The Ghazal

The ghazal is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. One definition of the word ghazal: It is the cry of the gazelle when it is cornered in ahunt and knows it will die. Ghazals often deal with topics of spiritual and romantic love and may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation from the beloved and the beauty of love in spite of that pain.

A ghazal commonly consists of five to fifteen couplets, which are independent, but are linked – abstractly, in their theme; and more strictly in their poetic form. One couplet may be comic, another tragic, another romantic, another religious, another political. A couplet may be quoted by itself without in any way violating a context–there is no context, as such. One should at any time be able to pluck a couplet like a stone from a necklace, and it should continue to shine in that vivid isolation, though it would have a different luster among and with the other stones.

To mark the end of the ghazal, often a poet has a signature couplet (makkat) in which s/he can invoke his/her name pseudonymously or otherwise.

The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those of the Petrarchan sonnet. In style and content, due to its highly allusive nature, the ghazal has proved capable of an extraordinary variety of expression around its central themes of love and separation. One essential ingredient missing in unrhymed ghazals is the breathless excitement the original form generates. The audience (the ghazal is recited a lot) waits to see what the poet will do with the scheme established in the opening couplet. At a mushaira–the traditional poetry gathering to which sometimes thousands of people come to hear the most cherished poets of the country–when the poet recites the first line of a couplet, the audience recites it back to him, and then the ppet repeats it, and the audience again follows suit. This back and forth creates an immensely seductive tension because everyone is waiting to see how the suspense will be resolved in terms of the scheme established in the opening couplet, that is, the first line of every succeeding couplet sets the reader (or listener) up so the second line amplifies, surprises, explores.

Postmodern Ghazal refers to a literary movement that began in the 1990s in Iran, claiming to mix postmodern ideas and traditional Persian poetry arrangements.

The Ghazal tradition is marked by the poetry’s ambiguity and simultaneity of meaning. Learning the common tropes is key to understanding the ghazal.

There are several locations a sher might take place in the Urdu/South Asian tradition:

• The Garden, where the poet often takes on the personage of the bulbul, a songbird. The poet is singing to the beloved, who is often embodied as a rose.

hoon garmi-i-nishat-i-tasavvur se naghma sanj
Main andalib-i-gulshan-i-na afridah hoon
– Ghalib

I sing from the warmth of the passionate joy of thought
I am the bulbul of a garden not yet created

hoon garmi-i-nishat-i-tasavvur se naghma sanj
Main andalib-i-gulshan-i-na afridah hoon
– Ghalib

• The Tavern, or the maikhana, where the poet drinks wine in search of enlightenment, union with God, and desolation of self.

mir un neem-baaz ankhon men saari masti sharab ki si hai
– Mir Taqi Mir
‘Mir’ is in those half-closed eyes all flirtation is a bit like wine.

The ghazal is always written from the point of view of the unrequited lover whose beloved is portrayed as unattainable. Most often, either the beloved has not returned the poet’s love or returns it without sincerity or else the societal circumstances do not allow it. The lover is aware and resigned to this fate but continues loving nonetheless; the lyrical impetus of the poem derives from this tension. Representations of the lover’s powerlessness to resist his feelings often include lyrically exaggerated violence. The beloved’s power to captivate the speaker may be represented in extended metaphors about the “arrows of his eyes”, or by referring to the beloved as an assassin or a killer. Take, for example, the following couplets from Amir Khusro’s Persian ghazal Nemidanam che manzel būd shab:

namidanam chi manzil būd shab jayi ke man būdam;
be har sū raqs eh besmel būd shab jayi ke man būdam.
pari paikar negar eh sarv qaad e lalhaa rokhsar;
sarapa afat-e del būd shab jayi ke man būdam.

I wonder what was the place where I was last night,
All around me were half-slaughtered victims of love, tossing about in agony.
There was a nymph-like beloved with cypress-like form and tulip-lik

Ghazal in English observes the traditional restrictions of the form, as this example by Agha Shahid Ali:

Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight?
Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight?

Those “Fabrics of Cashmere—” “to make Me beautiful—”
“Trinket”— to gem– “Me to adorn– How– tell”— tonight?

I beg for haven: Prisons, let open your gates–
A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight.

God’s vintage loneliness has turned to vinegar–
All the archangels– their wings frozen– fell tonight.

Lord, cried out the idols, Don’t let us be broken
Only we can convert the infidel tonight.

Mughal ceilings, let your mirrored convexities
multiply me at once under your spell tonight.

He’s freed some fire from ice in pity for Heaven.
He’s left open– for God– the doors of Hell tonight.

In the heart’s veined temple, all statues have been smashed
No priest in saffron’s left to toll its knell tonight.

God, limit these punishments, there’s still Judgment Day–
I’m a mere sinner, I’m no infidel tonight.

Executioners near the woman at the window.
Damn you, Elijah, I’ll bless Jezebel tonight.

The hunt is over, and I hear the Call to Prayer
fade into that of the wounded gazelle tonight.

My rivals for your love– you’ve invited them all?
This is mere insult, this is no farewell tonight.

And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee–
God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight.