ghalib was a preeminent Urdu and Persian language poet during the last years of Mughal Empire. His name is synonymous with Urdu poetry and is considered by many as the greatest Urdu poet ever.

The life history of Ghalib is truly fascinating and his biography indeed makes a captivating read.

The real name of Ghalib was Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan. Later, he adopted 'Mirza Ghalib' (Ghalib means dominant) as his pen name. His honorifics were 'Dabir-ul-mulk' and ‘Najm-ud-Daula’, as specified by last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Mirza Ubaidullah Beg was his father, who tied the knot with Izzatun-nisa in Agra. She gave birth to Mirza Ghalib on 27^th December, 1797.

Na thā kuchh to ḳhudā thā 

Kuchh na hotā to ḳhudā hotā

Duboyā mujh ko hone ne

 Na hotā maiñ to kyā hotā

(In nothingness God was there, if naught he would persist
Existence has sunk me, what loss, if I didn’t exist)

During his childhood, Ghalib lost his parents. His upbringing was done by his uncle Mirza Nasrullah Beg Khan, but when he was eight years old, his uncle also died. Ghalib took to poetry at an early age and wrote his first poem for his teacher when he was only eleven.

Mirza Ghalib got his initial education by Molvi Mohammad Muazzam who was a renowned scholar of Agra. During his early life, a traveller, Abdus Samad came from Iran to stay in Agra. He stayed with Ghalib and his family for two years. It is presumed that Ghalib learnt Persian, Arabic, logic, philosophy etc. from him.

Kyuuñ jal gayā na tāb-e-ruḳh-e-yār dekh kar

Jaltā huuñ apnī tāqat-e-dīdār dekh kar

(Why didn’t I turn to ashes seeing her face so glowing, bright

By envy now I am flamed, at strength of my own sight)

In 1810, when Mirza was only thirteen years old, he got married to Umrao Begum. She had a contrasting personality when compared to him. They had seven children, but unfortunately none of them survived. This pain has also found its way into his poetry. In the same year, he left his hometown and moved to Delhi. This migration was a major turning point in his life. He befriended some of the most respected and intelligent people of Delhi

Apnī galī meñ mujh ko na kar dafn baad-e-qatl
Mere pate se ḳhalq ko kyuuñ tere ghar mile

 (In your street, do not inter me, when I cease to be
Why should people find your house when they look for me)

He also became an important courtier of the royal court of  Bahadur Shah Zafar.  As the Emperor was himself a poet, Mirza Ghalib was appointed as his poet tutor in 1854. He was also appointed by the Emperor as the royal historian of Mughal Court.

Being a member of declining Mughal nobility and old landed aristocracy, he never worked for a livelihood and lived on either royal patronage of the Emperor, credit or the generosity of his friends.
Alcohol consumption and irregular lifestyle took a toll on his health and he passed away on 15^th February 1869.

Mirza Ghalib occupies a place of pride in world literature. He is also one of the most quotable poets having couplets for almost all situations of life. Ghalib today remains popular not only in India and Pakistan but also amongst diaspora communities around the world.

--Ms.Mazia Ahmed

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Famous Writers , Infamous Habits

We often read a story and wonder how it occurred to its author, or how they decided to put it on paper. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon that the mode of writing is often a result of a writer’s personal eccentric habits. Many authors could not put down their coffee while writing, many others needed to puff cigarettes as they wrote. Let’s have a look at some of the very odd ones.

Friedrich von Schiller
The German poet and philosopher, Friedrich Schiller, would keep rotten apples in his desk drawer. He would deliberately let the apples rot, because the aroma (or the pungent odour) inspired him to write. This was relayed to his readers by his friend Goethe, who once had the fortunate (or unfortunate) opportunity of being at Schiller’s desk himself, where he could smell the odour emanating from the rotten apples. 

Victor Hugo
Hugo was known to have purposely driven himself to write
​The Hunchback of Notre Dame ​ against a deadline of a little over six months. He put himself on house arrest and locked away all his clothes, so he wouldn’t be lured to leave the house or attend a party. It is often said he wrote in a state of complete nakedness. And yes, he met his deadline.  Honor​é​ de Balzac The French novelist Honoré de Balzac consumed some 40 to 50 cups of coffee a day to get his creative juices flowing. Some sources says that he would take a 90-minute nap twice or thrice during a day, and continue to write during the rest. 

Tennessee Williams
The famous American author and playwright, known for his masterpiece ​A Streetcar Named Desire was known to have struggled through an alcohol addiction. He could not write without a certain amount of alcohol in his system. This addiction eventually led to his death, when he choked on a bottle cap due to his inability to spit it out in a state of drunkenness. 

Truman Capote
The famous American author, Truman Capote, had a variety of personal idiosyncrasies. He couldn’t begin or end anything on a Friday. He wrote on his bed, lying down, with a cigarette and a cup of coffee always handy. 

Lord Byron
The famous Romantic poet, Lord Byron, needed to have sex to write. He was a bi-sexual, and was known to have slept with over 250 men and women in a single year at Venice, and to remember each of his adventures, he clipped a strand of his partner’s pubic hair and saved it in an envelope marked with his or her name. 

Charles Dickens
The much-loved author of the Victorian era, Charles Dickens, visited the morgue regularly. He used to spend hours at a morgue, just staring at the dead bodies. It fascinated him to look at the human bodies, dead and naked. The researches have gone to lengths to prove that Dickens was also obsessed with the idea of cannibalism. 

Charles Baudelaire
The French poet had a very odd habit of keeping his pet bat in a cage on his writing desk. Apparently, looking at his bat helped him in articulating his ideas into poetry better. He also talked about his bat, obsessively, at lengths, during interviews and social gatherings. 

(Contributed by Ms.Mokshda Manchanda)