Mirza Asad Ullah Khan Ghalib born 27 December 1796 and died 15 February 1869 was a great Poet of Urdu and Persian during the last tenure of Mughal Kingdom of India. He used his name Ghalib-Urdu word means Dominant and Asad- means the lion mostly.
His honorific was Dabir-ul-Mulk, Najm-ud-Daula. During his lifetime the Mughals were eclipsed and displaced by the British and finally deposed following the defeat of the Indian Rebellion Movement 1857, events that he described. Most notably, he wrote several ghazals during his life, which have since been interpreted and sung in many different ways by different people. Ghalib, the last great poet of the Mughal Era, is considered to be one of the most popular and influential poets of the Urdu language. Today Ghalib remains popular not only in India and Pakistan but also among the Hindustani Dispora around the world.
Mirza Ghalib was born in Kala Mahal, Agra into a family descended from Aibak Turks who moved to Samarkand (in modern-day Uzbekistan) after the downfall of the Seljuk kings. His paternal grandfather, Mirza Qoqan Baig Khan, was a Saljuk Turk who had immigrated to India from Samarkand during the reign of Ahmad Shah (1748–54). He worked at Lahore, Delhi and Jaipur, was awarded the subdistrict of Pahasu (Bulandshahr, UP) and finally settled in Agra, UP, India. He had four sons and three daughters. Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan and Mirza Nasrullah Baig Khan were two of his sons.
Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan (Ghalib's father) married Izzat-ut-Nisa Begum, an ethnic Kashmiri and then lived at the house of his father-in-law. He was employed first by the Nawab of Lukhnow and then the Nizam of Hyderabad, Deccan. He died in a battle in 1803 in Alwar and was buried at Rajgarh (Alwar, Rajasthan). Then Ghalib was a little over 5 years of age. He was raised first by his Uncle Mirza Nasrullah Baig Khan.
At the age of thirteen, Ghalib married Umrao Begum, daughter of Nawab Ilahi Bakhsh (brother of the Nawab of Ferozepur Jhirka). He soon moved to Delhi, along with his younger brother, Mirza Yousuf Khan, who had developed Schizophrenia at a young age and later died in Delhi during the chaos of 1857.
In accordance with upper class Muslim tradition, he had an arranged marriage at the age of 13, but none of his seven children survived beyond infancy. After his marriage he settled in Delhi. In one of his letters he describes his marriage as the second imprisonment after the initial confinement that was life itself. The idea that life is one continuous painful struggle which can end only when life itself ends, is a recurring theme in his poetry. One of his couplets puts it in a nutshell:
قید حیات و بند غم ، اصل میں دونوں ایک ہیں
موت سے پہلے آدمی غم سے نجات پائے کیوں؟
Transliteration in Hindi
क़ैद-ए-हयात-ओ-बंद-ए-ग़म, अस्ल में दोनों एक हैं
मौत से पहले आदमी ग़म से निजात पाए क्यूँ?
Translation in English
The prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same
Before the onset of death, why should man expect to be free of grief?
Ghalib's view of world as he sees world is like a playground where everyone is busy in some mundane activity and merrymaking rather than something of greater value as he wrote:
باغیچۂ اطفال ہے دنیا میرے آگے
ہوتا ہے شب و روز تماشا میرے آگے
Transliteration in Hindi
बागीचा-ए-अत्फ़ाल है दुनिया मेरे आगे
होता है शबो-रोज़ तमाशा मेरे आगे।
Translation in English
Just like a child's playground this world appears to me
Every single night and day, this spectacle I see.
At the age of thirty he had seven children, none of whom survived (this pain has found its echo in some of Ghalib's ghazals). There are conflicting reports regarding his relationship with his wife. She was considered to be pious, conservative and God-fearing.
Ghalib was proud of his reputation as a rake. He was once imprisoned for gambling and subsequently relished the affair with pride. In the Mughal court circles, he even acquired a reputation as a "ladies' man". Once, when someone praised the poetry of the pious Sheikh Sahbai in his presence, Ghalib immediately retorted:
How can Sahbai be a poet? He has never tasted wine, nor has he ever gambled; he has not been beaten with slippers by lovers, nor has he ever seen the inside of a jail.
؎ اگ رہا ہے در و دیوار سے سبزہ غاؔلب
ہم بیاباں میں ہیں اور گھر میں بہار آئی ہے
He died in Delhi on 15 February 1869. The house where he lived in Gali Qasim Jaan, Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, in Old Delhi known as the Ghalib Haweli has now been turned into 'Ghalib Memorial' and houses a permanent Ghalib exhibition.
FOR MORE DETAILS SEARCH ABOUT HIM OR WATCH BIOPIC MOVIES ON HIM.
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