Mehr-E-Niimroz: The Noonday Sun

Man Kunto Maula at Sufi Dargah in Sarnath, India

2010-09-08T21:22:00.003-04:00

I have blogged before about the "little qawwali traditions" referring to the countless qawwals who sing at small town dargahs all over South Asia. Here is another example of the same. Bachcha Mohsin Qadri Qawwal and Part from Ghazipur, UP sing qaul at the urs (death anniversary) of a Sufi saint who lies buried in Sarnath near Banaras. Sarnath is famous as a "Buddhist town" because the Buddha preached his first sermon there after gaining enlightenment. But on this day, Muslim weavers from Banaras were to be found in the hundreds, strolling down Sarnath's main thoroughfare usually populated by Buddhist monks and European tourists.

Interviews with Sunil and Chitra Sahasrabudhey, Vidya Ashram, Sarnath, India

2010-09-02T16:21:00.002-04:00

During my stay in Varanasi for my PhD field work this past year, I sat down for a chat with long-time political activists Sunil and Chitra Sahasrabudhey of Vidya Ashram. I have uploaded the videos on a Vimeo channel here. Issues discussed are mainly to do with the social basis for radical change in India today.

Sunilji elaborates on his concept of the "bahishkrit samaj," the externed society, i.e that vast majority of India society which did not find a place in the new colonial society and continues to be the "informal economy" today. He also talks about the concept of lokavidya (knowledge among the people) and its relationship to radical politics today.

Chitraji discusses feminism from the bahishkrit pespective and also talks about the relationship between lokavidya and the local market.

Again all the videos are cataloged here.

महंगाई समाज में गैर-बराबरी बढ़ाती है (Inflation increases inequality in society)

2010-08-16T20:37:00.002-04:00

Another article (unedited version) written for Vidya Ashram's Hindi monthly Lokavidya Panchayat.

महंगाई समाज में गैर-बराबरी बढ़ाती है

पिछले कुछ सालों से दाल, चावल, चीनी और दूध जैसी जीवनावश्यक वस्तुओं की कीमतों में तेज़ बढौतरी की वजह से देश की आम जनता बहुत परेशान है. महंगाई के इर्द-गिर्द विपक्ष ने अपनी राजनीति खड़ी करने की काफी कोशिश की है. महंगाई के मुद्दे को लेकर यू पी ऐ सरकार के खिलाफ वाम दल भारतीय जनता पार्टी के साथ एक मंच पर खड़े दिखायी पड़े. आखिर महंगाई क्या है और समाज के विभिन्न वर्गों पर इस का क्या असर पड़ता है? आइये इस पर एक नज़र डालें.

महंगाई यानी बाज़ार में बिकने वाली चीजों के दाम में वृद्धि. इस वृद्धि के कई कारण हो सकते हैं. जब तेल जैसी वस्तु महँगी होती है तो इसका परिणाम बाज़ार की लग-भाग हर वस्तु पर पड़ता है क्यूंकि तेल का उपयोग हर चीज़ के वितरण में होता है, और इंधन के रूप में यह कई वस्तुओं के निर्माण में भी आवश्यक होता है. महंगाई की एक और आम वजह है. जब आर्थिक विकास बहुत तेज़ गति से होता है, तो समाज का वह तबका जो विकास का लाभ उठा रहा है, ज़्यादा पैसा खर्च करने की क्षमता पा जाता है. इस तबके की बढती हुई मांग अगर आपूर्ति से ज़्यादा हुई तो दाम बढ़ते हैं और महंगाई का दौर शुरू होता है. इसके अलावा किसी विशेष वस्तु के दाम में बढौतरी की और भी वजहें हो सकती हैं. जैसे खाद्य वस्तुओं का ही उदहारण ले लीजिये. इसके पीछे सरकार की निति और शेयर बाज़ार की सट्टेबाजी का भी हाथ था. सरकार ने आर्थिक उदारीकरण के नाम पर बहुराष्ट्रीय और अन्य बड़े निगमों को स्टॉक मार्केट पर जीवनावश्यक वस्तुओं में व्यापार करने की छूट दे दी और इस सट्टेबाजी का नतीजा सामने है.

महंगाई के सरकारी आकडे पूरा सच नहीं बताते क्यूंकि यह आंकड़े कई वस्तुओं की औसत कीमत में वृद्धि को दर्शाते हैं, और यह बात छुपाते हैं कि जीवनावश्यक वस्तुओं की कीमतें अन्य कीमतों के मुकाबले बहुत तेज़ी से बढ़ी हैं. उदहारण के तौर पर पिछले साल सरकारी आंकड़ो के अनुसार महंगाई केवल ३ % थी जबकि उसी दौरान खाद्य पदार्थों के भाव २०% बढे. और सबसे महत्वपूर्ण दम, श्रम का दाम (यानी आय या मजदूरी) नहीं बढ़ी है. अगर हर चीज़ के दाम में एक जैसे वृद्धि होती है, तो इसका जीवन स्तर पर कोई ख़ास असर नहीं होता. यानी अगर आटे-दाल के भाव के साथ-साथ मजदूरी या वेतन भी उतनी ही तेज़ी से बढे तो इसका कोई परिणाम नहीं होगा. दाल का भाव दुगना हुआ और साथ ही साथ मजदूरी भी दुगनी हुई, तो कोई परेशानी की बात नहीं. लेकिन ऐसा नहीं होता. हमारे देश की अधिकांश जनता जो लोकविद्याधर हैं, फिर वह किसान हो, कारीगर हो, छोटे धंधे वाले हो, इनकी आय सरकारी या अन्य संघठित उद्योगों में पाए जाने वाले वेतन कि तरह महंगाई के हिसाब से अपने-आप नहीं बढती. हाल में जो महंगाई का दौर चला है उसमे एक साल में डालें, दूध, चावल, फल आदि की कीमतों ने तो आस्मां छु लिया है (पांच साल में ४०-८० प्रतिशत बढौतरी) पर किसानों, कारीगरों, और मजदूरों की आय में बढौतरी नहीं के बराबर हुई है. बल्कि कई जगहों पर, जैसे हथकरघा उद्योग में और किसानी में, आय या मजदूरी घटी है. जब मजदूरी घटती है और कीमतें बढती हैं, तो बाज़ार जाने वाले को दुगना सदमा पहुँचता है.

मगर समस्या केवल यहाँ तक सिमित नहीं है. महंगाई के दुष्परिणाम सब पर एक सामान नहीं पड़ते. महंगाई न सिर्फ तमाम लोकाविद्याधर समाज का जीवन स्तर घटाती है, बल्कि गैर-बराबरी भी बढ़ाती है. इसका असर अमीरों और मध्यम वर्गियों से ज़्यादा गरीबों पर पड़ता है. इसकी कई वजहें हैं. जैसे हम पहले कह चुके हैं, माध्यम वर्ग के वेतन महंगाई के साथ बढ़ते हैं जबकि किसानों, कारीगरों और छोटे धन्धेवालों की आय में वृद्धि हो यह ज़रूरी नहीं है. एक और वजह यह है की पैसेवालों के मुकाबले गरीब अपने धन का बड़ा हिस्सा नगद के रूप में रखता है, और पूँजी निवेश नहीं करता (जैसे शेयर, ज़मीन, अन्य संपत्ति आदि). महंगाई की वजह से रुपये की कीमत (उसकी चीज़ें खरीदने की क्षमता) घटती है, और जिनकी बचत अन्य किसी रूप के मुकाबले नगद रुपये में ज़्यादा है, वे इससे अधिक प्रभावित होते हैं. तीसरी बात ये है की आम आदमी के बजट में खाद्य पदार्थों (आता, दाल, चावल, चीनी, दूध, सब्जी, फल) की अहमियत, पैसेवालों के बजट के मुकाबले बहुत जयादा है. इस लिए जब इन चीज़ों के दाम अन्य चीज़ों के मुकाबले ज़्यादा तेज़ी से बढ़ते है (जैसे कि पिछले कुछ सालों से लगातार हो रहा है) तो इसका दुष्परिणाम गरीब ही ज़्यादा महसूस करता है. एक और बात भी है. बाज़ार में खरीदनेवाले के लिए जो खर्च है, बेचनेवाले के लिए वही आय है, और अगर तैयार माल की कीमत बढ़ी मगर मजदूरी (जो लागत का हिस्सा है) वह नहीं बढ़ी तो इसमें मजदूर का नुकसान और मालिक का फायदा है. इसलिए महंगाई खरीदनेवालों से बेचनेवालों, मजदूरों से मालिकों, और गरीबों से अमीरों तक आय का पुनर्वितरण करती है. कई विकासशील देशों का अध्ययन करने के बाद अर्थशास्त्री इस नतीजे पर पहुंचे हैं, के इन सारी वजहों से महंगाई समाज में गैरबराबरी बढ़ा सकती है.

एक बात यहाँ कहना मुनासिब होगा. अगर अन्न बेचनेवालों का महंगाई की वजह से फायदा हो रहा है तो क्या महंगाई किसानों के लिए अच्छी है? बिलकुल नहीं. पहली बात यह है की कई किसान, जैसे गन्ने के किसान, प्याज, कपास आदि जैसे नगद की फसल करने वाले किसान दाल, चावल, सब्जी, किसी भी अन्य उपभोगता जैसे बाज़ार से ही खरीदते हैं. अगर उनके फसल की कीमत आटे-दाल-चीनी जितनी नहीं बढती तो उन्हें भी महंगाई से नुकसान ही होता है. दूसरी बात ये है की जिन किसानों की फसलों के भाव बाज़ार में बेतहाशा बढे हैं, उन्हें इस बढौतरी का लाभ नहीं पहुंचा है. किसान को मिलने वाली कीमत और फुटकर कीमत में का अंतर लगातार बढ़ा है, और इसका फायदा व्यापारियों को हुआ है. नतीजा ये सामने आता है की आम जनता दोनों तरफ से मार खा रही है.

तो क्या यह संभव है कि महंगाई बिलकुल हो ही न? क्या कीमतें ज्यों-की-त्यों रहनी चाहियें? ऐसा सोचने में भी दिक्कत है. हमारी अर्थव्यवस्था एक पूंजीवादी अर्थव्यवस्था है, जिसमे समाज के अनगिनत अंतर्विरोधों का आर्थिक विकास के ज़रिये ही प्रबंधन किया जाता है. और जहाँ आर्थिक विकास हो रहा है, वहां महंगाई तो रहेगी. अगर सरकार रोज़गार बढ़ाना चाहती है, तो इस पूंजीवादी व्यवस्था के तहत उसका ऐसा करना महंगाई को भी बढ़ाएगा. इसकी एक वजह यह है की रोज़गार बढ़ने पर मजदूरी या आय भी बढ़ती है, और मुनाफे का दर कायम रखने के लिए वस्तुओं की कीमतें भी बढती हैं. लेकिन इस पूंजीवादी ढांचे के अन्दर भी यह सवाल तो उठना ही चाहिए की कौनसी चीज़ें महँगी हो रही हैं? जीवनावश्यक वस्तुओं के मुकाबले आराम की वस्तुएं महँगी हो तो हर्ज नहीं है. दूसरी बड़ी बात यह है की संघठन के मार्फ़त असंघठित लोकाविद्याधर समाज को महंगाई के मुकाबले अपनी आय बढाने की लगातार कोशिश करनी होगी. वरना महंगाई गरीबों को मारेगी और महंगाई घटाने को लिए गए सरकारी कदम भी उन्हें परेशानी में ही डालेंगे.

अमित बसोले

गरीबी नहीं गैरबराबरी की वार्ता चाहिए (We need a public discourse on inequality, not on poverty)

2010-08-16T20:26:00.004-04:00

Vidya Ashram, Sarnath, Varanasi, India has recently started publishing a Hindi monthly with the aim of offering analysis, commentary and new from the point of view of a people's knowledge movement. The paper is called Lokavidya Panchayat and issues will be available here.

An article I wrote for the July issue is below in its unedited version.

गरीबी नहीं, गैरबराबरी की वार्ता चाहिए

वैश्वीकरण और नयी आर्थिक निति के चलते देश में गरीबी बढ़ी है या घटी है इस पर अर्थशास्त्री लगातार बहस करते दिखाई पड़ते हैं. गरीबी घटी है सिद्ध करने के लिए यह आंकड़ा दिखाया जाता है की १९९३-९४ में देश की ३०% आबादी गरीबी रेखा के नीचे थी जबकि २००४-०५ तक यह संख्या घट कर लगभग २१% हो चुकी थी. लेकिन यह "गरीबी रेखा" (रुपये ११ प्रति दिन प्रति व्यक्ति खर्च कर पाना) इतनी बेमतलब है की सरकार की ही एक कमिशन (अर्जुन सेनगुप्ता कमिशन) ने हाल ही में जारी की गयी रिपोर्ट में इस बात पर जोर दिया है की अगर इस रेखा को हम २० रुपये प्रति दिन प्रति व्यक्ति तक ले आयें तो देश की ७७% आबादी गरीब कहलाएगी. साथ ही साथ इस रिपोर्ट ने यह भी स्पष्ट किया की महज़ ७% लोग सरकारी अथवा निजी नौकरियों में महीने के अनुसार नियमित वेतन पाते हैं. बाकी ९३% असंघठित क्षेत्र में हैं और उनकी आय या रोज़गार की कोई गारंटी नहीं होती है. इस ९३% में शामिल हैं सारे किसान, कारीगर, छोटे दुकानदार, महिलाऐं, यानी वह तमाम लोकाविद्याधर जो अपने ज्ञान और हुनर के बल पर जीविका चलते हैं और इस पूरे समाज की नीव डालते हैं. सेनगुप्ता कमीशन का यह एलान की देश के ७७% लोग मात्र २० रुपये या उससे कम में जीविका चलाते हैं, आर्थिक विकास दर के दीवाने शासन-प्रशासन में किसी को रास नहीं आया है और इस भयंकर सच्चाई लो लेकर कदम उठाना तो दूर, अप्रैल २००९ में पूरी की गयी इस रिपोर्ट को औपचारिक तौर पर प्रधान मंत्री के दफ्तर में स्वीकार तक नहीं किया गया है.

सेनगुप्ता रिपोर्ट "इंडिया शायनिंग" की सच्चाई क्या है इस बात को तो उजागर करता है, लेकिन वैश्वीकरण के युग की सबसे बड़ी "उपलब्धि," तेज़ गति से बढती आर्थिक विषमता, को नहीं छूता. देश में गरीबी की तो लगातार वार्ता होती रहती है. लेकिन इस वार्ता का फायदा गरीबों को नहीं बल्कि उसके अमीर तबके को होता है. क्यूंकि जितनी ज़्यादा बात गरीबी की होगी उतना ही गैरबराबरी से ध्यान हटाया जा सकता है. वार्ता में यह बात लाना ज़रूरी है की जहाँ एक ओर तीन चौथाई आबादी अत्यंत गरीब है, वहीँ भारत "डालर अरबपतियों" (जिनकी संपत्ति सौ करोड़ डालर है) की गिनती में दुनिया में ५ नंबर पर पहुँच गया है. महज़ दो सालों (२००७ से २००९) में डालर अरबपतियों की संख्या २५ से बढ़कर ५० हो गयी है. ब्रिटेन और कैनाडा जैसे विकसित देशों को भी हमने इस मामले में पीछे छोड़ दिया है. गरीबी बढ़ी हो चाहे घटी हो, इसमें कोई दो राय नहीं है की नयी आर्थिक निति के चलते गैरबराबरी हद से ज़्यादा बढ़ चुकी है. और यह न सिर्फ भारत में बल्कि दुनिया के कई छोटे-बड़े देशों में हुआ है. जितनी आर्थिक विषमता अमरीका में १९३० में थी, आज फिर उतनी ही है. जो थोड़े-बहुत फायदे इस दौरान अमरीका की आम जनता को हुए थे, वे उदारीकरण और बाजारीकरण के ज़रिये वापस ले लिए गए हैं.

वैश्वीकरण जहाँ जाता है, अपने साथ आर्थिक विषमता लाता है. १९९०-९१ के बाद भारत में भी गैरबराबरी बढती चली जा रही है. उधारण के तौर पर अस्सी के दशक में सबसे अमीर १% लोगों के पास देश की ५% संपत्ति थी. सन २००० के आते आते यह बढ़ कर १०% बन चुकी थी. आज भारत के सबसे अमीर १०% लोगों के हाथों में उतनी ही संपत्ति है जितनी बाकि के सारे (९०%) लोगों की कुल मिला कर है. यानी चंद शहरों में रहने वाले सरकारी या निजी नौकरियां करने वाले कर्मचारी अथवा कारोबार करने वाले पूंजीपति एक तरफ, और देश की सारी जनता दूसरी तरफ. गाँव की हालत अलग से देखि जाए तो वह और भी बुरी है. वैश्वीकरण के चलते शहर के माध्यम और उच्च वर्गियों को जो फायदा हुआ है वह तो इस बात में साफ़ दिखाई देता है की वे अब पहले से ४०% ज़्यादा खर्च करने की क्षमता रखते हैं. और इस नए खर्चिलेपन का कुच्छ लाभ शहरों के गरीबों को मिल भी सकता है. लेकिन गाँव की ८०% आबादी (यानी देश के बहुसंख्य लोग) पहले से कम खर्च कर पा रही है. यानी शुद्ध और तुलनात्मक नज़रिए दोनों से ही गाँव और भी अधिक गरीब हुआ है.

अगर उपरोक्त आंकड़े कुछ अजनबी से दिखाई पड़ते हैं तो उन आंकड़ों की तरफ देखें जिनसे हम सब भली भांति परिचित हैं. असंघठित क्षेत्र में काम करने वाले तमाम कारीगर मुश्किल से १००-२०० रुपये रोज़ कमा पाते हैं. महिला कारीगरों को १०० रुपये रोज़ भी नसीब नहीं हैं और ५०-६० रुपये रोज़ में गुज़ारा करना पड़ता है. दूसरी और निचले तबके के सरकारी कर्मचारी भी ४००-५०० रुपये रोज़ (१० से १५ हज़ार महिना) कमा लेते हैं. और १०००-२००० रुपये रोज़ महानगरों के आफिसों में काम करने वालों के लिए कोई बड़ी बात नहीं है. अगर हम किसी से पूंछे के ऐसा क्यों है तो यह जवाब अक्सर मिलेगा की ऐसा इसलिए है की किसान और कारीगर पढ़े-लिखे नहीं होते हैं. जब यह बात कही जाती है तो इसका मतलब यह होता है की किसान और कारीगर विद्या, नारी विद्या समाज में तिरस्कृत है, इस विद्या को विद्या ही नहीं समझा जता है. वर्ना क्या हमारे किसान और कारीगर स्कूल-कालेज में पढ़े लिखे लोगों से कम हुनर और जानकारी रखते हैं? उनके श्रम और ज्ञान की कीमत इतनी कम क्यूँ कर दी गयी है की एक कुशल बुनकर को बिनकारी के मुकाबले मनरेगा में मिट्टी फेंकने से ज़्यादा कमाई होती है? और इसे अर्थशास्त्री और आर्थिक नीतियाँ बनाने वाले एक प्रगतिशील कदम भी मानते हैं!

यह बात अब बिलकुल साफ़ हो चुकी है की उदारीकरण किसानों, कारीगरों, छोटे दुकानदारों, महिलाओं, यानी सारे लोकाविद्याधर समाज को नए सिरे से उजाड़ने का कार्यक्रम है. बड़े शहरों में रहनेवाली देश की १०% आबादी की चकाचौन्द लगातार मीडिया में दिखाने से यह बात कितने समय तक छुपी रह सकती है की ९०% लोगों की ज़िन्दगी बढती गैरबराबरी की वजह से और भी बदतर होती जा रही है? गरीबी रेखा के नीचे रहनेवालों की घटती संख्या दिखा कर हमें फुसलाया नहीं जा सकता. अगर इस देश में सभी बराबर के नागरिक हैं तो सारे राष्ट्रीय संसाधनों जैसे शिक्षा, स्वस्थ्य, बिजली, वित्त, बाज़ार, में सब का बराबर का अधिकार है. जिसको दो वक़्त का खाना भी नहीं मिलता उसे दो वक़्त खाना दे दिया जाए तो गरीबी हटाने का दवा हम कर सकते हैं. लेकिन हम इंसानों की बात कर रहे हैं, जानवरों की नहीं. और इंसान को सिर्फ खाने की नहीं, बल्कि, शिक्षा, स्वस्थ, मनोरजन, काम, बाज़ार, सभी की ज़रुरत है. अगर हम केवल गरीबी की बात करते रहेंगे तो कभी यह सवाल नहीं उठा पाएंगे की जो ज़रूरतें बड़े शहरों के वासियों की हैं क्या वही ज़रूरतें गांववासियों की नहीं हैं? शाम के वक़्त पढाई, मनोरंजन आदि की लिय बिजली की जितनी ज़रुरत एक शहरी को है क्या उतनी ही एक गांववासी को नहीं है? गैरबराबरी का सवाल केवल आय या संपत्ति के बटवारे तक ही सिमित नहीं है, बल्कि इसके ऐसे कई आयाम हैं. इस लेखों की शंखला में हम इन आयामों को उजागर करने का प्रयास करेंगे।

अमित बसोले

Subverting Our Epics: Mani Ratnam's Retelling of the Ramayana

2010-07-26T18:58:00.002-04:00

A review I wrote of the recent film Raavan came out in the Economic and Political Weekly last week. It can be found here:

Mani Ratnam’s film Raavan depicts the contradiction between the adivasis and the State through the framework of the Ramayana. The film, however, deviates from the message of the Ramayana, and raises the disturbing possibility that our myths of morality and bravery are someone else’s stories of rape and conquest. The recasting of Raavan as the wronged subaltern and Ram as the scheming agent of imperialism brings to mind similar reinterpretations of other Hindu legends by Phule, which completely subvert the orthodox interpretation. In the context of the ongoing struggle between the tribals and the State, one hopes that the movie Raavan might stir this debate up once again. View Full Article

Knowledge Satyagraha: Towards a People’s Knowledge Movement

2010-04-10T22:15:00.002-04:00

Video of a talk I gave on the ideas and work of Vidya Ashram, a collective that I am part of here in Varanasi and where I am based this year. The rest of the talks at this conference (Critical Point of View: Wikipedia Research) are available here.

Amit Basole (IN) Knowledge Satyagraha: Towards a People’s Knowledge Movement from network cultures on Vimeo.

The Almond Workers of Karawal Nagar, Delhi: A Report

2010-04-10T22:13:00.001-04:00

On a brief visit to Delhi in January 2010, I went to Karawal Nagar to speak to the activists of the Badam Mazdoor Union and also to talk to some workers who were involved in a recent strike. See my report on this huge informal sector strike (20,000 workers participating for two weeks) here:

The Almond Workers of Karawal Nagar, Delhi: A Report

Dantewada, Dec 14th to 17th 2009: Three days in the cauldron, on the eve of the Padyatra

2010-04-10T22:08:00.003-04:00

Some of my readers know that I have been in India since September 2009 working on my dissertation research. I have had little time to write on the blog although there has been no shortage of things to write about.

A couple of my recent travel reports were published on sanhati.com. One on my experience of visiting Himanshu Kumar's Vanavasi Chetna Ashram in Dantewada (the site of the latest battle between the Maoists and the CRPF) is available here:

Dantewada, Dec 14th to 17th 2009: Three days in the cauldron, on the eve of the Padyatra

Here is an audio recording of a press conference on the Maoist issue held in the Raipur Press Club by HImanshu Kumar, Sandeep Pandey (NAPM), and Rajendra Saiil (PUCL-Chhattisgarh):

Press Conference on Dantewada, Raipur, Dec. 17, 2009 from amit basole on Vimeo.

Ghalib: Idols and the Ka'ba

2009-07-21T17:48:00.004-04:00

With this verse we are concluding, at least for now, our collaborative series of commentaries on Ghalib.

{231,6}

go vaa;N nahii;N pah vaa;N ke nikaale hu))e to hai;N
ka((be se un buto;N ko bhii nisbat hai duur kii

1. even though [they] are not there, still [they] have been expelled from there
2. with the ka'ba even those/ also those idols have a distant relationship

nisbat : 'Referring (to, - se ); deriving (from); --reference, respect, regard (to); attribute; relation, connexion; affinity; analogy; comparison; --ratio; proportion; --relationship by marriage; matrimonial alliance; betrothal; --a relation, or connexion; --a conundrum'. (Platts p.1137)

Click here for translation and commentary on Desertful of Roses. Click here for parallel commentary on The South Asian Idea

A charming and straightforward verse, though not without its hidden depths, as we explore here. The historical reference necessary to appreciate the verse is the episode in early Islamic history when Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) orders the Ka'ba cleared of all idols since these can have no place in a monotheistic faith which preaches belief in the one abstract God.

But Ghalib is not content with this. So what if the idols are not in the Ka'ba, have they not been expelled from there? Hence they have a relationship, albeit a distant one, to the Ka'ba. One cannothelp but think of Ghalib (or the archetypal poet/sinner) who has similarly been expelled from the mosque, but seems to be saying: sure, I have been removed, I am no longer welcome there in the house of worship, but at least I have been expelled (as opposed to never having been there at all), so I have a relationship still, its one of expulsion!

This theme, that even expulsion or a negative relationship is better than nothing at all is explored by Ghalib in other ways where the beloved's greatest "sitam" is to ignore the lover. Click here for an example. To be expelled from her mehfil would be a far greater honor than to not be there in the first place due to neglect! In a volte face here it is the idols (but, which is the usual metaphor for a beautiful person or the beloved) who are being expelled from God's mehfil. And interestingly some of these idols were indeed of godesses (banat allah or daughters of God).

Philosophically Ghalib seems interested in exploring the relationship or connection between True and False belief. He seems to challenge the everyday perceptions of idol-worshipers (but-parastaaN) (Hindus) and idol-crushers (Muslims) as being really different, unrelated when it comes to matters of faith. He is obviously constrained by space in how much he can say in two lines, but does a great job, in the process using the word "but" (idol) in its non-metaphorical form.

Structurally, the she'r follows all the usual rules to make it work in a recitation. The first line gives almost nothing away, it is too general. The second line holds back the punch until we hear the word "nisbet" and then if we have kept the radif (rhyme scheme) in mind, we can fill in the end in unison with the poet, since "duur" is the obvious choice. In terms of wordplay, Ghalib uses the potential hidden in "bhi" which doubles as "also" and "even." Both those meanings work here, even though "even" seems to work better in context.

Ghalib sets off for Mount Sinai

2009-06-28T21:55:00.002-04:00

This week, Ghalib at his irreverent best.

{231,7}

kyaa far.z hai kih sab ko mile ek-saa javaab
aa))o nah ham bhii sair kare;N koh-e :tuur kii

1a) is there an assumption/obligation that all would get a similar answer?
1b) what assumption/obligation is there that all would get a similar answer?
1c) what an assumption it is-- that all would get a similar answer!

2) come on, won't you? let's even/also us take a stroll around Mount Tur

Click here for translations and commentary on The Desertful of Roses. Parallel commentary on The South Asian Idea.

This verse is impossible to interpret until we understand the significance of Mount Sinai (koh-e-tuur). As many readers will be aware this is the mountain on which Moses goes in order to ask God for an appearance, so that his people would believe that Moses was truly a prophet. The answer (jawaab) that Moses receives is "No! You cannot behold the radiance of God." (I am not sure what the exact words are according to the Quran. I am giving the gist here). There follows a bolt of divine lightning which burns the mountain and strikes Moses down.

Now for Ghalib's take on this story. Frances Pritchett, who offers us the translations above, calls this verse "mischievous." We could call it downright cheeky and insolent (gustaaKh). Why so? There are multiple reasons for it. First, taking the verse as a whole there is the basic premise: "it is not necessary/why is it necessary that everyone should receive the same answer (No!)? Come let us try our own luck, who knows maybe we will be graced by the vision that was denied Moses." This is already a cheeky proposition. But the way it is made, as Pritchett notes, is even better. Ghalib uses the expression "sair karna," i.e. to take a stroll. So we are not setting out determined or prepared or afraid or any such thing. We are just out for a stroll and we will see if we might not get a glimpse of God.

As the parallel commentary on The South Asian Idea notes, we see in the two lines a link to tradition (via the symbolism of Mount Sinai) and to modernity (via the questioning of received wisdom). The questioning is effected via the clever use of "kyaa" which as the translation above shows is compatible with a few different readings. A derisive reading, "as if everyone would get the same answer, what a thought!" or a more innocent question "what is the necessity of everyone getting the same answer?"

Finally let talk about the structural properties of the verse itself. As always, the suspense is withheld till the last minute. We don't get the full import of the verse, or indeed in this case, we do not understand anything specific about what is being said until we hear the rhyme word, tuur. Fran Pritchett makes this point very well. Next, commentators of this verse have also noted the use of the very colloquial "aao nah" which we use in contemporary language as an expression of familiarity. If fact all the words used are of a simple nature. The power of the verse lies in the bringing together of simple words and sentiments with the complex valences associated with a significant event (Moses going to Sinai).

From the point of view of theme-creation (mazmuN afiirnii) I wonder if one can point to a novel theme being generated here to do with "cosmic sawaal-jawaab" the questions posed by humans and answers given by life. This theme would be a sort of variation on the more traditional sawaal-jawaab between the lover and the beloved in which also the lover repeatedly asks the question only to receive the predictable answer (No!). Perhaps readers who know more poetry would know of a precedence for this "cosmic sawaal-jawaab" theme.

Ghalib is...God

2009-06-17T22:39:00.001-04:00

We are back after a long hiatus with an ever-green favorite.

{32,1}

nah thaa kuchh to ;xudaa thaa kuchh nah hotaa to ;xudaa hotaa
;Duboyaa mujh ko hone ne nah hotaa mai;N to kyaa hota

1a) when there was nothing, then God existed; if nothing existed, then God would exist
1b) when I was nothing, then God existed; if I were nothing, then God would exist
1c) when I was nothing, then I was God; if I were nothing, then I would be God

2a) 'being' drowned me; if I were not I, then what would I be?
2b) 'being' drowned me; if I did not exist, then what would I be?
2c) 'being' drowned me; if I were not I, then what would exist?
2d) 'being' drowned me; if I did not exist, then what would exist?
2e) 'being' drowned me; if I were not I, then so what?
2f) 'being' drowned me; if I did not exist, then so what?

Translations are by FWP. Click here for commentary on Desertful of Roses. And the parallel entry on The South Asian Idea is here.

This is probably one of the most famous verses in Urdu poetry and justly so. FWP calls it "a two-line complete portable library of possible existential speculations." And as you can see from her possible translations above she does an fantastic job pulling out the possible meanings hidden in the verse. In fact, until I saw her commentary on the verse I had rather a poor understanding of it merely as a combination of 1a and 2b. And many native Hindi/Urdu speakers I have talked to haven't grasped the magic of the omitted subject which is revealed spectacularly here. Ghalib exploits the ambiguity caused by omitted subjects all the time to great effect but this is truly mind-boggling. And as Shamsur Rahman Faruqi notes multiple profound meanings are generated via the use of extremely simple language. Only one word, Khuda is Persian and that too a very common Persian word. This verse also perfectly illustrates Ghalib's famous description of poetry: bhaii, shayari ma'ani aafirnii hai, kafiyah paimaaii nahiN hai" (my friend, poetry is meaning creation, not the measuring out of rhymes).

In a mushairah where the first line would be repeated several times to allow people to absorb it an interesting effect is produced. One may be inclined after just hearing the first line to go for interpretation 1a. Other meanings are hidden and the line appear well crafted but somewhat plain apart from the obvious existential profundity (what does it mean for nothing to exist?). But then after the seemingly impersonal reflection on existence of the universe, Ghalib surprises us with the second line coming straight to the highly personal: "being was my downfall, if I had not been [I], then what would [I] have been?" When we encounter the personal note in line 2, we go back to line 1 and find a hidden personal reflection there too. This is FWP's 1c: when I was nothing, then I was God; if I were nothing, then I would be God.

This then makes line 2 appear to us in a new light. What Ghalib is effectively saying is that if he had not taken this human form he would have been one with God, one with that which is beyond existence and non-existence. In this interpretation (1c, 2b), the question kyaa hotaa? is a regret of sorts. "See, if only I had not existed what I could have been (God)." Of course the irony of expressing non-existence as a form of existence (na hota to kyaa hota?) is also not lost on Ghalib.

The second interpretation of "to kyaa hotaa" which is "so what" rather than "what could have been" is also intriguing. For it says, if I had not existed, so what? After all, it would be a good thing to not exist. Because then I would have been God.

It reminds me of a qawwali by Aziz Mian in which he weaves this couplet of Ghalib in the middle of the following words:
yahaaN hona na hona hai aur na hona ain-e-hona hai
here existence is non-existence and non-existence the essence of existence

And this train of thoughts ends with Aziz Mian saying:
na yeh duniya bani hoti na yeh aalam banaa hota
aur woh bandaa kise kehte aur woh kiskaa Khuda hota?

neither the world would have been, nor would time/space
then who would He call his follower and whose God would He be?

I haven't yet managed to discover who has penned this lines above.

Finally, I can't resist juxtaposing Ghalib's pontifications on the nature of existence with the famous creation hymn of the Rig Veda (translation by Wendy Doniger). Note the very last line.

There was neither non-existence nor existence then.
There was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
What stirred?
Where?
In whose protection?
Was there water, bottlemlessly deep?

There was neither death nor immortality then.
There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day.
That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse.
Other than that there was nothing beyond.

[deleted text]

Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced?
Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen
� perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not �
the One who looks down on it,
in the highest heaven, only He knows
or perhaps He does not know.

The “People’s Movement Left” and Rammanohar Lohia: an evaluation at a time of crisis

2009-06-17T15:25:00.001-04:00

June 13, 2009

By Amit Basole, Sanhati

Simplifying matters somewhat at the present juncture three significant streams of Left political practice can be identified in India: first, the Communist Parliamentary Left or what Dipankar Basu has termed the Social Democratic Left (SDL) which includes the CPM, CPI and their allies, second what may be termed the Communist non-Parliamentary Left (CnPL) which includes CPI (Maoist), CPI (ML) and smaller Maoist Parties and third, the People’s Movement Left (PML), sometimes called the “non-Party Left,” which is also largely non-Parliamentary (though for reasons different from the Maoist Left). PML includes various organizations belonging to the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) and other related movements (such as the anti- caste movement, the new farmers’ movements).

This essay argues that the socialist tradition that lies behind the PML has much to offer to overcome the shortcomings of the Marxist Left.

The SDL faces multiple crises at this juncture, some of which have been extensively analyzed following its electoral defeat. Whatever may be its failings on the leadership and organizational fronts (and those are many), it is clear that there is a profound crisis of thought also. The SDL suffers from excessive attachment to a Eurocentric and stagist theory of history (wherein industrial capitalism is a necessary step to socialism) and an economic determinist philosophy (which gives short shrift to non-economic forms of oppression and expression). In addition its theory does not allow significant revolutionary agency to peasants and informal sector workers who constitute the overwhelming majority of the working population of India. The demise of the Soviet Union has added to the bankruptcy of thought and the feeling of “TINA.”

The CnPL is also unable to break completely from a Eurocentric form of Marxism and a stagist theory of history, albeit due to its Maoist moorings it is sensitive to an ex-colonial reality not only in practice but also at the level of theory, and recognizes the central role of the peasantry in revolutionary transformation of society. Despite significant experiments in direct democracy as well as economic development in Maoist controlled territories, its strategy of armed struggle and its boycott of parliamentary politics has precipitated a crisis of its own as the State retaliates in a violent manner, and the working population is caught between the two. The ensuing cycle of violence has claimed many lives and within current praxis there does not seem to be an end to it. Furthermore, arguably the abdication of the Chinese leadership to a particularly vicious form of industrial capitalism may have contributed to a muddying of the CnPL’s vision for a future Indian society.

The PML has risen to prominence in the 1980s and 90s, as the Soviet and Chinese experiments were running their course. It is thus less burdened with their failures. It is also more rooted theoretically in the Indian political tradition, drawing more inspiration from Gandhi rather than from Marx. It has largely relied on non-violent methods of resistance and some of its ideologues speak of “alternative models of development” in a manner reminiscent of Gandhi’s critique of development. However it seems to lack theoretical coherence since it takes the form of myriad local struggles over jal, jungle aur zameen (water, forest and land). The degree to which a given local movement challenges the established order also varies greatly across the country. Hence it is difficult to ascertain the revolutionary potential of the sum of such movements. Notwithstanding this it has received widespread support from Left intellectuals, academic ones in particular, perhaps because it is unburdened with failures of “actually-existing Socialisms” of the 20th century.

The theoretical backbones of the SDL and the CnPL are well-known. The writings of Marx, Lenin and Mao stand tall in this regard. The theoretical basis of the PML is less clear but in fact has a long and distinguished career in India. This is a type of Socialism that takes not only Marx but also Gandhi seriously and attempts to construct both a political practice and a vision for a future society different from orthodox Marxism. In this article I will use Rammanohar Lohia’s writings as an example of this tradition.

Lohia is an unjustly neglected figure in the Indian political tradition. To the extent that people are familiar with him, they either know him as Gandhi’s disciple or perhaps as Nehru’s critic in the 1960s and if they are familiar with some socialist history, as Jayaprakash Narayan’s co-worker in the Socialist wing of the Congress and later a leader of the Socialist Party. In fact Lohia was a highly original thinker who had something interesting to say on questions as diverse as mode of industrialization, possibilities for an India-Pakistan Federation and the “national language” question in India. He is also someone whose world-view is most in harmony with the PML. Below I highlight some crucial aspects of Lohia’s thought that are helpful to us in charting a way forward.

Lohia is an atheist and a materialist who takes Gandhi’s critique of modernity seriously. He believes, as Gandhi did, that the promises of modernity are only for making and not for fulfilling. Gandhian ideas of non-violence and inseparability of means and ends also influence Lohia’s thinking. Yet, from his early years in Germany, Lohia is also deeply influenced by European socialist traditions in which Marx looms large. From Marx Lohia takes materialism and class, but rejects his theory of history and progress. If Ram Guha’s assertion that “inside every thinking Indian is a Gandhian and a Marxist struggling for supremacy” is correct, in Lohia the two are hybridized in a fecund manner. However, characteristically Lohia himself rejects any suggestion that he tries to combine Marx and Gandhi and says: “Socialism does not need to claim either that it is Marxist or Gandhian, nor that it is anti-Marxist or anti-Gandhian.” In Lohia’s hands Gandhian theory and practice acquired a far more radical edge. Distinguishing himself from the “official Gandhism” of the day (and people like Vinoba Bhave) Lohia jokingly referred to himself as a “kujaat Gandhivaadi” (low-caste Gandhian).

Another significance of Lohia’s elaboration of Gandhi’s ideas is that he is far more well-acquainted with the European socialist traditions than Gandhi ever was and as a result may be more approachable to those who are unwilling to take Gandhi seriously only because he was unacquainted with Marx

Eurocentrism:

Arguably most Indian political thinkers with some mass following have thought within European modernist paradigms, ways of thinking about society that reached their culmination in 19th century Europe. This includes “indigenist” (”swadeshi”) thinkers on the Right who do so unwittingly. Prominent exceptions are Gandhi and later Lohia. Of the modernist paradigms, Liberalism and Marxism in particular have profoundly influenced Indian thinkers. Marxist thinkers, despite their radical aspirations, have been mostly unable or unwilling to shake of the modernism of Marx, which in keeping with its time viewed the world from the point of view of Europe, and measured progress as a process of Europeanization of the non-European world. The advent of postmodernism in the Euro-American and later the Global Academy has served either to seduce some Marxists to postmodernism or to harden Modernist positions among others. It is not clear yet if postmodern Marxists can create a different socialist vision for the 21st century.

In his books “The Wheel of History,” and “Marx, Gandhi and Socialism” (of particular interest is an essay titled “Economics After Marx”) Lohia challenges the Eurocentrism of orthodox Marxist accounts of History. He notes that the vast majority of humanity has only a secondary place in a narrative centered largely on the “Rise of Europe.” Further he challenges a narrative of progress which only recognizes the adoption of industrialism in either its capitalist or (then) communist forms by the colonies as progress. Struggling to keep history open-ended and the fate of post-colonial societies in their own hands Lohia notes:
“Capitalism and Communism are two completely elaborated systems and the whole world is in their grip. The result is poverty, war and fear. A third way of thinking is also making its presence felt on the world stage. It is still insufficient and has not been completely elaborated, but it is open-ended. An open system retains the possibility of truth and progress, while in a closed system facts are treated violently, declared meaningless and cast aside.”

Mode of Development:

Along with the question of Eurocentrism, the question of the type of economic development was Lohia’s most fundamental theoretical challenge to Marxism. Marxists have been by and large unwilling to confront the possibility that industrialism and not capitalism may be the primary impediment to achieving the good life everywhere on the planet. Dazzled by the spectacle of modern science and technology and seduced by promises of plenty, Marx and later Marxists gave short shrift to two of their own fundamental insights: that history matters and that technology is both a cause and effect of the social relations of production. Assuming that the evils in industrialism (which have never been particularly hidden in its two centuries of existence) would disappear under socialism amounted to forgetting the peculiar historical conditions under which industrialism took shape in Europe and America and overlooking that fact that modern technology is profoundly shaped by capitalist social relations (early Soviet experiments with Taylorism in an effort to increase productivity are a case in point).

Thinkers in the Lohia tradition have long emphasized that the availability of colonies was crucial to Europe’s industrial development and that the non-availability of such colonies for India means a process of internal colonization in the manner that we have seen ample evidence of since 1947. Thus crucially, history has borne out the Gandhian-Lohiaite position on this issue. Marxists and other modernists still find this difficult to accept wholly since it calls into question the very possibility that industrial capitalism in the European manner could take shape in the colonies. And if it cannot, what prospects then for socialism?

Kishan Patnaik, another unjustly neglected figure in the Indian Socialist tradition notes that Lohia returns time and again to the question of technology. In his essay “Gandhi, Lohia and Modern Civilization,” Patnaik quotes Lohia:

“That scientific progress will bring forth an age of plenty is a pitiable thought, one that forsakes intellect. We must consciously build a political and economic structure that bridges the gap between and within nations. Current industrial technology cannot do this- that it can do this is extremely doubtful. This technology originates in very specific circumstances: one low population and abundant land; two, a certain given amount of capital available per capita and developed machinery; three, Western Europe producing industrial goods for the whole world.” (translated from Hindi)

Further Patnaik notes that “In Independent India’s politics Lohia is the only leader whose agenda included the ‘obstinate’ insistence on challenging Nehru’s policy of Westernizing the Indian economy and society as well as organizing the masses to resist it.”

Lohia is able to avoid the “productivity-fetishism” of Marxism because of the influence of Gandhi. Yet by forcefully bringing up the question of class, private property and economic equality, as well as by adopting a stance that is not anti-technology, but rather anti-industrialism, he is better able to deal with allegations that he is merely glorifying poverty. This also means that a “small is beautiful” approach to technology is not taken to be a panacea for the problem of development.

Economic Determinism:

Lohia explicitly rejects economic or class reductionism and accords equal importance to caste and gender oppression. Caste as well as class are center-pieces of his theory of history. And his idea of the “seven revolutions” (sapt-kranti) anticipates “race, class and gender” analyses that are popular today. The seven revolutions are for: gender equality, end to racial inequality, end of caste inequality, end to imperialism and creation of a world government, end to economic inequality based on private property, end to use of arms and institution of the principle of civil disobedience and opposition to encroachments upon individual freedom.

The followers of Lohia have thus found it far easier than Marxists to take caste struggle on its own terms and to recognize that the question of caste cannot be reduced to the question of class.

State:

Lohia also anticipates contemporary notions of decentralized governance although he tempers Gandhi’s anarchist tendencies with a sort of “functional federalism.” His concept of the “four-pillar state” (chaukhamba raj) is a pragmatic attempt to combine Gandhian village democracy with a modern State apparatus, the four pillars being: village, district, state and center. It is important to remember that Lohia was speaking of a decentralized socialist state at a time with such ideas were not part of Left mainstream thought.

A few words by way of conclusion. The foregoing is not intended as a comprehensive survey of Lohia’s thought or as a complete critique of the SDL and CnPL from the Lohiaite perspective. Nor is it meant to be a mud-slinging exercise against Marxists. Rather it is a modest effort to acquaint those who may not be so acquainted with attempts to “Indianize Marx” as it were. Marx has encountered Gandhi in a very productive way over the past hundred years in India. While Communists of various persuasions have not taken Gandhi particularly seriously, the Socialists have done so. This is not an arm-chair intellectual tradition but rather a political one. From Jayaprakash Narayan and Lohia to Shankar Guha Neogi those who have contributed to it have been in the thick of politics. As such it may suffer from theoretical inconsistencies and dead-ends. However, it is a heritage which in attempting to build a new Socialism for the 21st century it would behoove us to engage critically with.

Further Reading:

1. Rammanohar Lohia, Itihaas Chakra (The Wheel of History) Navahind Prakashan, 1963
2. ________________, Marx, Gandhi and Socialism, Navahind Prakashan, 1963
3. ________________, Fundamentals of a World Mind, Sindhu Publications, Bombay, 1987
4. Kishan Patnaik, Vikalpheen nahin hai duniya, Rajkamal Prakashan, New Delhi, 2000
5. Sunil, Nandigram and the Blind Faith in Industrialization, Samayik Varta, June 2007 (original in Hindi, English translation at http://sanhati.com/excerpted/588/)
6. Special Issue of Hindi Journal Samayik Varta (March 2003), Lohia in the 21st Century
7. Blogs: http://samatavadi.wordpress.com and http://samajwadi.blogspot.com

Ghalib: In captivity I retain the power of flight

2009-04-08T10:02:00.002-04:00

After a longish break, we are back with Ghalib. This time we have selected a verse remarkable for its simplicity and its power.

{71,4}
huu;N giriftaar-e ulfat-e .sayyaad
varnah baaqii hai :taaqat-e parvaaz

1) I am captured/captivated by love/affection of the Hunter
2) otherwise, strength for flight is still left

Click here for translation and commentary on Desertful of Roses. Click here for parallel commentary on The South Asian Idea.

Before we get to interpretations, a note on the construction of the verse. As we have seen on this blog before, and as Fran Pritchett often points out in her commentaries, the positioning of the lines and words usually are the result of great thought. We see that at work here. Upon hearing the first line, our first thought might be that the poet is going to tell us what happens to him in this state of captivity. Perhaps some lament on his helplessness or something about how enjoyable this bondage of love is, etc. But Ghalib delivers a completely contrary idea. The lover is thinking of flying away! What heresy! And yet, not really, because does he actually fly away? Of course not. But "I am just saying, I could fly, I retain the power of flight...I am just saying..." And via the skillful use of parvaaz, the metaphor of ensarement and hunting is complete.

Coming t0 the interpretations, they turn on who the "sayyaad" (hunter) is in this story. The simplest reading is the earthly beloved, the beuatiful one who has ensnared the lover in her love. So despite having the physical strenght to get up and walk away from it all, the lover is simply unable to do so. Anyone who has experienced romantic love will know what this is about. Moving on and enlarging the scop;e of our reading, the Hunter can be, as Nazm and Josh both read it, "wordly relationships." So here, the trappings of the maerial world ensanre and bind us in captivity "lovingly." We have it within us (as humans) to escape these bonds and to be free, but the attachment (ulfat) to the world and its attractions keeps us unfree. In this reading it is a simple lament of one who has discovered the transience or ephemeral nature of the world and yet lacks the capacity to trascend it. A typically Ghalibian moment. Awareness without trascendence. Knowledge without action.

A few other readings are possible. If the hunter is not the earthly beloved but rather the Divine Beloved of Sufi thought, then the verse says: I am ensnared in the love of the Absolute/God. That is why I remain a Believer. Otherwise I retain the power to fly (or in this case "to doubt"). This reading doesn't sit too well with the general Sufi inclination of Ghalib's thought, but on the other hand it fits right in with his impish sense of humor. It says, look I have the power to break free of the bondage of your love, O Divine One, but your love keeps me here. For anyone other than Ghalib I would not suggest such as reading!

Finally, more in keeping with the socio-political dimensions of our project, the hunter can be our beloved leaders, politicians, even institutions in our society who are objects of our affection and who keep us from being free. For more along these lines see the post on The South Asian Idea.

For Ghalib the world is merely children at play

2009-03-21T12:50:00.003-04:00

This week we proceed from last week's mood of resignation and defiance combined, to a mood of bemused indifference towards the goings-on in the world. Here it is:

{208,1}
बाज़ीचा-ए-अत्फाल है दुनिया मेरे आगे
होता है शब-ओ-रोज़ तमाशा मेरे आगे

baaziichah-e a:tfaal hai dunyaa mire aage
hotaa hai shab-o-roz tamaashaa mire aage

1) the world is a game/plaything of children, before me
2a) night-and-day is [habitually] a spectacle, before me
2b) night and day, a spectacle is [habitually] before me
(Translation: FWP)
Commentaries on Desertful of Roses and parallel post on The South Asian Idea.

This is a justly famous verse from a justly famous ghazal. The various commentaries collected by Prof. Fran Pritchett offer the agreed-upon reading of it. It is indeed a relatively simple yet powerful verse. Though as wee will see it is not without its hidden meanings. As far the language itself goes, the only phrase likely to pose some difficult is baaziichah-e a:tfaal, for which here are the meanings:
baaziichah : 'Fun, play, sport; wagering; toy, plaything'. (Platts p.122)
a;tfaal is the Arabic plural of tifl which means child.

The clear reading is that this temporal world is merely a children's game or plaything as far as I am concerned (mere aage = in front of me, or in my estimation). Note that "dunyaa" is a loaded word and evokes the meaning of this material/temporal world as opposed to the next immaterial/eternal one (diin wa dunyaa). And how do I know that the world is a mere plaything? Well, night and day there is a spectacle in front of me. The word tamaashaa is used brilliantly here and again contains more possbilities than conveyed by "spectacle." It has the sense of something fake or theatrical, as in, when someone is said to be doing tamaashaa we mean that they are creating a scene or behaving in a manner that is not only undignified but also shallow ("creating a scene" perhaps). This entire range of commotations is appropriate here. We of course do not know what sorts of tamaashaas Ghalib had in mind when he said this, but as the post on The South Asian Idea notes, contemporary politics often provides us with plenty of opportunities to remember this verse.

There is a second meaning in the verse which is not mentioned by any of the commentators. This meaning is allowed by the grammatical structure of sentences in Hindi/Urdu and Ghalib uses it very often. Any line that says "A is B" can equally well be read as "B is A" in Hindi/Urdu. Thus baaziichah-e a:tfaal hai dunyaa can be read as "the world is a plaything of children" (or "the world is merely children at play"), which is the favored reading here, or it can also be read as "plaything of children is a world" ("or "children at play show us a world"). The second reading adds an entire new dimension as we consider below and provides a delightful new angle to the verse, since we now see the playing of children as a metaphor for the material world just as the world reminds us of children at play.

What does it add? Coming back to the idea of dunyaa as speciafically the material world, we can also see why activities in this world are like children at play. Because, just as children at play are in their own play-world and oblivious of the "real world" (i.e. for them their toy world is the real world), but we who are adult or grown-up see them as being in error or just being children, so also those who possess knowledge of existence beyond the material world consider those whose thought is limited to the temporal/material world, to be in error. Thus "children" are a metaphor for spiritually unaware people.

As always a seemingly simple verse hides a world of meanings (alaam-e-ma'ani).

Pakistani classical vocalist Ustad Naseeruddin Saami of the Delhi Gharana

2009-03-20T10:36:00.003-04:00

An absolutely stellar performance from Karachi-based Ustad Naseeruddin Saami of the Delhi Gharana, trained by Munshi Raziuddin and by the descendants of Tan Ras Khan, Bahadur Shah Zafar's music teacher. This was performed at the All Pakistan Music Conference in 2006. Hindustani classical has many excellent practitioners in Pakistan, another in a long list of shared cultural traits between India and Pakistan, that deserves far greater awareness. So we may counter the virulent logic most recently articulated by Varun Gandhi, who appears foolish and immature and yet only strongly vocalizes that which many softly mutter.

Ustad Naseeruddin Saami from Tasawwuf on Vimeo.

Ghalib trusts in the Seven Heavens

2009-03-11T23:43:00.001-04:00

{46,2}

raat din gardish me;N hai;N saat aasmaa;N
ho rahegaa kuchh nah kuchh ghabraa))e;N kyaa

1) night and day they're in [a state of] revolving/turning/wandering, the seven heavens
2) something or other will end up happening-- why would/should we be perturbed/agitated?

Commentary on Desertful of Roses and parallel post on The South Asian Idea.

A FWP notes, this was a verse Ghalib often quoted in his letters. It is an excellent verse to keep handy in difficult times or when the heavens really seem against you. A defiant yet humble verse. Defiant because we refuse to be intimidated by circumstances, yet humble becuase really we know out own efforts are small compared to the movements of the heavens.

Gardish is again a very multivalent word. According to Platts:
gardish : 'Going round, turning round, revolution; circulation; roll; course; period; turn, change; vicissitude; reversion; --adverse fortune, adversity; --wandering about, vagrancy'.

Ghalib uses it here in the sense of eternal or perpetual movement of the stars (the "seven heavens" of Aristotle). Elsewhere he has used it in the sense of a frightenning perpetualness of motion as in:

kyuu;N gardish-e mudaam se ghabraa nah jaa))e dil
insaan huu;N piyaalah-o-saa;Gar nahii;N huu;N mai;N

Why would this perpetual motion/circulation not terrify the heart
I am human, not a glass and flagon (wine pitcher)

Anyway, returning to the present verse, it is a great example of one of Ghalib's inshaiiyah verses, i.e interrogative, exclamatory, rhetorical versesm, as opposed to ;xabariyah (informative) verses. The meaning itself is straightforward. There are no profundities or paradoxes here. "Merely" a well-put summary of the human condition: eternally hopefully yet eternally powerless also. We get the feeling that many things are happening outside our control. Ironically, not only do adverse things happend witohut our permission, but as Ghalib puts it, even solutions appear by themselves. ho rahega kuch na kuch, has an excellent idiomatic feel that conveys the sense of "something is bound to happen one way or another. "Thus "aasmaaN", the heavens are our friends as they are our enemies. So contrast this "heavans as friends" verse with an explicit "heavens as enemy" take:

ham kahaa;N ke daanaa the kis hunar me;N yaktaa the
be-sabab hu))aa ;Gaalib dushman aasmaa;N apnaa

What kind of wise men were we, in posession of what unique skill
Without cause, Ghalib, the heavens turned against us/became our enemy

This verse also relies on ordinary Urdu vocabulary ("baazaar-haaT language"), showing that Ghalib is quite capable of stating things in a simple straighforward manner if he wishes. Contrast this with some of the heavy duty Persianized verses (See for e.g. this one and this one) we have blogged about in the past.

A River Cannot Be A River by Shilpi Suneja

2009-03-11T12:03:00.002-04:00

This story, written by Shilpi Suneja (my girlfriend) won the "Set in Harvard Square" short story contest organized by Harvard Book Store. Enjoy!

From the Meeting House online journal website:
Shilpi Suneja’s story “A River Cannot Be a River” has been chosen as the winner of the contest. “A really impressive piece of work,” Askold Melnyczuk said of the story. “Beautifully clean prose, intimate, and affecting.”

Ghalib is openly deceived

2009-03-01T10:44:00.002-05:00

This week,s verse reaches outside the usual compilation of ghazals in Ghalib's divaan. It is from a qasiidaa (panegyric) in the form of a ghazal.

ہیں کواکب کچھ نزر آتے ہیں کچھ
دیتے ہیں دھوکا یہ بازیگر کھلا

हैं कवाकिब कुछ नजर आते हैं कुछ
देते हैं धोका यह बाज़ीगर खुला

haiN kawakib kuchh nazar aate haiN kuchh

detey haiN dhokaa yeh baaziigar khulaa

1. The stars/constellations are some [one] thing and appear another
2. These conjurers/tricksters trick/fool [us] openly

Acc. to Platts:
A کواکب kawākib, s.m. pl. (of kaukab), Stars; constellations.
P بازي बाज़ी bāzī, vulg. bājī (see bāz, 'playing'), s.f. Play, sport, game, trick; game of chance, hazard; gaming; stake (at play), wager, bet:

This verse does not appear in Desertful of Roses. The translation is ours. Please visit the parallel entry on The South Asian Idea, placing the verse in contemporary social context.

It is a charming verse which exploits the power of the simple yet multivalent word "kuchh" which can mean both "something" and "a few things." The rhetorical power of the verse also derives from the idiomatic use of "khulaa dhoka dena" (to trick or cheat openly).

In one reading here we can imagine the word "aur" at the end of line one. Then the verse reads straightforwardly as the stars are open tricksters because in full view they appear as one thing but are actually something entirely different. Of course we don't know what precisely Ghalib has in mind. Is he talking about real stars in the sky which appear as tiny twinkling spots but are really immense, fiery balls spewing gas plumes?

Or less scientifically and more poetically is he referring to the stars on Earth, the beautiful ones who appear sweet and innocent but really are heartless killers who won't think twice about trampling on lovers' hearts. They trick (play with the lover's heart) openly, in full view of the world. The word "baazigar" is more complex than "trickster," carrying an implication of someone who gambles on love or plays with one's affections.

This verse also sustains a nice socio-political implication if we think of baazigar also as siyaasatdaan (politicians). The post of South Asian Idea explores this connection further.

Aashiq huuN jiskaa maiN: Murli Raju Qawwal and Party

2009-02-16T14:35:00.005-05:00

A rare treat! Qawwali by sons of the famous Murli Qawwal from Lucknow.

Ghalib: Heart is a Mirror and Mirror a Heart

2009-02-12T23:02:00.004-05:00

This week we have chosen a lesser known and complex verse which nonetheless offers richly rewarding readings.

az mihr taa bah-;zarrah dil-o-dil hai aa))inah
:tuu:tii ko shash jihat se muqaabil hai aa))inah

अज मिहर ता बा-ज़र्रह दिल - ओ - दिल है आइनह
तूती को शश जिहत से मुकाबिल है आइनह

1) from sun to sand-grain-- heart; and heart is a mirror
2) {from / by means of} the six directions, a mirror confronts the parrot

Translation and commentary on Desertful of Roses. Parallel commentary on The South Asian Idea.

The most straightforward reading is offered by Bekhud Mohani on Desertful of Roses:
"From the sun to the sand-grain-- that is, everything in the world-- is a heart, and the heart is a mirror. Thus the parrot sees a mirror in every direction. That is, the world is a mirror-house, in which the mystical knower sees his own face in every direction."

The parrot is a well-used metaphor for the poet since at least Khusro, if not earlier, since it, like the poet is famous for its sweet speech (shirin sukhan). There is something very intriguing about the image Ghalib constructs in the second line. The poet surrounded on all sides by mirrors: an infinite number of reflections surrounding him. But lets take the verse in detail.

The first line, as FWP points out, has a flowingness (ravaangii) created by the phrase dil-o-dil. Semantically, the line can easily be read as two separate thoughts as outlined above: the world is a heart and the heart is a mirror. However, other readings are not ruled out. Breaking the first line after sand-grain, we get 'from sun to sand-grain, heart after heart is a mirror.' But this does not substantially change the meaning, particularly given the more specific context of the second line. A more radical departure from the interpretation given above would be to take advantage of Urdu grammar which allows "dil hai aainah" to be read both as "heart is a mirror" and "mirror is a heart." Thus, we interpret the first line as the whole world (or each aspect of the world) is heart-like and the mirror too is a heart. Why privilege the mirror separately? Is it not part of the world as well. Yes and no. The mirror is of the world and also reflects the world. It is thus like the heart (or in modern terminology consciousness or the brain), which is also part of the world and at the same time reflects it. Thus both heart and mirror are united in this property and the equation works both ways (heart = mirror).

Coming to the second line. As I said, here Ghalib constructs a highly memorable vision, almost Borges like in its exploitation of the mirror theme (I will write something soon exploring the Ghalib-Borges parallel a bit further). The parrot/poet/seeker wherever he turns is confronted by a mirror or is confronted by the heart/consciousness. Wherever we turn we find both a conscious reality and we find ourselves reflected in it. Further we cannot rule out a double meaning of finding ourselves face to face with ourselves. We face ourseleves everywhere as ego that we are unable to get rid of, but we also face ourselves because we know that the atman (self) and brahman (universe) are One.

The language of mirror and confrontation is used by Ghalib in a Persian verse that I have blogged about before:

Ghalib chuN shaKhs-o-aks dar aainah-e-Khayaal
ba Khveshtan yaki o do char khudiim ma

Ghalib, like the person and the reflection in the mirror of thought
With ourselves we are one annd we confront ourselves

Mirrors are particularly favored by Ghalib's paradox-loving nature, because of that aspect I alluded to earlier of mirror being part of reality and also reflecting it, as do minds.

Ghalib: Indifference is worse than enmity

2009-02-06T13:40:00.005-05:00

Last week's she'r brought to mind another excellent use of the word "laag" by Ghalib. This one fully exploits the fast that "laag" can mean affection/love as well as animosity/enmity.

laag ho to us ko ham samjhe;N lagaa))o
jab nah ho kuchh bhii to dhokaa khaa))e;N kyaa

لاگ ہو تو اس کوہم سمجھیں لگاؤ
جب نہ ہو کچھ بھی تو دھوکا کھائیں کیا

लाग हो तो उस को हम समझें लगाओ
जब न हो कुछ भी तो धोका खाएं क्या

1) if enmity/love would exist, then we would consider it a bond

2a) when nothing at all would exist, then-- why would we be deceived?
2b) when nothing at all would exist, then-- would we be deceived?

Commentary and translation on Desertful of Roses. Parallel commentary in a social context on The South Asian Idea.

Let us explore this simple yet alluring verse. First here are the meanings of the two key words in the first line according to Platts Dictionary:
laag : 'Attachment, affection, love; ... enmity, animosity, hostility, rancour, spite'. (Platts p.946)
lagaa))o : 'Attachment, connexion; bond, link; ...inclination, propensity'. (Platts p.961)

Now the first line: If affection or hostility existed we could understand a bond to exist. Both are relationships albeit of the opposite kinds. So far what we have is an excellent use of the double-meaning of the word "laag." Incidentally this is a good time to reitirate that word play (iham) appears so centrally in Ghalib's poetry that there is no way to consider it incidental or accidental. Punning or word-play are considered inferior devices in much of poetry today (certainly in English poetry, but I think also in Urdu/Hindi). But in the hands of masters like Ghalib word-play is used in a way that greatly expands the meanings in a she'r. Since the she'r is severely constrained in its length and the ghazal very rarely extends a particular thought beyond one verse, the ghazal poet has to say as much as she can in a very small amount of space. In classical poetry this is achieved in several ways. One, metaphors build upon previous metaphors obviating the need for explanation within the poem. Thus one can speak of the Beloved or wine or the gatekeeper to the Beloved's lane and explain no further relying on the knowledge of the listener/reader to conjure up the full range of associations in the ghazal universe. Second word-play and ambiguity allow an even greater expansion of meaning. Ghalib is the master of both strategies.

In any case I digress. After the word-play of the first line the second line then says: when nothing exists then why would we be deceived? So neither enmity nor affection is displayed by the Beloved. Notice, connecting to my point earlier about brevity in a ghazal, that Ghalib does not even bother to mention " by the Beloved." It is understood. Now if nothing exists between the lover and the Beloved, why then would the lover be confused or deceived about whether the behavior implied affection or hostility? Indifference is complete and allows for no false hopes.

Exploting the divine meaning of the Beloved, this also becomes a plaint for one who feels ignored or forsaken by God. If God at least punished me I could imagine that She cared about me, enough to be hostile or rancorous. But when there is nothing between us, why would I be deceived? Asking rhetorical questions is a common and powerful device often employed by Ghalib.

Dont' forget to visit the parallel post on The South Asian Idea.

Ghalib: Paradise Lost and a Good Thing Too!

2009-01-31T09:43:00.004-05:00

A wealth of Ghalib verses relate to theological or religious notions of the Godhead, of reward and punishment for good or bad behavior, of the nature of true worship, faith and so on. In our series we have seen several examples of these already. The question of the nature of God came up on The South Asian Idea and that prompts the latest post.

:taa((at me;N taa rahe nah mai-o-angabii;N kii laag
doza;x me;N ;Daal do ko))ii le kar bihisht ko

طاعت میں تا رہے نہ مے و انگبیں کی لاگ
دوزخ میں ڈال دو کوئ لے کر بہشت کو

ता'अत में ता रहे न मै ओ अन्गबीन की लाग
दोज़ख में दाल दो कोई ले कर बहिश्त को।

1) so that, in obedience/worship, the attachment/desire of wine and honey does not remain
2) take Paradise, and cast it into Hell

Click here for translation and commentary on Desertful of Roses.
Click here for the parallel entry on The South Asian Idea.

Platts Dictionary: Arabic اطاعت it̤āʻat [inf. n. iv of طوع 'to be or become submissive'], s.f. Obedience, submission, subjection, subordination, fealty, allegiance; observance; reverence, worship, homage; obsequiousness:—it̤āʻat karnā (-kī), To obey, do the bidding (of);

This verse is from a relatively short ghazal (118) consisting of only four verses. The brief length might be explained by the somewhat unusual rhyme scheme, "isht ko." It is a mischievous, even blasphemous verse. Paradise (bahisht) is famed as the land of flowing honey and wine. The preacher (shaikh, vaaiz) regularly demands obedience and worship from his followers by tempting them with the prospect of paradise. This of course rubs Ghalib the wrong way. Of what use is worship or obedience or submission to God (see above for the Platts entry on the word ta'at) if it is motivated out of a desire for such rewards? So Ghalib says: so that reverence and obedience are not obtained with wine and honey in mind, let us just take Paradise and cast it into Hell. Na rahe gaa baaNs, ne bajegi baaNsuri (a Hindi idiomatic expression, lit. neither the bamboo will remain, nor the flute make its sound, meaning to remove the root cause of some trouble).

The verse's content is shocking but not particularly profound. What makes it work is the chutzpah and the way it is constructed, as also the choice of words. First, as always notice that the first line does not give too much away. It simply makes a general proposition: we are going to do something such that worship is no longer tied to the promise of reward. The second line reveals the momentous nature of what we propose to do. It is fun to try and guess the informed listener's reaction as the verse is recited. As the first line is repeated a few times, our mind starts spinning, "what could be coming?" Then as the second line starts, "cast into hell..." initially it seems only a regular curse (in English "to hell with"). But since we have already h eard the first verse of this ghazal and therefore know the rhyme scheme, our mind is drawn to the word that both fulfills the rhyme scheme and offer a wonderful counter-point to "dozakh" (hell), and that word of course is bahisht (paradise). In a sudden "ah" moment we get the full impact of the verse. This is one of those verses which one gets the full meaning as soon as it is heard and understood.

Lastly the choice of words, once again Ghalib makes full use of Urdu's vocabulary which ranges from Arabic, via Persian to the Prakrit derived languages of the Subcontinent (the languages like braj, awadhi, hindvi that came together to form modern Hindi). So the wonderful word "laag" appears here. A very evocative word that conveys fondness, attachment, desire, the feeling of being entangled, all at once. It works perfectly here because it conveys exactly how attachment to earthly pleasures, which gets int the way of true worship, is simply transferred to heavenly pleasures. The fact of attachment remains and hence the obstruction to true worship also remains...as long as we don't do away with the whole notion of paradise. And not only should we do away with Paradise, Ghalib even tells us how we should do it- to hell with it! What excellent wordplay and contrast!

The conversation continues into more contemporary and socially relevant territory on The South Asian Idea.

Ghalib on striking one's own path

2009-01-24T21:09:00.003-05:00

We continue with the second post of the year on Ghalib. New readers should know that this is part of an ongoing series on reinterpreting Ghalib for today. It is a collaborative project with The South Asian Idea. Click on the category "The Ghalib Project" for past posts.

Here is this week's verse:

لازم نہیں کہ خضر کی ہم پیروی کریں

جانا کہ اک بزرگ ہمیں ہم سفر ملے

laazim nahii;N kih ;xi.zr kii ham pairavii kare;N
jaanaa kih ik buzurg hame;N ham-safar mile

लाजिम नहीं की खिज्र की हम पैरवी करें
जाना कि एक बुजुर्ग हमें हमसफर मिले

1) it's not necessary that we would follow in Khizr's footsteps
2) we considered that we had acquired one venerable-elder as a fellow-traveler

Click here for commentary on Desertful of Roses.

This is one of Ghalib's "independence of thought" verses. In Khizr Ghalib takes on one of the most revered wise men of the Islamic tradition. Khizr is said to have drunk from the fountain of youth and acheived immortality. He appears throughout history with Moses, with Alexander, at Mohammad's (PBUH) fuuneral and even today has been seen by many Sufi saints. The Sufi's consider him a guide to all those who are lost. Revealing himself to those who are worthy, he is also said to reveal divine secrets (sirr) to them. Ghalib is at his tongue-incheek best here. First he accepts Sufi tradition which claims that Khizr is still alive today (otherwise how would be meet him in our travels?), and Ghalib grants to himself the status of those to whom Khizr would deign to reveal himself (i.e. someone who is worthy of what Khizr has to offer). But then he undermines Khizr's special place by saying: its not really binding on us to imitate or follow him. We will just think we have found a buzurg as a fellow-traveler, a companion. The word buzurg is very multivalent and well-chosen. According to Platts:

P بزرگ buzurg [Pehl. vazr; Zend vazra; S. vajra], adj. & s.m. Great, reverend, venerable, aged, noble, respected, respectable;—great man, grandee; old man, elder, respectable person; holy man, saint; sage, wise man;

So you can see that it accords Khizr just the right amount of respect, without making him someone who should be followed blindly. Because, after all, we are smart enough to chart our own path. But the question is: what is Khizr doing here in the first place. Ghalib seems to suggest that his (Ghalib's) destination or at least search, is the same as Khizr (how else could they be hamsafars, or fellow-travelers?).

Finally, a bridge to modern times. This verse is quite open-ended in the sense that "ham" can be interpreted more broadly in terms of a country or society and Khizr could be several models of progress, development etc which are in front of us, which need not be imitated, but rather considered to be "elders" who accompany us in our search for a better world. For more on this line of thought please visit the parallel post on The South Asian Idea.

Ghalib on the New Year

2009-01-09T20:39:00.004-05:00

We are back after a break for the Holiday Season. And what better way to start off the new year than with a verse pontificating on the possibilities of what the year holds in store. Admittedly it hasn't been a promising start with the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the US Dept. of Labor announcing record breaking layoffs. Lekin phir bhi...

دیکھیے پاتے ہیں عشاق بتوں سے کیا فیض
اک برہمن نے کہا ہے کہ یہ سال اچھا ہے

dekhiye paate hai;N ((ushshaaq buto;N se kyaa fai.z
ik barahman ne kahaa hai kih yih saal achchhaa hai

1) let's see what grace/favor/benefit lovers find from idols
2) one Brahman has said that this year is good

Frances Pritchett calls this a "sly and witty little verse." And so it is. Witty, tongue-in-cheek, almost nonchalantly beguiling. The first line is very innocuous, hackneyed even, alluding as it does to a very conventional Ghazal image of lovers (ushshaaq is the Arabic plural of aashiq) obtaining beneficience/grace/bounty from idols, idols here meaning the respective beloveds. But the second line enhances the effect substantially. One can almost imagine the verse being recited in a mushaairaa, where after several repetitions of the first line, we begin the hear the second one, ik barahman ne kahaa hai, and knowing what the rhyme scheme of the ghazal is (since we have heard a few verses being recited before this one), we can feel what is coming, and perhaps in unison we join the poet in exclaiming, yeh saal achchha hai! At that moment we realize that the word "but" or idol in the first line can be taken in two senses, the conventional Ghazal sense of the Beloved and the religious sense of an idol to be worshiped, on which of course Brahmin's are acknowledged experts.

As Hali notes, Ghalib comments on the fact that for a Lover the only meaning of a "good year" is the year in which he will obtain the grace of his Beloved: "he considers the sole meaning of its being good to be that perhaps this year beloveds might be gracious to lovers, not that this year there would be no famine or pestilence or wars, etc. etc." But the double meaning of "idol" that Ghalib invokes by speaking of a Brahmin, can take us further. The Lover is hopes for grace not only from the Beloved but from the Supreme Beloved or God, without whose grace, in fact no earthly grace is possible. Let us join Ghalib then in praying for a New Year in which we the seekers and searchers of Divine and earthly beloved find the grace we are looking for.

Please visit the parallel post on The South Asian Idea.

Ghalib, Sufism and the attack on symbolism

2008-12-24T21:02:00.003-05:00

Going after conventional symbols, ridiculing them, inverting them to provoke thought in the listener or reader is a favorite Sufi trick. The aim is to make us think about the arbitrary nature of the customs we consider holy. Ghalib is a master at this art, as we have had occasion to note before. Recall, mare but;xaane meiN to ka'be meiN gaaDho barhaman ko. So here is another verse in the same spirit. This one is not part of the regular divaan, so we are not providing a link to Desertful of Roses.

کعبے میں جا بجایںگے ناقوس
اب تو باندھا ہے دیر میں احرام

ka'be meN jaa bajaaeNge naaquus
ab to baaNdhaa hai dair meN ahraam

काबे में जा बजाएंगे नाकूस
अब तो बंधा है दैर में एहराम

1. (we) will go and strike a gong in the Ka'ba
2. since now we have tied the holy cloak in the church/temple

Parallel commentary on The South Asian Idea.

According to Platts dictionary:
A ناقوس nāqūs (v.n. fr. نقس 'to strike (a gong),' &c.), s.m. A kind of wooden gong; a thin oblong piece of wood, suspended by two strings and struck with a flexible rod (used by the Eastern Christians)
Steingass Persian-English dictionary adds the following: a kind of wooden gong (used by the Christians in Muhammadan countries instead of church-bells)

The main symbolism is thus in ka'ba, naaquus, dair and ehraam. By taking visibly Chirstian and Muslim symbols and mixing them up, reversing their place, Ghalibs shows powerfully how our mind grows to make certain associations which are somewhat arbitrary or conventional. A true Sufi or one who seeks the Beloved would not think twice about flouting these conventions. In fact would flout them to show others their sectarian nature. Even to a secular mind like mine the image of blowing a conch in the ka'ba or wearing a holy cloak to a temple is startling.

Prof Moazzam Siddiqi offers the following explication:
The associations between, ka'ba and iHraam and dayr and naaquus are quite obvious, and they follow an apparently logical, rather, traditional logic: The iHraam is always tied in the holy precincts of Mecca, and the only call to prayer one hears there is the azaaN. It would be an unthinkable act of defiance and blasphemy even to imagine the naaquus being blown in the Ka'ba. Not content with one act of blasphemy and defiance (breaking the norms of established religion), namely blowing the naaquus in Ka'ba, and thus defiling it (in the eyes of the upholders of the followers of exoteric [zaahirii] aspect of religion), the poet wants to repeat the same act by defiling the dayr [could be a Christian church/monastery, a Jewish synagogue or a Hindu or Buddhist temple] by donning the iHraam there. For those [someone like Rumi] who are the Sufis [ahl-e baatin or esoterists] it is inconsequential where you blow the naaquus or where you cry out the azaaN or tie the iHraam; it does not matter whether you do it in the Ka'ba or butkhaana or dayr, because the One you are looking for and want to please resides in all these houses of worship. The shocking effect is deliberately created for maximum impact, so that the poet may drive his/her point home more effectively. This kind of Ghalibian iconoclasm deliberately breaks the established norm (which we are brain washed to believe that this is the only logical/rational way of doing things, because our ancestors/the society in their infinite wisdom have done so and said so). It is this mode of thinking that Ghalib wanted to change. If he had lived in the present day Pakistan he would long be dead, killed by some salafi/jihadi/lashkari/taliban/jamaa'ati zealot. For the same reason Ghalib in one of his Farsi she'rs (which I cannot recall at this point) once said that a person who is ahl-e khirad (endowed with intelligence and reason) would not be pleased with the established ways of the faith of his ancestors and discover a new path for himself. Some people argue that this was the reason why he turned away from Sunni Islam (the religion of his ancestors) and chose to follow the Shia belief. It is interesting to note that we come across this brazen iconoclasm largely in his Urdu poetry. His Persian poetry on the other hand is not tinged with this quality. In it he comes across more as a devotee of the Prophet and his family, especially Ali...MS
Thanks to Dr. Moazzam Siddiqi for explaining the meaning and intent of the sh’er. The onus of the liberties we have taken is on us.

Ghalib on Difference and Unity

2008-12-14T10:44:00.004-05:00

After a break of a few weeks we are back our series on Ghalib. This time we take a somewhat lesser known verse from a very famous ghazal. The verse is chosen to affirm our unity in the face of differences that threaten to overwhelm us. The Ghazal (#111), sab kahaaN, kuchh laala-o-gul meiN is deservedly one of Ghalib's most quoted, most sung, most recited ones. The verse is the following:

ham muva;h;hid hai;N hamaaraa kesh hai tark-e rusuum
millate;N jab mi;T ga))ii;N ajzaa-e iimaa;N ho ga))ii;N

1) we are monists, our practice is the renunciation of customs
2) when the communities were erased, they became parts of the faith

Translation and commentary on Desertful of Roses.

To see why we prefer "monist" to "monotheist" as translation of muvahhid, see companion commentary on The South Asian Idea.

This is a complex and densely packed verse with some heavy-duty Persian and Arabic vocabulary. Heavy-duty not only in the sense of difficulty (such as the arabic plural of juz, ajzaa), but also in the sense of using words that are multivalent and heavy with philosophical and theological meaning. For me this is an example of Ghalib in his erudite and didactic mood. Of course the beauty of Ghalib is that even in such a mood he retains a measure of poetic stature which a lesser poet would find difficult to attain. One way Ghalib does this is to rely on his quintessential sense of paradox or contradiction. So as S.R. Faruqi notes, the verse claims that "In our capacity as monotheist we know that the only true religion [مذہب] is not to have a religion [مذہب]." The second way he does this, also typical of his style is to exploit the formal structure of the Ghazal itself and to hold the powerful image for the very end. A third way, again something which I have commented on a few times before, is to mix high Perso-Arabic terminology with a few Indic words well chosen to accentuate the difference in consonants. Here the hardness of "mit jaanaa" amidst the other words, works very well, particularly if you recite the verse with dramatic effect, stressing the hard "t" in "mit."

Now for the meaning: FWP notes that "The terms here are a wild conceptual jungle, and surely deliberately framed to be so. All of them are notably broad and highly flexible." As proof I give below the Platts Discitonary entries on the key words.

A مؤحد muʼaḥḥid and muwaḥḥid act. part. of أحّد and وحّد 'to make, or to call, one; to declare God to be one,
P کيش kesh, s.f.m. Faith, religion, sect;—manner, quality (often used in comp.):—kāfir-kesh, adj. Prone to infidelity; (met.) a mistress, sweetheart.
A رسوم rusūm, s.f. pl. (of rasm, q.v.), Customs, usages, &c.;
A ترك tark, s.m. Abandoning, forsaking, leaving; setting aside; abandonment, desertion; relinquishment
P ملت millat (for A. ملة, v.n. fr. ملّ 'to turn; to convert,' &c.), s.f. Religion, faith, creed;—a nation, people
A اجزا ajzā (pl. of جز juz), s.m. Parts, portions, divisions, sections; sections of the Qorʼān; feet (of a verse); constituent parts (of a thing), elements; members; ingredients (of any compound or mixture).
A ايمان īmān [inf. n. iv of امن 'To be safe or secure'], s.m. Belief (particularly in God, and in His word and apostles, &c.); faith, religion, creed; conscience; good faith, trustworthiness, integrity:

You will see that "religion, faith, creed" appears as one possible meaning of three different words in the verse, kesh, millat and imaaN. But each time something different is meant. The first line is more straighforward. Since we are monists and we believe in the oneness of God or oneness of Being, our religion is the renunciation of particular rituals (note that rasm, of which the plural is rusuum, is here translated as customs, though in the context of the verse I think rituals would be a better translation. Even today we refer to rituals as rasm-o-rivaaj, e.g. shaadi is rasm and so on). The second line offers us a vision of what would happen if rituals and customs were indeed renounced. When distinctions between communities and creeds and nations who each have a distinct identity based on their customs and rituals are erased, the different parts become part of the Whole. Since the Whole in question here is God/Being, it is One and indivisible, and hence cannot consist of parts. So there is subtle wordplay here. They are parts (ajzaa) and yet not parts (because they have been erased). This is tight way of communicated a profound truth of Sufism. That when the one is lost in the One, individual identities are lost in the Whole, and Union (wasl) is achieved.

As Kabir would say:
mera mujhe meiN kucch naiN, jo kucch hai so teraa
tera tujhko sauNp rahaa, kyaa laage hai meraa

Nothing is mine in me, everything is yours
When I entrust you yours, what is left of me?

And speaking of Kabir tark-e-rusuum was a very important theme with him as well. Rituals are constantly attacked for getting in the way of true Union with the Beloved.

malaa to kar meiN phire jeebh phire mukh maahii
manvaa to chahuuN dish phire ye to sumiran nahii

the rosary turns in the hand, the tongue roams in the mouth
the mind roams the four directions, this is not meditation

topi pahire mala pahire chhap tilak anumana
sakhi sabade gavat bhule atam khabari na jana

wearing a cap, turning the rosary, adorning marks of the faith
singing hymns, they keep no knowledge of the soul.

Kabir and Ghalib offer fascinating examples of how similar ideas can be expressed in completely different idioms of expression. South Asia is heir to all these idioms and these thoughts are not foreign to us. Rather they are in the fabric of our being. Bringing them forward, affirming them and reaffirming them is our task for the times.

Terrorism and South Asia: Join us in a new initiative

2008-12-07T19:55:00.005-05:00

Last week and this week we suspended our usual series of blog entries on Ghalib. Like many others from South Asia, Nov. 26-28 saw me transfixed to NDTV Online watching the horrific events unfold in Bombay, a city I lived in for the first twenty years of my life, and still think of as home. Much ink has been spilled already in the mainstream and alternative media, the blogosphere and elsewhere on the attacks and the aftermath. Understandably there is much anger among the ordinary Mumbaikars.

But hearteningly the last ten days have seen, not more bloodshed and rioting, not wanton targeting of an entire community just because the killers bore certain names. Rather the last ten days have seen countless vigils, peace marches, and new initiatives within India, across India-Pakistan and in the US. Since the true victory of the extremists lies in destroying trust and mutual goodwill among people, these initiatives are vital in ensuring that no such victory ensues.

Even though angry and upset, I still eschew any language of being "tough on terrorism," or "waging a global war on terror," because I have seen all too often how ordinary people pay the price for the "toughness." The Police has its place, the security forces have their place, no doubt. But far more important, the faith, the trust of the ordinary Indian and the ordinary Pakistan, both equally victims of terrorism, has the pride of place.

Together with the virtual blog partner of mehr-e-niimroz, The South Asian Idea, we propose some steps towards establishing a way forward. This way forward relies on ordinary people in India, Pakistan, the United States, stepping forward to be counted among those who feel that the way to defeat such extremism is to kindle new friendships and renew old ones, to emphasize our commonalities instead of stressing the differences, and realizing that no borders, no number of 9/11s or 26/11s can break the centuries old bonds that tie communities toghether in South Asia.

Here is what we propose:

[From The South Asian Idea]
"To begin with, The South Asian Idea will promote three functions: First, to be an ongoing roll of all the individuals who sign up to play a proactive roll to end terrorism in the world. We will see our names spilling across pages and draw comfort from the fact that there are many of us, that our numbers are increasing, and that we are united.

Second, to be a vehicle for reaching out and joining hands. We propose to initiate this by twinning educational institutions across South Asia – school with school, college with college, university with university, one pair at a time. We will then ask each pair of institutions to facilitate the linking of individual students with each other. These unions will be the bricks of our defensive wall.

Third, to be a forum where these pairs and unions will begin to open their hearts and minds to each other, to air their best hopes and their worst fears, to talk to each other, to raise the tough issues that need to be raised, to discuss the strategies that need to be implemented, to become friends, to fall in love, to provide the mortar that would make our wall of defense impregnable.

Every individual can do but a little. Together we can do a lot. We invite you to reach out and join hands with us."

Volunteers who wish to join this effort should send an email with suggestions and a description of the skills they can contribute to thesouthasianidea@gmail.com or abasole@gmail.com

A discussion group (South Asians for Peace) has been set up as a first step to facilitate an exchange of ideas about more specific initiatives for the future. Do join and contribute your thoughts. http://groups.google.com/group/South-Asians-For-Peace

Ghalib on Inheritance and Worthiness

2008-11-24T21:55:00.002-05:00

sul:tanat dast bah dast aa))ii hai
jaam-e mai ;xaatim-e jamshed nahii;N

1) the kingship has come from hand to hand
2) the glass of wine [is] not the {signet-ring / seal} of Jamshid

Translation and commentary on Desertful of Roses.

This week we depart from the ethereal realms of Paradise and reflection on the Divine. Rather we reflect with Ghalib on kingship, inheritance and worthiness.

First on the structure of the verse itself. Note that the logical connection between the two lines seems more loose than usual. But we know that a good she'r must display the quality of "rabt" or connection/relationship between its two lines. The challenge faced by the Ghazal writer is how to connect the two lines such that the relationship is clear and yet open to several interpretations. We have seen on many earlier occasions that Ghalib is the master of this art. FWP outlines several possibilities inherent in this verse.

In this verse, first we learn that kingship passes from hand to hand, or in other words, is inherited. So far so good. Merely a routine observation, though made very economically. Next we learn that a glass of wine is not the seal of Jamshed (a King of Ancient Persia). What does this mean? Firstly, note that a glass of wine is a complex metaphor in the Ghazal universe, on par with the wine tavern (mai;xaanah), the garden (gulistaaN), the Beloved (maashooq), the nightingale (bulbul) and so on. It can stand for life affirmation and rakishness (rindi) as opposed to the life-denying, asceticism of the preacher. It can also stand for the vehicle of mystical experience (wine).

Thus Ghalib may be saying that unlike kingship which we know is merely inherited (regardless of worthiness), a glass of wine, or the mytical experience only comes to those worthy of it. It is not like the seal of Jamshed which either belongs only to Jamshed himself, or perhaps is passed on as kingship is, via inheritance or via bloody conquests and wars.

One way to get this interpretation directly, and a way which also connects the seal of Jamshed to the notion of kingship, is to read ;xaatim-e-Jamshed" as the subject rather than object of the second line, which the Urdu flexible word ordering allows us to do. So the second line becomes, "the seal of Jamshid is not a wine glass," rather than "the wine glass is not the seal of Jamshed." This allows a direct reading of the entire verse as: Kingship is inherited. The Seal of Jamshed (a symbol of Kingship) is not a wine glass that will only go to those worthy of it.

Ghalib plays often with these ideas of worth and the wine goblet. Two other examples come to mind. One cited by FWP:

mujh tak kab un kii bazm me;N aataa thaa daur-e jaam
saaqii ne kuchh milaa nah diyaa ho sharaab me;N

1) when did the going-round of the cup, in that one's gathering, come as far as me?

2a) may the Cupbearer not have mixed something into the wine!
2b) might the Cupbearer not have mixed something into the wine?

And another one:

girnii thii ham pah barq-e tajallii nah :tuur par
dete hai;N baadah :zarf-e qada;h-;xvaar dekh kar

1) the lightning of glory/manifestation should have fallen on us, not on [Mount] Tur
2) they give wine [only after] having seen the capacity of the cup-drinker

In both verses, Ghalib plays with the question, "who is worthy of the wine?" or in order words "who is worthy of love/life/the mystical union/divine experience?" In the second verse the theme of merit or worthiness is more explicit. In a wine tavern, they hand out wine only according to the drinkers capacity to drink it. Similarly Ghalib boasts that the divine lightening bolt that fell on Mount Sinai (when the Ten Commandments were revealed to Moses), should have fallen on him instead, because is more worthy of it! The first verse is more oblique on matters of worthiness. Ghalib asks, when was I ever worthy of the wine-glass in that company? Now that is has come to me, I suspect something is fishy.

Please do visit this verse and its commentary on The South Asian Idea for contemporary relevance and meaning.

Ghalib: The Scream of Silence

2008-11-08T21:43:00.003-05:00

kyuu;N nah chii;xuu;N kih yaad karte hai;N
mirii aavaaz gar nahii;N aatii

1) why would I not scream? for she/he/they call(s) me to mind
2) if my voice does not come

We have a classic Ghalibian mind-twister for this week. FWP has a lot of fun with the Catch-22 possibilities of this verse. Click here for her commentary.

In a nutshell, Ghalib confronts us with the following paradox: The unnamed party whose attention the poet wishes to attract only remembers the poet when he is silent. But when he is silent, no dialogue is possible. So he screams in agony but of course the screams go unheeded, because...well they only remember him when he is silent! In the traditional interpretation, the poet is the lover and the party being refered to is the beloved. But of course, as usual Ghalib exploits the ambiguities allowed by Urdu and chooses to omit the subject of the phrase "[he/she/they] remember." So the person(s) being refered to can be not only be the beloved, but perhaps the King or the powers-that-be in general, who usually ignore our protagonist's shouts and pleas. They remember him only when he falls silent. At which point, being silent, he is unable to state his case.

Coming to another recurring theme in this entries; Ghalib's use of Hindi/Urdu idioms. As FWP points out, "yaad karna" has a active meaning of calling into one's presence, not merely recalling to mind which might be expressed as "yaad aanaa." Notice the language of this verse. A very simply Hindustani vocabulary has been used to convey the witty (though not particularly profound) thought.

Politically, this is a very astute summary of the situation that the dispossessed and the marginalized find themselves in. Their screams (Ghalib uses the evocative word chii;x, چیخ which is used even today when referring to the cries of the poor) go unheeded routinely by their rulers. Silence on the other hand can prompt action. Because it can be a sign of more serious trouble brewing (either revolt or disaster).

On a lighter note, this verse also applies to baby-sitting. As anyone who has taken care of a baby knows, its when they go quiet that they are up to the most mischief!

In wittiness (of the Catch-22 paradoxical kind) this verse is equal to:

tire va((de par jiye ham to yih jaan jhuu;T jaanaa
kih ;xvushii se mar nah jaate agar i((tibaar hotaa

1) if we lived on your promise, then know this-- we knew [it to be] false
2) for would we not have died of happiness, if we had had trust/confidence [in it]?

So we are able to subsist on your promise only because we don't believe it. If we did believe in your promise (to come to us) then we would die of happiness!

As always be sure to check out the parallel commentary on this verse on The South Asian Idea.

Lokavidya and Intellectual Property Rights

2008-11-08T10:14:00.002-05:00

I am cross-posting a old post of mine from Lokavidya Panchayat, a blog run by Vidya Ashram in Sarnath, Varanasi. This is a post I wrote recently on issues that arise when we talk about intellectual property rights for people's knowledge (lokavidya).

1. Lokavidya: Protection versus commodification
The legal system of patents, copyrights, trademarks and intellectual property rights regimes in general is key to ensuring that knowledge can be traded in the market as a commodity. Clearly defined property rights are the basis for good contracts and good contracts enforced via the legal (police, judiciary) apparatus of the State are the basis for efficient market transactions. Most conclusions in economics that glorify the virtues of allocation via free markets rely on the existence of clear, enforceable contracts. Commodifying knowledge itself (as opposed to the fruits of knowledge, or knowledge embodied in products) is difficult due to the non-rival nature of knowledge. Non-rivalry means that the use of the commodity by one person does not preclude simultaneous use by another. Thus unlike a shirt or a computer, a design, a blueprint, a way of doing things, can be used by many people at once. This non-rival nature of Knowledge has been appreciated for centuries. Knowledge has begun to be seen as a valuable asset in the past two decades with the emergence of the Knowledge Society or the Information Economy. Pressures on its commodification have therefore increased. However the very same technological forces that have placed focus on the revenue-generating potential of knowledge have also created more impediments to its commodification. I refer to Information and Communications Technologies which bring the non-rival nature of knowledge into sharp relief. The controversies surrounding pirated music, scholarly paper, books and so on in electronic form clearly demonstrate this. The non-rival nature of knowledge which makes it nearly costless to reproduce (mimic) is however a double-edged sword. Even as progressive movements such as FOSS or open-access libraries emerge to take advantage of non-rivalry with the aim of undercutting corporate profits, so also, corporate and formal sector entities are able to "lift" knowledge from the people without due compensation to them while asserting that corporate use does not preclude use of the same knowledge by society at large. Since the dominant discourse around property rights for knowledge revolves around patents, copyrights and so on, proposals are also being floated for protection of lokavidya via similar IPRs. In the general climate that views knowledge as a revenue-generating asset, "poor people's knowledge" has attracted attention from international development agencies as another possible way to challenge poverty. If only poor people could take advantage of the knowledge they possess (by participating in the world market, of course), they could begin to climb out of poverty. But this demands a legal system of protection for their knowledge.

An incremental advance over lokavidya can generate windfall profits with the help of patenting regimes. A hypothetical example will clarify. Knowledge of several medicinal herbs is part of lokavidya. This knowledge is the result of accretion over many years and is a product of the ongoing knowledge activity of many ordinary men and women. In Marxian terms much of this knowledge is produced for its use-value, not its exchange value. That is, it is produced for use, not for sale. Much of it is also in the public domain and access to it is open to all. Companies which are interested in the knowledge for its exchange-value (its profit earning potential) can take advantage of the open-access nature of the knowledge. They can make a small incremental change to it, say alter its potency, isolate the active principle, or make some other small chemical modification to render it a "new product." This can then be patented and sold for profit. Even if the presence of the new product does not preclude the use of lokavidya, the fact still remains that the knowledge activity that contributed to the lokavidya commons was not rewarded or recognized.The above scenario calls for some thinking on ways and means to protect lokavidya from such appropriation. However, lokavidya by its nature is dispersed and difficult to trace to a single source. How can it be patented or copyrighted? More fundamentally, should it be? What other ways exist besides modern IPR regimes to protect lokavidya from appropriation while using it for the benefit of its holders? Perhaps some lessons can be learned from the history of the commodification of land.

2. Some analogies between Knowledge and Land

Of course unlike knowledge, land if a rival good (its use by one person precludes its use at the same time by another). However by analogy with land, one can identify two reasons for commodifying knowledge. One, in order to buy and sell knowledge itself and two, in order to earn rent on its use. Both these ways to earn revenue from knowledge are commonplace today. Patent fees and royalties are an example of the second. They are analogous to rent on land. The commodification of land via the process of enclosures has been well-documented in Europe. Via this process that Marx referred to as "primitive accumulation," land held communally, largely through informal systems of governance, is converted into private property. Via a similar process today, the knowledge commons, of which lokavidya is a large and important part, are being enclosed for profit. The transformation of knowledge from communally held lokavidya to privately held patents and copyrights in underway and has been underway for a long time.
Enclosures destroyed self-sufficiency in land use. Does the new system of Knowledge Management destroy self-sufficiency in knowledge production and use? Restoration of self-sufficiency in land use, i.e. land reform, though it became a revolutionary call in the context of highly unequal distribution of land-ownership, really amounts just to redistribution with the existing private property regime. So also the demand for patents and copyrights for lokavidya is appearing as a progressive cry when it only entails a wider, more equitable application of the same private property regime in the Knowledge domain. The land enclosures in Europe were as much about creating property rights as about consolidating and concentrating those right in a smaller number of hands. Do lokavidya enclosures follow a similar pattern? Will a call for IPRs for lokavidya be revolutionary in the current context, or will it merely strengthen the current trend towards increasing commodification of Knowledge? This is an important question that proponents and supporters of lokavidya must answer for themselves.

Can we imagine alternatives that go beyond both: lokavidya freely available for appropriation and lokavidya protected via IPRs?

Ghalib: Paradise or the Beloved's Lane?

2008-10-30T20:38:00.009-04:00

کم نہیں جلوہ گری میں ترے کوچے سے بہشت
یہی نقشہ ہے ولے اس قدر آباد نہیں

kam nahii;N jalvah-garii me;N tire kuuche se bihisht
yihii naqshah hai vale is qadar aabaad nahii;N

1) it's not less in splendor-possession than your street, paradise--
2) there is this very same design/layout, but it's not populous/flourishing to this extent

Click here for commentary and translation on Desertful of Roses.

This week's verse is lesser known but nevertheless great follow-up on last week's verse. As we saw last week, Ghalib took a rather "instrumental" approach to the existence or non-existence of paradise. It may or may not exist (and we suspect it doesn't), but its still a good idea to keep us happy or contented.

This week's verse has Ghalib continuing his pontifications on paradise. Now he finds it lacking from another angle. It is not any less splendorous than "your street", it even has the same map/layout/plan though its not quite as populated or flourishing. Conventionally we interpret the "you" in the she'r to be the beloved, and more so in such a verse an earthly beloved (as opposed to God). So the standard interpretation goes that the poet having witnessed paradise himself, finds it quite similar to his beloved's street, but also finds that the later is much more popular and flourishing, perhaps because its easier to get there, perhaps because only boring ascetics go to paradise and hence its much less popular (see S.R.Faruqi's interpretations on this point). Lastly the commentators also note the cheekiness or mischievousness (sho;xii) in comparing paradise to the beloved's street rather than the beloved's street to paradise.

This verse brings to mind a verse from Ghalib's predecessor Mir Taqi Mir:

کس کا قبلہ کیسا کعبہ کون حرم ہے کیا احرام
کوچے کے اس کے باشندوں نے سب کو یہیں سے سلام کیا

kis kaa qiblah kaisaa ka'ba kaun haram hai kya ahraam
kuche ke uske baashindoN ne sabko yahiiN se salaam kiya

whose qiblah what ka'ba who is pure and what is impure
the denizens of his/her street greet everyone from here itself/have no need to go anywhere (on pilgrimage)

Here's a twist though on this theme. What if we interpret the "you" in the verse (staying for the moment with Ghalib's verse) not as the earthly beloved but instead as the divine beloved (or God)? Addressing divinity by the second person familiar pronoun is of course a well established convention in the ghazal (as in "jabke tujhe bin nahiiN koi maujuud, phir yeh hungamaa ai ;xudaa kyaa hai"). Then the beloved's street becomes God's neighborhood. How is that different from paradise? Perhaps this is Ghalib's point. That the conventional paradise that the religious orthodoxy speaks about is remote, unreachable except for the chosen few (chosen by the criteria of the orthodoxy itself). On the other hand, a personal God, who can be directly experienced, which is a major theme in Sufism and Bhakti poetry, is available to many more of us. His street therefore, is much more popular than the paradise of the religious establishment. The establishment in the name of bringing us closer to divinity, only separates us from it.

I admit that this interpretation doesn't sit entirely comfortably with the general tenor of the verse. So the earthly beloved may still be the better way to go here.

My interpretation may work better with Mir's verse. Rather than worrying about the Ka'ba and the qiblah and about what is pure or impure, those who live in the proximity of God (the personal, immediately accesible beloved on Kabir and Tukaram) don't need to be go anywhere to purify themselves. This theme is very popular in Sufi and Bhakti poetry, as I said before. Here is another example of it. As the famous ghazal atributed to Khusro goes (sung today as a qawwali):

har qaum raast raahay diine wa qiblah gaahay
man qiblah raast kardam bar samt kaj kulaahay
sansaar har ko poojay kul ko jagat saraahay
makkay meiN koi DhoonDhay kaashi ko koi jaaey
guyyiyaN meiN apne pii ke payyaaN paDuuN na kaahay

Every sect has a faith, a direction (Qibla) to which they turn,
I have turned my face towards the crooked cap (of Nizamudin Aulia)
The whole world worships something or the other,
Some look for God in Mecca, while some go to Kashi (Banaras),
So why can’t I, Oh wise people, fall into my beloved’s feet?

On the South Asian Idea Weblog we take this discussion into more contemporary and socio-political contexts.

Ghalib on uses and misuses of Paradise

2008-10-25T17:01:00.002-04:00

This week we take a well-known and beloved verse from the master. As always we offer three levels of commentary, language and structure, meaning, and contemporary relevance.

ہم کو معلوم ہے جنت کی حقیقت لیکن
دل کے خوش رکھنے کو غالب یہ خیال اچھا ہے

ham ko ma((luum hai jannat kii haqiiqat lekin
dil ke ;xvush rakhne ko Ghalib ye ;xayaal acchaa hai

1) we know the reality/truth of Paradise, but
2) to keep the heart happy, Ghalib, this idea/fancy is good

[Translation and commentary on Desertful of Roses]

Note as always that Ghalib chooses to open with an uncontroversial statement but the second line takes the though in a very unexpected direction. Click here for another example of this device.

He says: "We know the truth about paradise, but..." And he leaves it hanging there. So under conditions when we hear the she'r recited with the first line repeated again and again, we are left wondering where will he go with this? As FWP notes this could simple be followed by some kind of lament. "We know the truth about paradise, but we can never hope to get there" or something like that. Instead, characteristically, the uncontroversial opening is given a startling direction ("kahani meiN twist" as they say in Bollywood). Ghalib says, not that he is sorry he will never get to paradise, but instead that "to keep the heart happy, this idea is good."

The commentators all note Ghalib's cheekiness in saying this. He sounds like an atheist who recognizes the social utility of the concept of paradise (in guiding human behavior for eg). Another interpretation offered by a commentator (Bekhud Mohani) is that this is Ghalib's attack on literal interpretations of the idea of paradise.

But the commentators don't spend much time on Ghalib's choice of words here. He chooses the highly multivalent ";xayaal" to describe Paradise. Platts Dictionary lists the following meanings for this word:

خيال ḵẖayāl, Thought, opinion, surmise, suspicion, conception, idea, notion, fancy, imagination, conceit. whim, chimera; consideration; regard, deference; apprehension; care, concern;—an imaginary form, apparition, vision, spectre, phantom, shadow, delusion;

You can see that ;xayaal here can mean not only simply the idea of paradise, but the fancy, phantom, delusion of paradise, which is a far stronger take on the whole concept. Interpreting ;xayaal not simply as the neutral "idea" but as the more mischievous "fancy/delusion" also fits in with the idiom used earlier in the line, "dil ko ;xvush rakhnaa" which indicates that the heart is being kept happy with the help of a delusion in the face of a reality that will make it sad.

Thus one further interpretation of the she'r is that, deep down we know the reality of paradise (i.e. we know it does not exist), but to save us from the terror/sadness that would result from the absence of it, this fancy or delusion is good to keep us going. Of course the "we" in the verse is not specified. It could be the poet himself or it could be the populace at large who needs this idea, this imaginative fancy to keep its heart happy.

The South Asian Idea Weblog carries us into the verse's contemporary relevance.

Ghalib on the object of true worship

2008-10-11T16:30:00.006-04:00

This week's verse, all of Ghalib's commentators note, could only have occurred to Ghalib. His penchant for paradox, for surprising the reader by using common words and ideas to make uncommon points, for holding the suspense till the last possible minute, and all the while making a profound (in this case philosophical) point, all this is in evidence here. It is verses like these, that compel us to agree with Ghalib and say, "haaN Mirzaa saahab, aapkaa andaaz-e-bayaaN hai aur!"

So without further ado, the verse:

ہے پرے سرحد ادراک سے اپنا مسجود
قبلے کو اہل نظر قبلہ نما کہتے ہیں

hai pare sar;had-e idraak se apnaa masjuud
qible ko ahl-e na:zar qiblah-numaa kahte hai;N

1) beyond the limit of the senses/perception/comprehension is [their/our] own {worship/prostration}-object
2) people of vision call the Qiblah the 'Qiblah-pointer'

The literal translation is Frances Pritchett's with some additions from me. Click here for this verse's entry on Desertful of Roses.

The first line makes a broad comment. Our object of worship is beyond (a beautiful use of a simple word, pare) the border or limit of the senses or of perception. Most commentators have chosen to interpret idraak here as simply the senses or sense perception, but it can also mean understanding or comprehension. The later gives a stronger interpretation. Not only is our object of worship beyond the senses, it is beyond human comprehension. And since that which cannot be perceived can still be comprehended (for e.g. the existence of unseen planets or start, or even a magenta colored flying horse), it actually means something to say that the Absolute is not only beyond our senses, it is also beyond comprehension.

It is not till the second line that we get the full significance of the first (a sign of a well-crafted she'r). So what is the consequence of the fact that our object of worship is beyond perception and comprehension? It is that those with vision or those who have true perception (ahl-e-nazar) call the qiblah, qiblah-numa. The qiblah, the direction to prayer for a Muslim (the direction where the Ka'ba is to be found), is itself a pointer to the Real Qiblah. Platts dictionary defines the qiblah-numa thus:

qibla-numa, s.m. lit. 'Showing the qibla'; an instrument by which Muhammadans at a distance from Mecca ascertain the direction of the qibla;—a mariner's compass.

Thus as Nazm notes, "by doing prostrations toward the Ka'bah, the goal is not to do prostrations to the Ka'bah. Rather, the one to Whom we do prostrations is beyond the directions, and a prostration must have a direction. For this reason, He has decreed the direction of the Ka'bah."

So the Qiblah itself is merely a pointer to the Qiblah. As the commentators say, no one but Ghalib would have thought of calling the qiblah, a pointer to guide to the qiblah. What the commentators don't mention is that this second line also sets up a nice little infinite regress. Since the new qiblah being pointed to is itself, a qiblah, it is therefore also a qiblah-numa and so on ad infinitum. This interpretation is sustained by the fact that Ghalib doesn't say, the qiblah is a pointer to the "real qiblah" or anything like that. He simply says, a qiblah (any qiblah) is a qiblah-pointer. Perhaps this is why in the first line Ghalib says that the object of worship is beyond comprehension. Thinking about it sets us down a path of infinite regress.

Actually the verse works at two levels parallely. If we interpret idraak as senses or sense perception then the second line offers "proof" that the real object of worship is beyond the senses just as the real qiblah is only gestured to by what ordinary people call the qiblah. In this reading, there is nice resonance between sarhad-e-idraak and ahl-e-nazar (limit of senses, and people who have sight or vision). On the other hand, if we interpret idraak as understanding or comprehension, then the second line gives a separate proof and can be read in the way I mentioned above with an infinite regress in it.

In either reading, Ghalib invokes his favorite theme regarding the Absolute or the Divine. This is the theme of that worldly objects (existence) gestures to the Other World, points to non-existence. I have commented earlier on other verses that display this theme.

Finally, as always Ghalib has lessons for us today. What do we worship? Are we falling into the trap of symbolsim, mistaking the symbol for the object it signifies? In the course of this project we have seen this theme occupy Ghalib's mind on repeated occasions. Given the turmoil over religion in South Asia we feel this is one theme has bears all the repeating. Visit The South Asian Idea Weblog for for questions and for what we can learn from Ghalib in this instance.

Ghalib on the double bind faced by the one who is promised redress

2008-10-03T23:15:00.005-04:00

This week, a wonderful and very famous verse from an equally famous ghazal (aah ko chahiye ek umr sar hone tak). I have commented earlier on another verse from this ghazal.

ہم نے مانا کہ تغافل نہ کروگے لیکن
خاک ہو جائینگے ہم تم کو خبر ہونے تک

ham ne maanaa ke ta;Gaaful ne karoge lekin
;xaak ho jaa))e;Nge hum tum ko ;xabar hone tak

1) we conceded/agreed that you won't show negligence/heedlessness, but
2) we'll become dust, by the time of the news reaching you

Click here for the entry on Desertful of Roses. Note that Fran Pritchett sticks to the original radif, hote tak, which is usually modernized these days to hone tak.

As always for this series run in collaboration with The South Asian Idea Weblog, we try to interpret the verse in a somewhat "hat ke" manner, as they might say in Bollywood. But first the technical aspects worth noting and the convention interpretation.

The first all too obvious matter of construction. Notice how the first line gives away minimal information. All it says is: "we admit or concede that you will not ignore us." This itself is of course interesting in the ghazal universe because ta;Gaaful or ignoring/disregarding is the essential quality of the beloved. As for example Khusro's ze haal-e-miskin makun ta;Gaful, doraaye nainaa, banaaye batiyaaN, and countless others. So contrary to the "regular beloved" this one has promised to come to our lover. So Ghalib says: "I agree with you, I believe your promise that you will not ignore me." But then in the second line, and not only the second line but in the last kaafiyaa part of the second line we are delivered the punch. "I will be dust (I will be dead) by the time the new [of my state] reaches you."

Leaving meaning and focusing on sound for a moment, there is a nice play in the second line where "hum" precedes the very similar sounding "tum," almost like the refrain "hum tum taanaa naa naa" in the classical qawwali by Khusro, man kunto maula.

At the heart of the verse is a contradiction as Fran Pritchett notes: "A lovely, witty, little 'catch-22' lies at the heart of this one. If I don't accept your pledge not to neglect or ignore me, I'll offend you-- and thus I'll never get any favors from you. Yet if I do accept it, and thus earn your good will, I'll never live long enough to get any favors from you. (For I'll of course be in such bad shape in your absence that I'll be dead before you even learn of it.) So no matter what I do, I'm doomed."

This is strongly reminiscent of another paradoxical verse about the beloved's promises to come and the lovers dilemma:

tere vaade pe jiyeN hum to ye jaan jhoot jaanaa
ke ;xushi se mar na jaate agar aitbaar hotaa

This verse is another marvel of meaning creation (ma'ani afiirnii) and I won't go into the intricacies of it here (save it for a later time). But just note the paradox. The only way I can subsist on your promise (to come to me) is by believing it to be false. Because if I actually believed it (believed that you would come to me one day), I would die of happiness! Ghalib can really keep your mind spinning with his little paradoxes.

But now onto a somewhat more serious interpretation. In the wake of the recent Delhi bomb blasts (and other similar blasts in other cities in India) and the ensuing hysteria and Muslim baiting that usually results (witness the controversy over Jamia Milia Islamia University) we offer this verse as a metaphor for the dilemma facing the Muslims and other minorities in India. To the State they say: "We have faith in your promises to pay atention to our state and to do something about it, because how can we not? If we say we do not, we risk your wrath. But even if we believe in your promises of justice by the time you get around to doing anything about our state, we will be finished!"

A sombre note but one that behooves us all to think long and hard about how a beseiged minority may feel even when it exists in a [at least nominally] democratic, pluralistic society. This theme is taken up in the entry on The South Asian Idea.

Ghalib on charity-doers

2008-09-26T10:45:00.003-04:00

This week's Ghalib moment relates to charity and philanthropy.

بنا کر فقیروں کا ہم بھیس غالب
تماشا ۓ اہل کرم دیکھتے ہیں

banaa kar faqiiro;N kaa ham-bhes ;Gaalib
tamaashaa-e ahl-e karam dekhte hai;N

1) having put on the guise of the Faqirs, Ghalib
2) [we] see the spectacle of the people of generosity

[Translation by Frances W Pritchett. Click here for interpretation on Desertful of Roses.]

As Josh succintly puts it: "The meaning is that It's not our purpose to become a Faqir and ask for alms. We've adopted the guise in order to see who is generous, and how generous, and in whom there is no genuine feeling of generosity."

In a class society, such as one Ghalib lived in, inequality is par for course. With inequality come doctrines of charity and exhortations to generosity. "Be kind to those less fortunate than yourself." "Give to the poor, for therein lies the salvation of the rich." And so on. Sometimes charity is genuine, from the heart, other times it is a show put on for the benefit of society.

To view the spectacle of the charity-givers giving alms to the poor, we ourselves sometimes disguise as a needy person. Only by assuming the disguise, the outward form (بھیس , भेस) and therefore the perspective of the poor do we get to see the spectacle (تماشا , तमाशा) of their ostensible kindness.

In this interpretation tamaashaa is used in its pejorative sense of a false spectacle or a show। The lack of genuine feeling among the rich is exposed only when they are viewed from the perspective of the poor.

Technically the verse plays nicely on the symmetry between "bhes" and "tamaashaa." Usually one puts on a bhes or disguise precisely to perform a tamaashaa, a play or a spectacle. Here Ghalib uses the affinity of meanings between the two words to nice effect. In order to view a tamaashaa, I am putting on a disguise.

There are other possible meanings that I haven't explored here. In keeping with the general spirit of The Ghalib Project to explore Ghalib in ways that carry social-political meaning today, we choose to emphasize the social charity aspect. Ghalib urges us to scrutinize philanthropy in our own world. What motives does it have? Can it ever put itself out of existence? That is, can philanthropy get rid of those very class distinctions on which it rests? Or will it always be a way for the rich to "manage" the poor, such that poverty does not threaten social stability? I favor the later.

Being an economics student this naturally takes me in the direction of an analysis of international development aid and its role in reducing or managing poverty. But I will save this line of thought for a separate post.

Please visit the parallel post on this verse on The South Asian Idea.

Ghalib on leading and being led

2008-09-17T20:45:00.003-04:00

In our collaborative Ghalib Project with The South Asian Idea Weblog, we have discussed she'rs that offer insights on contemporary politics and society. See for example the verse on impeachment posted around the time of the near impeachment of General Musharraf in Pakistan.

For this week, we have chosen a similarly politically relevant verse that talks about leadership, a commodity sadly in short supply in contemporary South Asia. First the verse itself:

chaltaa huu;N tho;Rii duur har ik tez-rau ke saath
pahchaantaa nahii;N huu;N abhii raahbar ko mai;N

1) I go along a little way with every single swift walker
2) I do not now/yet recognize a/the guide

As always we take our translation from Desertful of Roses, Prof. Frances Pritchett's excellent online divaan. Click here for commentary on this verse.

In this case, even a conventional interpretation serves us well. But even conventionally there are a few possible interpretations as always is the case with Ghalib (bhaai, shaari ma'ani afiirnii hai, kaafiyaa paimaai nahiN hai, he once remarked in a letter, rough translation, "Brother, poetry is meanning creation, not weighing of rhymes.").

Straightforwardly, Ghalib says, every person I see walking swiftly, as if they know where they are going, I walk with them for a bit. Why is that? Because I don't recognize or know of a guide, a leader yet. So in this interpretation, the lack of a reliable leader, a guide, makes the person gullible enough to follow whoever smooth-talking, fast-walking person comes along.

In a different interpretation sustained by the meanings of the word "abhi" which can mean "yet" or can mean "now" or "anymore". So the second line can be read as: "I don't recognize a guide/leader yet" or "I don't recognize a leader anymore." The first possibility we just discussed. The second meaning creates the following situation: "Nowadays I just follow whoever comes along, for a bit, because really, I have stopped believing in leaders. They are all just the same. So it doesn't matter who you follow."

The second interpretation particularly appeals to me with respect to Indian politics. The Indian electorate in recent times (i.e the last decade and half or so) has shown remarkable political maturity and has taken to extracting whatever political mileage it can from its "leaders" who are perceived as corrupt to a (wo)man. Anti-incumbency is the norm but rather than being a sign of voter gullibility (they never learn their lesson, just keep on changing governments in the hope that something will change) in this reading it is a sign of voter sophistication. Knowning that the political system is thoroughly compromised, the masses participate in a game with their "leaders." They don't promise undying loyalty to anyone, but merely use whoever is in office (or looks like (s)he is headed for office) to press their demands.

Please visit the parallel post on The South Asian Idea for more on the verse and its relevance to Pakistan.

Ghalib and Jesus on stone throwing

2008-09-12T11:05:00.003-04:00

For this week we have chosen a very well-known she'r from a well-known Ghazal:

میں نے مجنوں پہ لڑکپن میں اسد
سںگ اٹھایا تھا کہ سر یاد آیا

maiN ne majooN pe la;Rakpan meiN 'asad'
sang uThaaya thaa ke sar yaad aayaa

1) against Majnun, in boyhood/childishness, Asad,
2) I had picked up a stone-- when {I got hold of myself / 'the head came to mind/recollection'}

Click here for commentary and translation on Desertful of Roses

This is a justly famous verse, beautiful as it is in its simplicity, using very common/ordinary words to communicate a profound thought. In my opinion, it is through verses like these that Ghalib reminds us, "Although I am capable of fancy jargon and rhetorical fireworks, I can equally well say things simply, if I want to."

Although the verse has a well-known conventional interpretation, we are once again interested in exploring if it can sustain more unconventional interpretation, more relevant to our times. The conventional interpretation is that majooN is the archetypal mad lover who wanders the street aimlessly, lost in his love of lailaa. Children, as a pastime, jeer and throw stones at majnooN. Our "hero" (the lover, the "I" in the verse) in his boyhood/childhood had similarly picked up a stone to throw at MajnooN. But at the last moment the boy/child "recovers either his maturity or his prudence" (FWP), remembers his own head or gains control of himself ("sar yaad aanaa" can mean both).

However, as FWP also says la;Rakpan (लड़कपन) not only means actual childhood, it also means the state of childhood or childishness. If we lean towards the interpretation that it is the adult who is being childish in the present, not really recollecting his own childhood days, then the verse says: "in a moment of childishness I picked up a stone to throw at majnooN, but then (in the nick of time) I remembered my own head/gathered my senses." Why? Presumably because I myself have become like majnooN in my love for my beloved.

So far so good. Here then is the twist that can broaden the interpretive horizon of the she'r. majooN, as noted earlier, is the archetypal lover, but perhaps he can also stand for the archetypal "deviant," a person who is different from "us" for whatever reason. This "other" is the object of ridicule and metaphorical stone throwing for the rest of "normal" society. But Ghalib says this is childish behavior. "I too, in childishness, ridiculed and abused the person who is not like me or is differnet from me, but then I gathered my senses. I remembered my head, because his head is not really that different from mine. I remembered that I am equally well a "deviant" or "the other" in someone else's eye, and therefore equally "worthy" of being stoned/insulted. So when I stone majnooN, I open up the possibility of getting stoned myself."

At this point, the well-known parable of Jesus comes to mind, which Ghalib may or may not have had in mind (perhaps some of our readers can comment on this). A woman considered to have sinned (accused of adultery) is about to be stoned by the self-proclaimed moral police. Jesus appears on the scene and says, yes by all means, if she has sinned stone her, but let him who has never sinned throw the first stone.

Inequality, Choice and the New Indian Dream

2008-09-10T08:59:00.000-04:00

In the image (see New York Times article Vogue's Fashion Photos Spark Debate in India) a child from a visibly poor Indian family is shown wearing a bib prices at $100. The cation says "Its never too early to start living in style." But what defines India in this neoliberal period is not merely the such obscenity (unthinkable in media before the 1990s), but the even more incredible fact that apologists for this obscenity are not afraid to make a case publicly for its legitimacy.

This particular story was carried in several newspapers and blogs. One particular one caught my attention: the brief blog post in Managing Globalization, an International Herald Tribune Blog run of Daniel Altman. Read it. Then read my comment, Daniel's response and my long rejoinder. I am pasting only our exchange below. But to get the context you will have to go to the link above and read the brief original post.
My first comment:

Your assertions that “…India is a democracy, and you can’t simply tell people what to do with their money.” and “Nor can you tell poor people what they should aspire to in life” are laughable. One doesn’t know where to begin with such statements. The mythical “all-powerful planners” are faulted for their hubris in wanting to decide who spends how much on what, but the all too real market forces that effectively force the same decisions (tell people what to do with their money and what to aspire to) are rendered completely invisible in your “analysis.” Of course, from a neo-classical perspective this is perfectly “natural”, because as we know the free market is a force of nature like gravity while government interventions, except when they come to the rescue of capitalists, are to be fought tooth and nail. Such simplistic reasoning can masquerade as analysis (or better still “science”) only when it serves as a pathetic apology for power.

(From India)

Moderator’s note - Apologies for believing that people should be free to buy and aspire to whatever they want!

Posted by: Amit Basole — 03 September 2008 1:51 pm

[The "Moderator's Note" above seemed designed to invite further debate. So I obliged with the following]

My follow-up comment:

At the risk of appearing overenthusiastic about posting comments, I feel I should respond to the “moderator’s note” on my comment above. I fear that you have willfully misunderstood me. You may by all means believe that people should be free to buy and aspire to what they want. All I ask is that you not be naive enough to think that these wants and aspiration somehow appear out of thin air (or in economic terms are exogenously given). Rather I wanted to emphasize that they are endogenously generated within capitalism via advertising (and in other ways). Whether planners do it or the market, the point is wants and aspiration cannot be unproblematically taken as given. It is over one hundred years since Veblen wrote on conspicuous consumption. It is ten years since Juliet Schor wrote on the contemporary consumption culture in the United States and the damage it has wrought. It is a sad comment on Economics as a science if important discoveries made so long ago need repeated reminding.

And to return to your point about India being a democracy, i should point out that it is a political democracy, not an economic democracy. In the face of such massive economic inequality the power of political democracy is very seriously curtailed. And in a market system it is ability to pay that decides who buys what (you vote with your dollar or rupee), unlike political democracy where you get a vote regardless of whether you have a dollar or not. So conflating political democracy with economic decision-making is dangerous and misleading.

(From India)

Posted by: Amit Basole — 03 September 2008 6:59 pm

Daniel's response:

Amit, I want to be sure I understand you. Are you saying that advertising luxury goods to poor people is like advertising cigarettes to children? That somehow it should be prevented, in a spirit of beneficent paternalism?

I would like to hear your specific policy prescriptions for undoing the problems that you mentioned in your most recent comment. Do you propose to change the nature of advertising, marketing and production, or to change human nature itself?

Posted by: Daniel Altman (moderator) — 03 September 2008 7:00 pm

My rejoinder:

Dear Daniel
Yes, you raise important questions, which I fear I cannot do justice to in such short notes. But here goes.

First off, in these days when media is so pervasive, targeted advertising, though by no means extinct, has started to lose “targetted-ness.” In a sense this is what happened when television became universal in the US. People’s reference groups changed form their neighbors and friends to people seen on TV leading what seemed to be far more opulent lifestyles. So luxury goods (like $50,000 automobiles) are routinely advertised to people who can’t afford them (whether in India or the US). There is no question of preventing this in, as you say a “spirit of beneficent paternalism.” Taking that position would be tantamount to saying that there is a class of people who are “worthy” of being advertised to and others who should be “protected.” Further this type of want-creation and aspiration creation has fueled US capitalism to a large extent in recent times and made possible growth of other economies that depend on US consumption.

In fact rather perversely I see capitalism’s demise in this very process. Since I believe (an act of faith on my part) that the fruits of modernity can only be promised to the poorest of the poor, never actually delivered, if we set in motion processes by which the poor can increasingly make these demands (for higher wages, to be able to buy better and more expensive products) the contradictions of the system (which continually creates inequality and creates aspirations that cannot be fulfilled) will become clearer and clearer. If you are at all familiar with old-school Marxist arguments, what I have said above may sound awfully like the idea that capitalism’s contradictions will one day be its un-doing. I am not denying the affinity though I am not one to see socialism round the corner either.

Now to your second point. The problems of inequality and lack of economic democracy (by which I mean grossly unequal decision-making power in the economy) are not going to disappear with some magic policy bullet. But for starters it would help if sovereign governments stopped genuflecting to international capital and gave themselves some policy space. Economists themselves can help by acknowledging that free trade and free mobility of capital is not a universal, unimpeachable good. There is no dearth of good proposals to make globalization more pro-poor. I see that one of your contributors is Joe Stiglitz, who has also written on this, as have Dani Rodrik, Amartya Sen and many other not-too-radical folks.

Naturally this above is a less ambitious program than imagining a wholly alternative economic system (”changing advertising, marketing, production”). Although there is no dearth of such alternatives either, they tend to be more piecemeal, experiments here, experiments there. If neoliberalism continues to wreak the havoc it is wreaking (mind you by havoc I don’t mean only poverty creation, I mean unprecedented wealth creation together with poverty creation), I am confident that these grassroots resistances (of which there are several in India, which one will not read about in the pages of the English language national press) will only grow. Mind you, I am not saying that as the poor are empowered they will necessarily demand this thing or that thing (because as you rightly say, who I am to decide what people should want).

Lastly, the human nature thing. This one really cannot be addressed properly here. Economists are fond of appealing to human nature when it suits their models. Stretching myself back to my biology days, the nature versus nurture problem was endlessly debated. I came away from those books and papers with the idea that human behavior is so complex and interconnected with its environment that any simple statement about it (humans are selfish, humans are altruistic, humans always want more, humans inherently want to help other humans) are sadly open to many caveats. Thus the interesting question is not what is “real human nature” but what values and visions guide us in our behavior. Different circumstances will bring out different behaviors (the same profit-hungry capitalist who will not hesitate to fire workers will become a loving and doting father and so on), the challenge is to create institutions that nurture our desirable natures (plural).

I must really apologize for this long essay. I realize this is not the place for such a debate.

Posted by: Amit Basole — 03 September 2008 8:00 pm

Ghalib on Fasting and Starving

2008-09-03T16:56:00.005-04:00

Its the month of Ramadan. And Ghalib has something interesting to say as always. I once read somewhere in a Bombay newspaper that in Bombay one half of the city is starving while the other half is dieting. Just as this quip, in a funny way forces an important truth upon us, Ghalib uses the concept of the holy fast of Ramadan to make a similar point.

The verses in question reproduced below are not part of a Ghazal, but rather a verse-set known as a qat'aa (if you have a diivaan you will find it at the very end after all the ghazals).

iftaar-e-saum kii jise kuch dast.gaah ho
us shakhs ko zaroor hai rozaa rakha kare

jis paas roza khol ke khaane ko kuch na ho

roza agar na khaaye to naachaar kya kare

the one who has the wherewithal to open his fast

that person should indeed keep his fast

the one who has nothing to open his fast with

what else could he do but be constrained to "eat the fast."

[Translation: Anjum Altaf]

As with many Ghalib verses, this one too has layers which turn on paradoxes and word play. What is fasting? It is defined in relation to eating or the ability to eat. If one doesn't or can't eat, then where is the question of fasting. So not fasting need not be a sign of lack of faith. And then the use of "rozaa khaanaa" is great because it simultaneously suggests that such a person (poor, indigent) should not be required to keep rozaa (उसे रोजा खाने के अलावा क्या चारा है?) and that such as person may have nothing to "eat" except the rozaa itself. That is, the idiomatic use of the phrase "rozaa khaanaa" makes the verse witty. The phrase means not keeping a fast, but it can also be taken literally to mean eating the fast itself, that is staying hungry. So the person is both fasting and not fasting at the same time.

So much for Ghalib's paradoxes. I could spend the day exploring them! But we also chose this verse because it raises important question about hunger and choice today. For this I encourage you to visit The South Asian Idea Weblog and see the discussion there.

Ghalib: Independent even in servitude

2008-08-28T08:05:00.005-04:00

We started The Ghalib Project with some verses by Ghalib on the nature of faith, on what it means to be a believer. With this week's verse we return to this theme, except now, instead of reflecting on and critiquing the Shaikh or the Brahmin, Ghalib comments on the nature of his own faith. Of course as with all verses, we must be cautious in equating the "I" or "we" in the verse with Ghalib the historical personality. Rather upon reading the verse we take something away, not necessarily about Ghalib the man, but instead about his ideas on, in this case, bandagii or servitude (to God). So the verse:

بندگی میں بھی وہ آزاد و خودبیں ہیں کہ ہم
الٹے پھر آۓ در کحبہ اگر وا نہ ہوا

bandagii me;N bhii vuh aazaadah-o-;xvud-bii;N hai;N kih ham
ul;Te phir aa))e dar-e ka((bah agar vaa nah hu))aa

1) even/also in servitude we are so free and self-regarding that we
2) turned and came back if the door of the Ka'bah did not open

[Translation by Frances Pritchett, click here for verse commentary on Desertful of Roses]

First, some comments on the language and construction, before we get into the meaning. Notice, as Pritchett points out the great use of the colloquial "voh," to mean not "that" but "to such an extent" or "in such a manner." And also the idiomatic "ul;Taa phir aanaa", to turn back. The hardness of the palatal "T" (ट, ٹ ) stands out (in a good way) in the midst of softer Perso-Arabic words (bandagii, aazaad, ;xvudbiiN, dar, ka'ba and so on). In my experience, Ghalib seems fully aware of the effects that can be produced in Urdu by taking advantage of the spectacular variety of consonants that derive from Indic and Perso-Arabic heritage. Another example is the verse from last month where Ghalib uses another Indic word with a palatal consonant, gaa;Rho (ढ़) in a sea of softer Perso-Arabic sounds (vafaadaarii, ustuvaarii, imaaN, but;xaanaa and so on).

And finally, yet one more time, notice how the dramatic climax (about the ka'ba door not being open) is saved for the very end, not only the second line (the first line is general annd doesn't give much cause for excitement), but the second half of the second line.

Now for the meaning of the verse. We have chosen this verse because it takes a critical attitude towards (blind) faith. Ghalib suggests that "even in bandagii, even as a person of faith, I retain an independence of spirit, something essentially human. An example of my independent nature is that when I go to the ka'ba, I expect Providence itself to 'meet me half way' by opening the door of the ka'ba. I do not deny that I am a bandaa (a follower), but my bandagii is not unquestioning."

So the questions we ask ourselves reading this are:
Whatever be our faith (Islam, Christainity, Hinduism, Atheism), what sort of faith do we practice (hum kis kism ke bande haiN?) Do we retain a spirit of aazaadii? Is our identity as a person of a particular faith based upon unquestioning, unflinching loyalty or does it allow space for some dissent?

I lay more stress on the "aazaad" (free, independent) than the ";xudbiiN" (self-regarding), but I do realize that the reference to "self-regarding" makes the verse sound more like Ghalib is saying, I am too possessed of a sense of self to surrender myself completely to the Divine. It is possible that he is commenting specifically on the concept of surrender in Islam (if I understand correctly the word "Islam" itself has Arabic connotations of surrender to God's will). If he is doing so, then in context, I take the verse not as endorsing a selfishness but instead as questioning the concept of surrender and faith as it is handed down.

To continue exploring the contemporary relevance of the verse, as always do visit The South Asian Idea Weblog.

Ghalib on Impeachment

2008-08-22T08:28:00.004-04:00

Last week impeachment was all the rage in Pakistan, as the fate of (now former) President Musharraf hung in balance. We now know that Musharraf chose the face-saving way of resignation over the ignominy of impeachment. But impeachment (mu'aa;xazah) brought to our mind the following verse by Ghalib:

بچتے نہیں مو اخذۂ روز حشر سے
قاتل اگر رقیب ہے تو تم گواہ ہو

bachte nahii;N muvaa;xa;zah-e roz-e ;hashr se
qaatil agar raqiib hai to tum gavaah ho

[people/you] don’t escape from the reckoning/reproach of Judgment Day
if the rival is the murderer, then you are the witness/proof

[Translation FWP, click here for commentary in Desertful of Roses]

Once again, we must be a little creative in our interpretation to explore the full possibilities of this verse. Traditionally, the verse has been interpreted as Ghalib's admonishment to the beloved. "You won't escape the reckoning of Judgment Day, because, even though you are not the murderer yourself, you have been the [silent] witness to the crime [i.e. the lover's murder].
Why "silent" witness? Here is what S.R. Faruqi has to say on this matter:

"If the question be raised as to where in the verse is there mention of keeping the crime hidden, then the reply will be that if the crime is not hidden, then the verse's premise itself is at an end. The point is that the Rival (or the Rival conspiring with the beloved) has contrived the lover's murder, or brought about this result, and only these two know about it. If everybody would know about this, then where's the meaningfulness in making only the beloved a participant ('if the Rival is the murderer, then you're a witness')? If there were many witnesses, then accusing the beloved alone would be frivolous." (quoted from FWP's site)

But notice that the beloved is never mentioned in the verse. Her/His presence is inferred by the mention of a rival (raqiib), the traditional adversary that the lover faces in his efforts to woo the beloved. The verse is addressed neutrally to just about anyone (second person singular or plural) and uses the grammatical property of Hindi/Urdu wherein the subject of a sentence can be dropped (not as easy to do in English except colloquially). Ghalib uses this feature all the time.

So applying Ghalib's admonishment to the present-day political scenario in Pakistan, we offer the following interpretation: Those who are today Musharraf's opponents and are out to impeach him, are as complicit in the "murder" (of Pakistan's polity and society?) and will not escape the larger trial of Judgment Day. Qaatil agar Musharraf hai, to tum gavaah ho!

Please visit The South Asian Idea Weblog for more direct political commentary and questions surrounding this interpretation. One question raise there is:
"Ghalib says that we should take a Day of Judgment perspective in separating the innocent from the guilty. Is he right?"

Perhaps Judgment Day could be interpreted more widely to mean a day of true social reckoning. Not Divine reckoning, but the reckoning of what Gandhi called दरिद्र नारायण (daridra naaraayan) or God in the guise of the poorest of the poor. I am then saying: neither Musharraf nor his opponents will escape the Judgment of the poor and oppressed, they are both equally complicit in the murder of people's aspirations. I like this interpretation but I am not at all saying Ghalib had this in mind since he was almost certainly not a socialist! But since when are interpretations of text limited to authorial intent?

Ghalib on a killer who kills on the basis of Religious and Secular Law

2008-08-05T16:21:00.007-04:00

Our reader's comments on some previous verses brought up the issue of shariah. Taking cue from that we have chosen this week's verse of The Ghalib Project. We are going out on a limb here. We are taking a well-known verse and interpreting it in a new way. First we offer the verse itself, followed by its conventionally understood meaning. Then finally we offer our reading.

The verse (Ghazal 215, Verse 2, composed after 1847):

شرع و آئین پر مدار سہی
ایسے قاتل کا کیا کرے کوئ

shar'a-o-aaiin par madaar sahii
aise qaatil kaa kyaa kare koii

Even on the basis of religious and secular law
What to do with such a killer?

The conventional interpretation is that qaatil here refers to the Beloved and that Ghalib is suggesting that even on the basis of religious and secular law, what can we do about such a qaatil (who presumably is beyond both religious and secular law). Since the qatl is a metaphorical qatl and not a real murder, law (religious and secular) is powerless to punish. Everyone seems to agree on this interpretation.

Of course it is a nice, tight she'r even so interpreted. Firstly the meter is quite a short one, and though I am not a poet at all, I imagine the composing in such a short meter must be more difficult than composing in a longer one since there is almost no room for fillers. Every word must be made to work for the poet.

But what I find most pleasing is the colloquial nature of the second line, contrasted with the more "formal/literary" first line. Ghalib often uses this trick, which one can imagine would be a great hit in a mushairah. For example the verse we discussed two weeks ago, shows a similar format. The first line is somewhat formal, heavy on Persianisms (vafaadaarii ba-shart-e-ustuvaarii asl-e-imaaN hai), and the second line is much more punchy and colloquial (mare but'xaane meiN to ka'be meiN gaaDho barahman ko). Similarly here, kisii cheez kaa kyaa kare koi (what can one do with XYZ) is a nice simple colloquialism that offers contrast with the first line. FWP notes in particular the colloquial use of "kaa."

In any event, now on to our more heretical reading. We are reading the she'r as:
Even if [his actions are] based on religious and secular law
What to do with such a killer?

That is, what can one do about such as qaatil who murders on the basis of religious and secular law? Then we can take this verse as a protest against the way law (of either the religious or the secular variety) can be used (and even created) by power to "get away with murder." The English idiom, "getting away with murder" works nicely in this context. We see around us that power is able to get away with murder, in part because law itself is a creation of power. So Ghalib can be read as saying, un qaatiloN ka ham kyaa kareN, jo qaide ke boote par qatl karte haiN? (What can we do about those killers who murder on the basis of the laws they themselves may have written?)

Please visit The South Asian Idea Weblog for more on the contemporary relevance of this verse.

Ghalib, what does it take for a man to become human?

2008-07-30T11:21:00.017-04:00

We continue our collaborative blogsphere project with The South Asian Idea Weblog with yet another she'r by Ghalib. The first two she'r in this series raised questions regarding what it means to believe in a certain Faith. For this week's post, we depart from the theme of "vafaadaarii" or faithfulness and instead come to a different type of morality. The morality of humanity. Ghalib has reflected extensively on the human condition. He was personally witness to the horror and terror of 1857. This verse, the opening verse (matlaa) of the ghazal, though, is from a ghazal composed around 1821. At this time Ghalib was around 24 years of age.

The verse:

بسکہ دشوار ہے ہر کام کا آساں ہونا

آدمی کو بھی میسر نہیں انساں ہونا

baskih dushvaar hai har kaam kaa aasaa;N honaa
aadmii ko bhii muyassar nahii;N insaa;N honaa

1a) it's difficult to such an extent for every task to be easy
1b) although it's difficult for every task to be easy

2) even/also for a man, it's not attainable/attained/easy to become human/humane

Click here for complete commentary accompanying the translation by FWP.

We will first discuss two possible interpretations of this verse, made possible by the word baskih which can mean either "although" or "to such an extent."

Thus the first line can be read as saying, "although it is difficult for every task to be easy," i.e. we cannot really expect that every task would be an easy one, but look, Ghalib says (second line), isn't it incredible that even man cannot attain humanity (humanness) in this world.

Another reading can be: "To such an extent is it difficult for every task to be easy, that even man cannot become a human in this world." For a man to become human should be very easy, says Ghalib, almost by definition (as Hali points out). And yet, this is not the case. The inhumanity and cruelty of men is all around us. These are men all right, but are they human? Ghalib wonders.

As we have mentioned before, Ghalib was a lover of words and in this verse, as Frances Pritchett points out, Ghalib plays on the dichotomy between aadmii (man) and insaaN (human) words that are often considered synonyms but have distinctly different connotations (as evidenced by the noun insaaniyat or humanity derived from insaaN, not from aadmii). To become an aadmii, a descendant of Adam, a man, one need do nothing at all except be born. In other words we don't become men, we simply are (the distinction between "to be" and "to become"). But, a human (insaaN) someone who has morals and social and cultural values. This we need to become. It takes work to become human. Sometimes so much work, that we fail to attain humanity. Ghalib uses the verb muyassar honaa very cleverly here. It can be read as saying that such is the wicked world that men are not allowed to be human (by impersonal forces, or "the system" as we might say). Or it can also be read as saying that men simply are failing to attain humanity (either through their own weaknesses or otherwise, we don't know).

In the present day context of South Asia this verse raises many questions for us to ponder. One question that comes to my mind is, is Ghalib's use of aadmii (man) purely an example of 19th century gender norms where "man" was used to refer to men and women (people in general) or does he perhaps wish to suggest that it is men (gender intended) in particular who find it difficult to become human. Women, by this reading, have no such problem, or they tend to show humanity far more often. I know this could be reading too much into the verse and I am prepared to accept that aadmii is simply gendered usage. But I couldn't help but wonder...

Please visit The South Asian Idea Weblog for further ruminations and questions on the verse.

"Ghalib: Reflections on Faith, Humanity and Beyond": Announcing a new collaborative project with The South Asian Idea Weblog

2008-07-25T11:03:00.004-04:00

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack of what is found there.
- William Carlos Williams

Somewhere, sometime poetry speaks to all of us. Poetry makes us think, sometimes precisely because it does not ask us to think, does not seek to convince us. Humanity, peace, coexistence, faith, are on test today in South Asia. And we turn to one of its greatest poets to learn some simple and hence first-to-be-forgotten Truths. We turn to Ghalib to learn to think. In leaning upon Ghalib, we also self-consciously reach for a source indigenous to South Asia, to its own civilizational genius, to search for a way forward.

To millions across the world, the name "Ghalib" needs no introduction. Perhaps the most accomplished and certainly the most famous poet of Urdu and Persian that South Asia has produced, Asadallah Khan 'Ghalib' (1797-1869) has been recited, read, interpreted and quoted countless times in the past 150 years.

Through Ghalib we want to raise questions that are relevant to us today in South Asia and to South Asians elsewhere in the world. What does it mean to practice a certain Religion in a plural society? How should we treat those who are different from Us? What is the nature of Belief? Or Unbelief? What is the nature of the Divine? Can (wo)man presume to know the workings of Nature (the Beloved)? As humans must we accept our fate? Or do we have Free Will? In many ways these are the eternal questions that face us as humans. But as we will see, Ghalib raises them (and occasionally provides answers) in a manner all his own. "Kehte haiN ke Ghalib kaa hai andaaz-e-bayaN aur."

In this new project, on which we have embarked just last week, we depart from the conventional model of presenting an entire ghazal followed by its translation. Instead we present only one she'r at a time along with its literal (not poetic) translation followed by a commentary and the questions it raises. Each week we will choose one verse. A commentary will be offered here on mehr-e-niimroz and questions surrounding the she'r will be posted on The South Asian Idea Weblog

Adept at expressing highly subtle and complex thoughts and emotions within the space of two lines (the she'r), Ghalib's poetry has the rare virtue of appealing directly to the heart as well as providing much food for thought. However, unlike Iqbal, unlike the Sufis (like Khusrau), unlike the Bhakti poets (like Kabir), Ghalib was not a poet with a message. His first love was words and he loved to explore their sounds and meanings. And since he was not committed to convincing people of a message, reading him is a journey whose destination is not already known.

In the popular imagination Ghalib is a romantic poet, a poet of love, longing, and desire. More scholarly attention focuses on Ghalib's technical prowess, his socio-historical and literary context, his skills in creating multiple meanings out of single words and phrases and his ability to create fresh, new metaphors.

We, however set out to do something different. In his Urdu divaan, Ghalib talks not only about love and longing, but also about faith and religion, about the nature of Divinity, about Being and Nothingness, about what it means to Believe. Ghalib's questioning nature comes through very clearly in his verses. Not content to accept any received truths either from the Shaikh or the Brahmin, Ghalib constantly puts everything to the test of his own reason and experience. It is this aspect of Ghalib's critical thinking that we wish to explore in our project.

Join us in this journey by leaving your thoughts and by suggesting she'r for discussion.

Ghalib on the coils of religious symbolism

2008-07-23T22:46:00.004-04:00

With last time's post on the "Faith of Faithlessness" we have embarked upon a new project in collaboration with The South Asian Idea blog. Via selected couplets of Ghalib we wish to raise certain questions on religion, faith, humanity, divinity, pluralism and beyond. Questions that are at once eternal and of contemporary relevance.

This is what we have planned. Every week, or roughly every week we will choose one Urdu verse by Ghalib which speaks about the themes mentioned above. A literal translation along with commentary will be posted here. In concert with that, some questions will be posed around the verse and its meaning(s) here on The South Asian Idea. Our readers are encouraged to visit there to get the full experience of this endeavor. And if you know of good Ghalib verses that it would be relevant to discuss here, please send them our way.

Verse for this week:

نہیں کچھ سبحہ و زنار کے پھندے میں گیرائ
وفاداری میں شیخ و برہمن کی آزمائش ہے

nahii;N kuchh sub;hah-o-zunnaar ke phande me;N giiraa))ii
vafaadaarii me;N shai;x-o-barhaman kii aazmaa))ish hai

Literal translation:
there is no {'grip' / holding-power} in the noose/coil/snare of prayer-beads and sacred-thread
in faithfulness is the test of the Shaikh and the Brahmin

[Translation by FWP, click here for this verses entry in A Desertful of Roses.]

First let us here some commentary by Moazzam Siddiqi sahab (courtesy Anjum Altaf of The South Asian Idea):
[subbah and zunnaar are exoteric/external/zaahirii symbols and are incapable of penetrating and taking hold of the soul; wafaadaarii, which lies in the niyya(t) of the believer, and thus, cannot be externally seen/exhibited is an internal state of the believer]. The word "phanda" noose in Hindi, for which the Persian words are "kamand, daam" brings to mind the whole imagery of "shikaar," the game of hunting where the beloved is the shikaarii (the hunter) and uses the phanda/kamand to capture/seize the heart of the lover (the "shikaar," the prey or victim)].
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Ghalib uses the pejorative or negative word, "phanda" or noose to refer to the rosary and the thread. Thus he seems to want to evoke images of being trapped, being unable to escape and realize the true nature of Divinity. But there is a tension here in the verse. The coils are weak, the noose is ineffective. It has no holding power. Thus it cannot really bind the Shaikh or the Brahmin to their vows, to their beliefs. Frances Pritchett expresses the dilemma very well:

"Does this mean that the Shaikh and Brahmin might be 'trapped' or 'ensnared' by their own religious symbols? And if so, would this entrapment occur against their will, so that they'd struggle to escape, the way trapped creatures normally do? If so, they would perhaps succeed, since these nooses have no real 'gripping power'. But what form would their struggle take?

Or would this 'entrapment' and 'snaring' occur without their awareness, such that they'd complacently think themselves well-grounded, or firmly anchored, or otherwise safely bound into their own religious systems? If so, they'd be deluded, since these symbolic coils have no 'gripping power' and thus can't provide any ultimate security."

What then can test the mettle of our religious figures, if not their adherence to religious symbols? The second line provides the answer. The strength of their faith, of course. Thus there is a very clear affinity, as several commentators note, with the verse from last week. What matters to Ghalib is the strength of inner faith rather than outer symbols such as the sacred thread or the rosary. The zunnar or the sacred thread is a commonly used poetic image for the religiosity of the Brahmin and its need is questioned very often by those who want to emphasize the inner purity or love and devotion over the outward expression of belief. For example the following verse by Amir Khusro:

کافر عشقم مسلمانی مرا درکار نیست
ہر رگ من تار گشتہ حاجت زنار نیست

kaafir-e-ishqam musalmaani maraa dakaar nist
har rag-e-man taar gasht haajat-e-zunnar nist

I am a kaafir of love, I have no need for musalmaai (the practice of Islam)
My every vein is a thread/wire, I have no need for the zunnar

On the issue of the rosary, Kabir says,

माला तो कर में फिरे जीभ फिरे मुख माही
मनवा तो चहुँ दिश फिरे ये तो सुमिरन नाही

maalaa to kar meiN phire jeebh phire mukh maahii
manvaa to chahuN dish phire yeh to sumiran naahii

The rosary turns in the hand, the tongue wags inside the mouth
But the mind roams the four directions, surely this is not prayer!

Ghalib on the Faith of Faithlessness

2008-07-17T00:50:00.001-04:00

Ghalib has much to say on the meaning of faith (deen) and infidelity/faithlessness (kufr). A recurring theme is his insistence on constancy and purity of belief, as opposed to outward manifestations of piety or faith. The conclusion is that, if one is pure of heart or steadfast in faith, then the actual object of belied matters less. I had blogged earlier on a Farsi verse to that effect. Subsequently I was reminded of a very powerful, direct Urdu verse which echoes a similar statement. In this newer entry I am putting both next to each other.

The Farsi verse exhibits Ghalib's seemingly insatiable penchant for paradoxes or for juxtaposing opposing thoughts/concepts and showing them to be somehow connected/the same at some deeper level. Like the other Farsi verses I have previously commented on, this one too does not show too many intricate or ornate metaphors or improbably flights of fancy (as Ghalib is known to do from time to time). Such proclivity (fancy metaphors) is usually recognized to be a feature of the "Indian School" of Persian poetry (sabk-e-hind or sabk-e-hindi) of which Bedil and Ghalib are two excellent examples. Click here for a nice blog entry on some of Bedil's verses. A very informative article on the poetics of the Indian style of Persian poetry by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi is available here (pdf format).

Anyway, I digress. The point is, this verse is marked not by fancy metaphors so much as densely packed philosophical observations where the philosophical point is made by presenting something that at first glance present a paradox, or that does not seem to belong together. But the opposing things are shown to be connected somehow. Now on to the Farsi verse itself:

کفر و دین چیست جز آلایش پندار وجود

پاک شو پاک کہ ہم کفر تو دین تو شود

kufr-o-deen chest juz aalaaish-e-pindaar-e-vujood
paak sho paak ke ham kufr-e-to din-e-to shavad

What are faithlessness and faith
but corruptions of the conceit of being/existence
Purify yourself so that even
Your infidelity becomes your religion/faith

Both religion and infidelity or faithlessness are imperatives born of the Ego (the conceit of being). They both corrupt the Truth in their own way because neither conquers the Ego. But if the Ego is quelled through purification or if purification consists of quelling the ego, then faithlessness itself can be as good as faith. As is often the case, the first line is beautiful and expresses an important thought, but doesn't surprise us too much. Surprise is usually reserved for the second line, because in a mushaairah, the first line would be repeated several times building up the suspense for what was to come. The second line does not disappoint. First we are told to purify ourselves (presumably of duplicity, deceit and dishonesty), and then the punch is delivered at the last moment. If yuo purify yourself, then even your faithlessness (ham kufr-e-to) will become your faith (deen-e-to).

In an famous Urdu verse, Ghalib plays with this theme of a steadfastly followed infidelity being as good as faith. Here is the verse:

وفاداری بہ شرط استواری اصل ایماں ےہ

مرے بت خانے میں تو کعبے میں گاڑھو برہمن کو

vafaadaarii ba shart-e-ustuvaarii asl-e-iimaaN hai
mare but;xaane meN to ka((be meN gaa;Rho barahmin ko

Faithfulness, as long as it is firm, is the essence/root of religion/faith
If he dies in the temple (idol-house) bury the Brahmin in the Ka'ba

Fran Pritchett's entry for this verse is found here. The Urdu verse makes a point quite similar to the Farsi verse, though I think much more firmly, startlingly. Pritchett comments on the effect of the imperative tense of the second line. There is fantastic use of strong verbs, marnaa (to die) and gaaRhna (to bury) and of course the sheer contradictory pleasure of seeing the Brahmin, the scion of Hindu faith, buried (no less!!) in the Ka'ba (no less!!). Ghalib uses the power of this immediately felt contradiction (the Brahmin who dies in the temple, is to be buried in the Ka'ba), to point to the philosophical contradiction. That even faithlessness (of the Brahman) can be equal to faith, if only it is pure, it is firm, it is steadfast. The firmess in this instance of the Brahmin's faith is illustrated by his death in the temple. It is as if the Brahmin has followed the advice given by Ghalib in the second line of the Farsi verse: Purify yourself and your kufr (Hindu belief, idol worship) will be as good as deen/religion/Islam.

Finally, the image of dying in the house of worship, as a sign of faith, reminds me of Hazrat Ali's death in the Ka'ba, which is also invoked as a powerful symbol of his faith.

The Meaning of Mugabe

2008-07-10T14:42:00.002-04:00

"We are not a British colony. You must know that." Robert Mugabe

The recent political crisis in Zimbabwe centering around veteran freedom fighter and President Robert Mugabe has drawn much attention from media in the Global North. Mr. Mugabe has been accused of using political and military power to suppress dissent, rig elections, dispense land and other favors to his friends and of doing everything he can to hang on to office long after his time to leave has come. These accusations have come from outside and from within Zimbabwe, although other African leaders have at times been reluctant to join the Mugabe-bashing bandwagon.

There can be no question of defending Mr. Mugabe's apparent lust for power or his use of strong-arm tactics, intimidation and harassment of his opposition. However, this post is not about that. There is no dearth of material on that count. But the matter does not stop here. The crisis of Robert Mugabe is in part a crisis of the legitimacy of the Global North in general and of the US-UK in particular. Listen to what Mugabe says in the video embedded above. He may be 84 and therefore somewhat impaired in judgment but there is no mistaking the basic idea upon which he perceives his moral authority to rest. Namely: "We (the Global South) have not forgotten colonialism. For some of us (Zimbabwe, for e.g.) it is not a distant historical memory, but rather a living memory, a phenomenon that came to an end not quarter of a century ago. On what basis can the Global North, the UK in particular presume to sit in judgment on the very people whom they have subjugated and enslaved in living memory?" This irony of an ex colonial power becoming holier-than-thou, preaching the virtues of democracy to its erstwhile colony, seems lost on the BBC. It is up to Mr. Mugabe to point out the obvious.

Note though, that I am not saying what Mr. Mugabe has done domestically is noble or even defensible. But neither do I think he is simply a thug out to get as much as he can out of the presidency. Further, he is able to retain moral authority, if not in everyone's eyes, at least in some people's, precisely by pointing out that his critics in the West/Global North have no moral legitimacy. The Northern media, so eager to dive into the gory details of the rivalry between Mr. Mugabe and the opposition leader Mr. Morgan Tsvangarai, so eager to give a blow-by-blow account of the rigged elections, the messed up land reform process and so on, has unsurprisingly not found the time to engage in a little bit of self-reflection, has not found the time to think about why Mugabe can so easily point to its lack of legitimacy in criticizing him. Is he just a senile fool, living in the colonial past, when the world has long moved on?

The meaning of Mugabe is something we should all understand. I don't deny that in some ways it is the age old story: dragging out the bogey of "western imperialism" to suppress dissent and cling on to power at home. Perhaps some of you think this has long gone out of fashion and by drawing upon this trick, Mr. Mugabe is only showing how out of touch he is with the world. No doubt for some talking about colonialism in the days of globalization seems very passe indeed.

But I beg to differ. I understand that "western imperialism" has conveniently come to rescue of many a tyrant in the Global South before, and nor will Mugabe be the last one to deploy it. But let us not lose sight of the other half of the puzzle. In our eagerness to be democratic and ruthlessly self-critical (self = the community of developing nations), let us not let the Global North and its self-declared "free press" off the hook. In fact we should use phenomena like Mugabe to bring to attention this fact: leaders like Mugabe are able to sustain a modicum of moral authority because the US, the UK and the rest of the Northern leadership, for some of us, has no moral legitimacy whatsoever. Just as we thought the bad old days of colonialism are behind us, just as the Global North was gaining some respectability, there come Afghanistan and Iraq, reminding us once again what we should never have forgotten: Let us by all means be critical of our leaders, let us strive constantly for establishing just, inclusive, peaceful societies, but let us not pretend that the Global North and its media are great defenders of human rights and democracy, watchdogs of tyranny wherever it may arise. They are not and never have been.

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There is no dearth of critical articles on Mugabe and the Zimbabwean crisis. A rarer perspective on Mugabe, at least in the Global North, can be found here.

The metaphor of morning as death in Ghalib

2008-07-09T14:33:00.003-04:00

Morning (or more precisely, dawn) is often a metaphor in poetry for birth or the start of a new life or a new social order. As typified by Saahir Ludhianvi's famous refrain वह सुबह कभी तो आएगी (woh subah kabhi to aayegi; that morning will come someday) in which morning is a metaphor for the new world free of injustice, exploitation and oppression. So keep that image squared away in your mind.

Now in parallel, almost contrariwise, at least in South Asia, a burning lamp or a flame is a metaphor for the soul or life-force. Thus the familiar trope in Bollywood movies to show death or the passing away of the soul from the body is to show the extinguishing of a flame.

So here is the rub. A lamp usually burns in the night. With the coming of dawn the lamp's inevitable fate is to be extinguished. Thus here morning takes away rather than gives life. Couple this now with the usual importance given, in the Ghazal universe to the night as the realm of all poetry, of colorful assemblies, of wine drinking and romance, or life itself. In the world of the classical Ghazal, the poet comes alive during the night, whether because he exults in shab-e-visaal (the night of union with the beloved, usually singular!) or pines in shabaan-e-hijraN (nights of separation from the beloved, usually plural!).

Thus perhaps it is not surprising that we find in Ghalib a beautiful inversion of the dawn = birth metaphor to a dawn = death metaphor. Metaphor (mazmuN) in general is a vital part of the Ghazal, and mazmuN afiirnii (metaphor creation) is considered even one notch superior to ma;anii afiirnii (meaning creation). But I don't know enough to say whether this particular metaphor originates with Ghalib or not.

Here I take a look at two verses, one Urdu and one Farsi, that both offer examples of this mazmuN of morning being death. First the famous Urdu verse (Ghazal 78, verse 7):

غم ہستی کا اسد کس سے ہو جز مرگ علاج
شمع ہر رنگ میں جلتی ہے سحر ہوتے تک

gham-e-hasti kaa 'asad' kis se ho juz marg ilaaj
sham;a har rang meiN jalti hai seher hote tak

The sorrow of existence 'Asad', what is its cure but death
The lamp burns in every color, until the morning comes

Click here to read Frances Pritchett's commentary on the verse as well as of other commentators she has collected.

First note that the verse follows a well-established pattern wherein the first line offers a general proposition and the second line offers a poetic "proof" for the "theorem." The first line is a more-or-less straightforward proposition: life is suffering, and there is no cure for it except death. To live is to suffer. So far so good. Poetically said, but not quite sublime. ـIt is the second line that takes the verse to Ghalibian levels. Here the lamp is a metaphor for the human body, while its flame is the spark of life. But Ghalib emphasizes not only the light given by the flame (the light of life) but also the heat (burning, jalnaa). Not only is the flame life of the lamp, as the soul is the life of the body, the flame also burns (jalnaa), its essence is burning as the soul also suffers, its essence is suffering (what is a flame if we take away the burning, what is life if we take away suffering?). Here Ghalib deploys the double meaning of the verb "jalnaa", to burn or to suffer. Further, not only does the lamp burn, but as all the commentators note, it is powerless to extinguish itself. Only the coming of morning will extinguish the lamp and relieve it of its burning/suffering. But that relief is the relief of death, for then the flame is extinguished and life is no more. So death extinguishes all the types of burning/suffering that life brings as morning extinguishes every colored flame of the lamp.

Of course as Pritchett notes in passing, from the point of view of Sufism or Vedanta death is only another beginning, the start of another journey. For one who is aware of divinity, of the oneness of being (wahdat al-vujood), of the True nature of Reality, death is a continuation of life by other means, as it were. This is where Ghalib takes us in his Farsi verse:

نشاط ھستی حق دارد از مرگ ایمنم غالب
چراغم چوں گل آشامد نسیم صبح گاھان را

nishaat-e-hasti-e-haq daarad az marg aimaanam Ghalib
chiragham chuN gul aashaamad naseem-(e)-subaH gaahaan raa

A literal translation based on Steingass might be:
I exult in the existence of God/Ultimate Reality, from death I am safe/secure Ghalib
My lamp, like a flower/rose drinks off the morning breeze

Before we compare it with the Urdu verse, a couple of small semantic points:
I haven't been able to find out if gaahaan (گاھان ) has an independent meaning, mostly Steingass uses it in combination with some other word to mean at such and such time (andar-gāhān, Intermediate times) or na-gahaan meaning unexpectedly or untimely. So perhaps naseem-e-subaH gaahaan should be read as one phrase (morning time breeze).

Secondly I am not sure why Ghalib uses the verb aashaamidan (unless aashaamad is not the third person singular of this verb) here. A lamp drinking or sipping the breeze seems funny (unless the breeze is like oil that the lamp drinks to burn).

In any case back to the main theme. We know that the morning breeze is the death of the lamp, but it enlivens the flower. Ghalib's lamp (the lamp of life of a Sufi or of one immersed in the existence of God/Brahman) unlike the regular lamp (the lamp of life of an ordinary person who considers death to be the end of life) described in the Urdu verse, is not extinguished by the morning breeze, rather it is enlivened by it. And why is that? Of course, the first line offers the clue. Because he is immersed in the existence of God or the Ultimate Reality.

This verse follows a logical structure quite similar to the Urdu verse. Once again, the first line offers a proposition. Now instead of being told that suffering in life ends only with death, Ghalib tells us he is secure from death because he knows the secret of existence. Once again, the first line itself though poetic is not particularly thought provoking. As Pritchett might note, like a good Ghazal verse, we have to wait not only till the second line of the verse but till the last part of the second line (the part about the morning breeze) to get the full impact of the metaphor. And once again, as with the Urdu verse, the second line takes the verse to a new level. It offers "proof" or example of the proposition stated in the first line.

Of course in both verses, as always we need to distinguish Ghalib, the historical personality, from "Asad" or "Ghalib" of the poem. The question of whether, in real life Ghalib would have been as sanguine about death, or as immersed in the Oneness of Being, is in some ways a moot point. We cannot expect the classical Ghazal to be personal in the same way as say the Romantic poets off the 19th century. "The poet in the poem" in the case of the Ghazal is a vexed issue. See S.R. Faruqi's essay on this theme.

Finally, in one sense the Farsi verse is also a response to the Urdu verse. It is true that life's suffering ends only in death, but one need not be afraid of death, if only one knows the secret of the Brahman, the Ultimate Reality.

As Kabir would say:

भला हुआ मोरी मटकी फूटी रे
मैं तो पनिया भरन से छूटी रे !

bhalaa hua mori matkii phootii re
main to paniyaa bharan se chhootii re

Its just as well that my pot lies shattered
I have been released from the duty of filling water!

Faiz Ahmad Faiz: Aaj bazaar mein

2008-07-07T16:54:00.002-04:00

A rare treat on You Tube. A video of Faiz himself reciting one of his most famous poems of protest. The second half of the video is the nazm put to music and sung by Nayyara Noor to a nicely edited video. I know you can just listen to the poem, but its so beautiful I can't help write it out here:

chashm-e-nam, jaan-e-shoridah kaafii nahiiN
tohmat-e-ishq poshidah kaafii nahiiN
aaj baazaar meiN paa bajaulaa chalo

dast afshaaN chalo, mast-o-raqsaaN chalo
;xaak bar sar chalo, ;xooN ba daamaaN chalo
raah taktaa hai sab, shahar-e-jaanaaN chalo

haakim-e-shahar bhi, majmaa-e-aam bhii
subah-e-naashaad bhi, roz-e-naakaam bhii
tiir-e-ilzaam bhi, san;G-e-dushnaam bhii,

inka dam saaz apne siva kaun hai?
shahar-e-jaanaaN meiN ab baa safaa kaun hai?
dast-e-qaatil ke shaayaaN rahaa kaun hai?

ra;xt-e-dil baandh lo, dil figaaroN chalo
phir hamii qatl hoo aaeN yaaroN...chalo!

Review of "Reclaiming Nature: Environmental Justice and Ecological Restoration"

2008-06-25T20:35:00.002-04:00

I recently reviewed this book edited by James Boyce, Sunita Narain and Elizabeth Stanton (Anthem Press, 2007) for the Heterodox Economics Newsletter. The review is available here.

RECLAIMING NATURE: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION, edited by James Boyce, Sunita Narain, and Elizabeth Stanton, Anthem Press, 2007. ISBN: 9781843312352; 439 pages.

Reviewed by Amit Basole, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In recent years the debate over global climate change has tended to become polarized into two camps, those who continue to maintain a sang-froid born of technological optimism (Boyce calls them “see-no-evil optimists”) and those who take an excessively pessimistic, “doomsday” view of the human-nature relationship. Reclaiming Nature: Environmental Justice and Ecological Restoration edited by Jim Boyce, Sunita Narain and Elizabeth Stanton (hereafter Reclaiming Nature), tried to steer clear of both and largely succeeds in doing so. I first situate the book in its historical context, then review its major contributions and shortcomings, and finally present a brief overview of some representative articles.

The ecological consciousness born in the industrialized Global North in the later part of the 20th century was marked by three fundamental features. First, faced with the obvious correlation between material prosperity and accompanying ecological degradation, a general conclusion was reached that social goals are in direct conflict with environmental goals. A second related belief was that “nature” needed to be protected from “man.” This conservationist position tended to view human impact as uniformly negative and in need of minimization. The third feature of this environmentalism was the belief that those residing in the Global South are less “environmentally conscious” or are more destructive of their environments than the rich or those living in the Global North (the so-called environmental Kuznets curve).

The present volume brings together 16 essays, each a case study or a compilation of case studies from South and East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, West and Southern Africa, Latin America and the United States, that taken together mount a serious challenge to these fundamental beliefs that have dominated mainstream environmentalism. The new environmentalism that it wishes to articulate is based in part on lessons learned from grassroots movements all over the world.

Read more... (PDF format)

Exporting E-Waste: Keeping up appearances of a "Weightless Economy"

2008-04-11T02:17:00.000-04:00

Though the bursting of the dot-com bubble some years ago, and the on-going troubles in the US and world economy may have tempered it somewhat, the relentless propoganda on the "new economy", the "knowledge economy" and so on continues apace. The Brave New World of Information and Knowledge apparently breaks the laws of gravity and becomes weightless. What is the "weightless economy"? I found a nice summary of the main components here. The weightless economy comprises four main elements:

1. Information and communications technology (ICT), the Internet.
2. Intellectual assets: Not only patents and copyrights but also, more broadly, namebrands, trademarks, advertising, financial and consulting services, and education.
3. Electronic libraries and databases: Including new media, video entertainment, and broadcasting.
4. Biotechnology: Carbon-based libraries and databases, pharmaceuticals.

The adjective "weightless" seems to be used to suggest a greater importance of ideas over "stuff", intellectual property over physical property, information flows over physical flows and so on. To an extent it is true that reproduction of digital matter is fundamentally different from the reproduction on physical goods, which is the reason marginal cost pricing does not work in this sector. And is also behind the incessant wars over reporduction of music, software and other digital commodities.

But if we look at this "weightless economy" through a materials throughput lens, not only is it not weightless, but in fact it possess a formidable problem both at the source and sink ends of the materials cycle. The high rate of obsolescence combined with increasing use of computers and the internet in every area of human activity, has resulted in an incredibly high throughput of physical waste; discarded computers and other electronics that are high in toxic metal content.

The illusion of weightlessness is sustained in part by a discourse that elides the physical infrastructure that sustains this economy; the miles of firbre optic cables, the computer terminals, big and small that are the nodes of the internet, the ever-increasing manufacture of silicon chips, cathode ray tubes, LCD monitors, the list can be easily increased. And partly also by the exporting (both legal and illegal) of electronic waste to poorer and less powerful nations. The flow of toxic electronic waste from the US and EU to India, China and other smaller countries is now booming business earning vauable foreign exchange for poor countries (export of waste-processing services as it is generously called). Granted that information flows can themselves be many times larger in "volume" than the physical infrastructure that carries them, but that does not make the later soomething to be trifled with. Specially when the full environmental and human burdens are brought into the picture, the weightless economy doesn't seem quite such a light-hearted matter anymore.

A good article on this problem by Jayati Ghosh:

Digital Dumps: A Growing Threat for Developing Countries
Mar 17th 2008, Jayati Ghosh

It is a sight that that is increasingly only too common in urban India, and now even in some more prosperous rural areas of the country: ramshackle piles of dismembered pieces of discarded electronic equipment such as computers, CD players, televisions and cell phones lying around in the odd corners of offices and homes. Or else simply dumped in the open in garbage heaps, and then being painstakingly searched through by rag-pickers of all ages, who look for any elements that can be resold. Read more...

The Lesser Known Ghalib (4): The Veil of Existence

2008-04-03T16:40:00.000-04:00

This time's entry on the lesser known Ghalib collects two verses, one Urdu and one Farsi, which, in my opinion seem to display connected philosophical features. They both play with the theme that the world of appearance (that which we see around us) is a veil over (Divine) reality, it both gestures towards the Divine presence and elides it.

The first verse in Urdu, is one of my all-time favorites (Ghazal 98, verse 10, rhyme scheme "aab mein"). It goes

ہے غیب غیب جس کو سمجھتے ہیں ہم شحود

ہےں خواپ میں حنوز جو جاگے ہیں خواب میں

hai Ghaib-e-Ghaib jisko samajhte haiN ham shuhood
haiN Khvaab meiN hanoz jo jaage haiN Khvaab meiN

That which we think of as seeing/the seen is the hidden of the hidden
They are dreaming still those who have awakened in a dream

Click here to read Hali, S.R.Faruqi and Frances Pritchett on this verse. As Faruqi notes "the metaphor in the second line immediately captures the imagination with its 'peerless beauty.'" Faruqi continues:

"People who, in a dream, see themselves as awakened, are still in a dream (and asleep). When they consider that they have woken up, they are only in error. What kind of error is this? This error is not devoid of two aspects. The sleeping individual has not had the experience of awakening. When he thinks that he's had this experience, he's only in error. In this way, to consider appearance and shuhuud to be the experience of divine wisdom is an error.But this error is not entirely without reality. The way the experience of waking in a dream is a shadow of the real experience, in the same way knowledge of appearances is a shadow of knowledge of the Truth. The second aspect is that the person who is at that time absorbed in a dream, will sometime or other wake up. Just as nonexistence is a proof of existence, in the same way sleep/dream is a proof of wakefulness."

But as Faruqi also notes, while the second line entices us with the beauty of its image, the first line also packs complex thoughts very densely. Ghaib itself is an incredibly multivalent word meaning "Absence; invisibility; concealment; anything that is absent, or invisible, or hidden (from sight or mental perception); a mystery, secret; an event of futurity; the invisible world, the future state" according to Platts Dictionary. So the phrase Ghaib-e-Ghaib right at the beginning sets us up with an interesting mental construct, the absence of absence, the hidden of the hidden, or the concealment of concealment. If we take Ghaib to mean hidden/concealed then we get the following: Existence, the world that exists, which we consider to be a manifestation of the Divine presence (shuhood) is actually only the concealment of the concealed, a curtain, a veil over the Ghaib. As Faruqi says, "even seeing things in the form of Divinity alone does not bestow knowledge about the true Essence; rather, it only gestures toward that knowledge." Just as waking up in a dream is not really waking up but only a "gesture" towards real waking. So far so good. But I wonder if it would be valid to take Ghaib to mean "absence", then shuhood/appearance/manifestation is the absence of absence, its the non-existence of non-existence, i.e. existence itself. I am not sure this reading works very well in conjunction with the second line, but maybe someone can think of a connection.

Now let us compare the foregoing Urdu verse to the Farsi one below (rhyme scheme "aabi besh nist"):

خویش را صورت پرشتان ہرزہ رسوا کردہاند

جلوہ می نامند و در معنی نقابی بیش نیست

Khvesh ra soorat parastaaN harzah rusva kardand
jalwah mi namand dar ma'ani naqaabi besh nist

Perhaps an Urdu translation would be:
Khud ko soorat parastoN ne bevajah rusva kiya
jise jalwa kehte haiN, naqaab se besh nahiN

In vain have the form-worshipers disgraced themselves
What they call the splendor of appearance is no more than a veil on reality

It seems to me, if I haven't misunderstood the Farsi, that this verse can be read in at least two ways. In one reading Ghalib is saying, "The worshipers of form have disgraced themselves for no reason. They are actually not that far wrong. After all the splendor of appearance is only a veil on reality, it points to reality (just as the shuhood gestures towards the Ghaib or waking in a dream, though not waking in actual fact, is still a reflection of that fact). I would like to read it in this way, but I admit it may be a stretch.
In the second reading, which is less far-fetched maybe, Ghalib says, "Why have the form worshippers disgraced themselves for no reason? Their God is only a veil, a false God, not something you should disgrace yourself believing in, unless you are misguided (i.e. unless you mistake waking up in a dream with actually waking up).

I think it seems valid to claim that time and again Ghalib shows himself to be preoccupied with this Sufi and Vedantic trope or existence being a veil over the essence, what is called maya in Vedanta. His more well known verse,

jabki tujh bin nahiN koi maujood
phir yeh haNgamah ai Khuda kyaa hai?

seems to hover around in the same general space.

Calligraphy at Lodhi Gardens

2008-03-24T11:14:00.000-04:00

The Bara Gumbad (Big Dome) and Sheesh Gumbad at the Lodhi Gardens in Delhi have the most breathtakingly beautiful calligraphy engraved on their walls. This past July I was in Delhi. I had to meet someone at the India International Center but had a few minutes to spare. The Lodhi Gardens are right behind the IIC. I took a stroll there and even with my amateur photography skills took shots below (click on the picture to enlarge). I presume these are Quranic inscriptions, but I am not sure. Perhaps someone visiting here could help with that...

The Little Qawwali Traditions

2008-03-13T21:30:00.000-04:00

So there is Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Saahib, there are the Sabri Brothers, the Warsi Brothers, Aziz Mian, Farid Ayaz and Abu Muhammad, Nizami Brothers, and on. Qawwali ("ecstatic Sufi chanting" or "Islamic Devotional" as it is sometimes known in the West) is now an internationally famous art-form. It has been rather successfully "concertized", if I may coin a clumsy verb. To "concertize" a type of music is to render it suitable for performance in modern concert-style, which as its own particular aesthetics, acoustics, performance-logic etc. Musical tradition after musical tradition has been transformed from its pre-concert performance context (I hesitate to say "original context"). The story of how Stradivarius violins turned out to be more suitable for large concert performances in the early 19th century because of the superior "throw" is well known. As is the rise of virtuoso solo performers (like Paganini) that was closely linked to the increasing popularity of concert performances. A concert institutes a strict separation between the musician and the listener. It is less intimate and it usually demands a more "polished" performace, more rehearsed, less homely, perhaps. I am only presenting a laundry list. This is not a rigorous analysis of the aesthetics of the concert. Of course traditions such as jazz and qawwali stretch the limits of "proper" concert behavior. Perhaps this is a topic for another entry.

The point though, is that the Qawwali is not really concert music, though the concert has made it widely available out of its more traditional performance venues of Sufi shrines, private assemblies etc. Even the rather polished performances of Nusrat, Sabri etc. retain an element of spontaneity (which to me seems crucial to the qawwali experience). There are however, many less known qawwals in South Asia and it is to them that this blog entry is dedicated. By less known I only mean less known internationally, or less known as judged by CD labels etc. You Tube the great leveler has some videos by such qawwals. One less known internationally but rather famous in his own milieu is Murli. I provide the links to two of his videos on You Tube, below. When you see the little stool with the microphone on it in front of the improvised stage, which itself seems little more than a khaat (a wooden cot), you will know what I mean by "little qawwali traditions."

Enjoy!

The Lesser Known Ghalib(3): The Mirror of Imagination

2008-03-06T20:00:00.000-05:00

The next installment in the series of lesser-known Ghalib verses follows. Click here for my other Ghalib posts. I thought I would pick a Farsi (Persian) verse this time. Ghalib wrote many more verses in Persian than he did in Urdu, though understandably, in India his Urdu divan is far more popular. The story goes that Ghalib himself considered his Farsi ghazals to be far superior to his Urdu ones. I don't know how true the story is, though his opinion seems reasonable for a time in which mastery of Farsi was considered superior to mastery of Urdu. But of course in classic Ghalib style, this opinion of his mentioned above, is subverted somewhat by his own Urdu verse:
jo kahe yeh ke rekhta kyunke ho rashk-e-farsi
gufta-e-Ghalib ek bar use padh ke suna, ke yun!

For the one who asks, how can rekhta (Urdu) be the envy of Persian
Recite to him just one, Ghalib's poetry and say, this is how!

Anyway, after that long preface, here is the verse that caught my eye.

غالب چو شخس و عکس در آینہ خیال

با خویشتن یکی و دوچار خودیم ما

Ghalib chu shaks o aks dar aainah-e-khayaal
ba khveshtan yaki o dochaar khudim ma

Ghalib, like the person and the image in the mirror of imagination
With ourselves we are one and we confront ourselves or
I with myself am one and I confront myself

Although the farsi "ma" is translated as "we", if Farsi like Urdu allows the first person plural to be used by individuals (as in "hum" and "hamara") then probably me and I would be better translations and would make it more effective.

This seems yet another instance of Ghalib's fascination with paradoxes and counter-intuitive assertions. If the first line is taken without any punctuation, he seems to be saying, I am one and yet I also confront myself (in my thoughts), just as a person confronts his image of himself in his own thoughts. Perhaps not too too interesting.

But if we add a comma between "aks" and "dar", then maybe it becomes a little more involved. Or at least then a persons' self-image in the mirror of his thoughts is being compared to his reflection (in a real mirror). A thing and its reflection are two different things, yet they are also the same thing, and if they were not "the same", they would not exist as different entities. Similarly, we ourselves and our mental image are two different things, they confront each other, and yet, they both exist because they are one. Another way to say this is, "if you are the person thinking about yourself then why should there be a confrontation/encounter? The answer is that its like a person and his reflection. Aren't they the same? Yes they are. Aren't they also confronting each other? Yes they are."

Any other takes on this?