[In the following essay, Wig attempts "to study Ghalib's life from a psychological point of view, in an effort to understand his complex personality and the way it influenced his poetry."]

The first centenary of Ghalib's death will be celebrated in 1969. Perhaps no other Indian poet in recent times except Tagore has won so much acclaim. Unfortunately, in Ghalib's case, most of it came after his death. There are more than 40 books on his life and works by different authors, apart from numerous articles and special numbers of magazines devoted to him.

The amazing fact about this poetic genius is that much of his popularity rests on only one slender volume, Diwan-i-Ghalib, in Urdu, containing 185 Ghazals. Perhaps no other poet in history can claim such abiding popularity for such a slender work. This is not surprising; rarely has there been a book in the world literature which contained such breadth and depth of human emotions, from utter despair to the height of ecstasy; such wit and humour; such wisdom and insight expressed in unmatched lyricism and poetry.

What was the personality of this man who has stimulated and delighted countless generations of poetry lovers? Though there is no satisfactory definition of a genius, every individual is essentially a product of hereditary and environmental influences. In this article an attempt is made to study Ghalib's life from a psychological point of view, in an effort to understand his complex personality and the way it influenced his poetry.

Ghalib, whose original name was Asad Ullah Beg Khan, was born in Agra in December, 1797 and had a Turko-Persian ancestry of which he was very proud. His grandfather Mirza Quqan Beg migrated to India in King Mohamed Shah's time and came from a family of warriors. Ghalib's father held minor jobs with various princes and eventually died in a small battle when Ghalib was only about five years old. Ghalib's uncle, Nasar Ullah Beg Khan, took up the burden of bringing up his brother's children, but he too died a few years later when Ghalib was only nine. Nasar Ullah Beg Khan was quite a successful army officer and in appreciation of his services to East India Company he was given a 'Jagir' by the British. After his death, the 'Jagir' was taken over by the Government and a small annuity bestowed upon the bereaved family, including Ghalib. The legal battle over the recovery of the full estate dominated a large part of Ghalib's life.

Ghalib's mother belonged to a rich aristocratic Muslim family of Agra and his father probably lived with his in-laws most of the time. Ghalib, born in his maternal grandfather's house, was the second of three children. The eldest was a sister and the youngest a brother, Yusuf Ali Khan, two years junior to Ghalib. It is recorded that this brother developed mental illness at the age of 29 which persisted till his death in 1857 during the days of Mutiny.

Unfortunately, not much is known about Ghalib's childhood. He was brought up at his mother's place, and by all accounts his early life was spent in luxury. His pet name in childhood, which remained popular among his friends throughout his life, was 'Mirza Nausha' or the Young Bridegroom. Death of father and later of the uncle probably added to the laxity of discipline and soon Ghalib drifted into an easy life of leisure, which was typical of rich aristocracy in the nineteenth-century North India. Spending time in kite-flying, cock-fighting, gambling or in the company of dancing girls was the accepted mode of behaviour among such class, to which Ghalib was no exception. He picked up the habit of drinking quite early, and could never leave it.

Writing verses was also considered fashionable for the leisured class, which is probably how Ghalib's early forays into poetry began. It is possible that had his father not died so soon as he did and had Ghalib not been brought up in such luxurious childhood, he would have followed his father's footsteps. He might have made a moderately good army officer under some native prince, but Urdu language would have lost one of its priceless jewels. This early period certainly coloured whole of Ghalib's life, and in spite of the hardships, the terrible poverty and heavy domestic burdens in his later days, Ghalib remained a Bohemian at heart. The revival of that lost childhood—for him, a golden age—remained his favourite dream, which was reflected in his poetry. This is also what probably made him an incurable optimist.

Not much is known either about his early education. He probably went to some local school and was soon proficient in Urdu and Persian. There were hints of his precocious intellect at a very early age. He wrote his first poem before he was in his teens, and had completed a book of verse before he was twenty. Legend has it that a poem, which Ghalib wrote when he was about eleven, was taken by an admirer and read to the great Mir Taqi Mir in Lucknow who praised it. At about thirteen, he came in contact with a great scholar who was to have a profound influence on his life: Mulla Abdul Samad, an Iranian and a Parsi recently converted to Islam, who met Ghalib during his travels in India. Obviously struck by the young boy's sharp intellect and keen desire to learn, he stayed with him for two years and taught him Persian language and literature and history of Persian civilization and religion. From thereon we perceive a strong influence of Persian culture on Ghalib, who idealised everything Persian and took pride in being the foremost Persian scholar of his day. For a number of years he even considered it as unbecoming to write in Urdu. He preferred to wear a Persian dress and followed the Shia cult which came from Iran, though he originally belonged to a Sunni family.

I think that Ghalib's obsession with Persian civilization can be traced to his subconscious idealization of his missing father, whose vacant place in his mind was at least partially taken by Mulla Abdul Samad. One other interesting speculation would be to guess the impact of his early years in mother's home on his future life. In Indian culture, a son-in-law staying with wife's parents is always a subject of mild ridicule and petty jealousies. To a sensitive mind like Ghalib's such slighting references to his father and talk of their dependence on maternal family would not have gone unnoticed. Especially, the early death of father might have made Ghalib feel more insecure. As an inevitable reaction to similar situations, it is not unusual in children to develop defensive attitudes and secretly day-dream about the father being all powerful and glorious.

Ghalib shifted to Delhi from Agra quite early in life and started living independently. It is not clear why he did it. Perhaps the dissatisfaction with the life in the maternal home played a part. Subsequently, especially after his mother's death, his relations with maternal family seemed to have cooled down. For the first few years, he continued to receive plenty of money from his mother and persisted in his life of easy luxury. As was the custom those days, he got married quite early, at the age of thirteen, with a girl of eleven. By all accounts, including some of his own letters, this did not turn out to be a very happy marriage. She was an average housewife, a thoroughly religious and devout muslim, who could never fully put up with her husband's extravagant habits, drinking, debts and a non-conformist outlook on life. She bore Ghalib seven children, but none survived. Ghalib adopted one of his wife's nephews who died at a young age. In later years, he looked after the two children of his adopted son.

There are some piquant references in his letters to his domestic life. Perhaps the most well-known is the one in a letter to Munshi Har Gopal Tafta in which Ghalib is advising another friend who has lost his second wife and plans to marry again, not to make this mistake. He says:

'On the plight of Umrao Singh, I felt pity for him and envy for myself. Good God, there are those whose chains have been cut twice and here am I, hanging by this noose around my neck for over fifty years. Neither do I die nor does the rope break.'

Little is known of Ghalib's amorous life. In those days it was not unusual for the rich to have dancing girls as companions. In one of Ghalib's letters there is a reference to his deep love for one such girl in his youth. A couple of his early ghazals also seem to have been addressed to some woman he might have loved. Apart from this, nothing much is known about Ghalib's relations with the opposite sex. In spite of an unhappy domestic life, he does not seem to have drifted to extramarital affairs. Perhaps alcohol was his main vice.

The next important event in his life was the case of his pension. This affair dragged on for almost fifteen years and was largely responsible for his mental unhappiness and financial difficulties. As we have noted earlier, after his uncle's death the British Government had fixed a pension for his family. After the death of the trustee, Ghalib filed a case in the court in 1828, claiming that the pension should not have been divided in small parts but all of it should be given to Ghalib's family with effect from the date of his uncle's death. Ghalib even undertook a journey to Calcutta, the then Capital of British India. The case lingered on for years with many ups and downs. Ghalib took the case to the Governor General's Council, and eventually to the Privy Council, but he lost every time. He even wrote a petition to Queen Victoria. To complicate matters, he had borrowed a large sum of money, his luxurious habits continuing during all this time. The failure of this case came as a staggering blow to him and the rest of his life was a story of unending pecuniary hardship.

However, through all these years his literary stature was growing. He had attracted a small band of intellectual admirers very early in life but by now his fame had spread far and wide. A large number of scholars from different parts of the country accepted him as their mentor in poetry and sent their verses to him for correction. By 1840, he was recognised as one among the two or three top Persian scholars in the country.

Another event which seems to have left a mark on his life was his arrest and imprisonment for three months in 1846 for the offence of using his premises as a gambling club. There are varying versions of this event, but Ghalib probably was guilty, although it is possible that he did not realize the seriousness of the offence nor imagined that a man of his standing in the community could be so treated by the police. The subsequent trial and punishment came as a shocking blow to his pride and reputation. Barring a few close and loyal friends, everyone he knew, including many relatives, forsook him in this predicament, which naturally made him very bitter.

July 1850 marked the beginning of a somewhat happy period in Ghalib's tormented life. Bahadur Shah, the last Mughal Emperor, honoured him with a title and monetary gift. Ghalib was employed to compile a history of the Mughal dynasty in Persian, with a monthly stipend of Rs. 50/- for this work. This brought him in close contact with the exclusive literary circle that existed in the Red Fort. It turned, out to be one of the poet's most glorious productive periods, more so because the King was himself a significant poet in Urdu. Zauq, another leading literary figure of Delhi, was his teacher. After Zauq's death in 1854 Bahadur Shah turned to Ghalib for poetical guidance. Ghalib was writing mainly in Persian in those days, but the influence of Bahadur Shah revived his interest in Urdu. Some of his best Ghazals are of this period. His financial condition and social status further improved when the King's eldest son and heir apparent accepted him as his poetry teacher in 1854 with a salary of Rs. 400/- per annum. Probably, Wajid Ali Shah, the last King of Oudh, also started paying him a stipend of Rs. 500/- annually at about the same time.

Ghalib's happiness however was short-lived. The political upheaval of 1857 saw the destruction of all his hopes and dreams. With the deportation of the King, all financial help from the King and the British government ceased. During this period of hardship, some of the poet's more affluent pupils and friends came to his rescue. After the 'mutiny', he was accused by the British of siding with the deposed King, though he had taken no active part in the disturbances. However, the British government agreed to resume his pension within three years and his literary stature was regained. By this time he was the most famous of old Delhi poets. The Nawab of Rampur took him as his teacher and put him on a stipend.

From 1860 onward Ghalib's health deteriorated rapidly and for the last four or five years of his life, he was almost confined to bed. Numerous letters written during this period give details of his illness, of which the main symptoms were repeated abscesses and boils all over his body, especially legs, frequency of micturition, increasing deafness, failing eyesight, tremors in hands, etc. In spite of all this, his mental faculties remained sharp, as his letters of later years amply show. The end came in February 1869 after a paralytic stroke.

The diagnosis of Ghalib's illness has never been properly discussed, but the symptoms point to the strong probability of its being Diabetes Mellitus. Alcoholism might have also contributed to the general poor health, deafness and tremors. The frequency of micturition may on the other hand suggest an enlarged prostate gland. His death was almost certainly due to a cerebro-vascular attack (a blood clot or haemorrhage in the brain vessels) resulting in paralysis and death. These are known to occur more in diabetic patients.

Much has been written about Ghalib's personality, his physical attributes, his love for Persian language and way of life, his liberalism, his religious tolerance, his sparkling wit and humour, his alcoholism, etc. But one striking aspect of his personality has missed the attention of his biographers: the contrast in his moods from utter gloom and despair to the height of elation and ecstasy. Some critics have noted his sharp wit and humour as his poetry's most distinctive feature, while others with equal vehemence have tried to prove that his writing' mirrored human suffering and misery. The truth is that Ghalib was both a pessimist and an optimist, depending on his moods. In the following example, one of his famous ghazals, there is almost a classical description of what psychiatrists would call a depressive illness. Medically speaking, depressive illness is recognised in a patient by a mood of hopelessness, pre-occupation with ideas of death, lack of interest in everything, lack of sleep, suicidal thoughts, feeling of undue guilt, etc. Let us now see how the various couplets of the ghazal can be cited as an example to illustrate these points:

'Koi Ummid bar nahin ati'

I see no end to my despair,
As my troubles before me loom;
No ray of hope illumes my breast,
It is a cell of the deepest gloom.

Why can't I go to sleep at night?
Why can't I realize
that death will come when it will come
and not a day too soon …

Time was when I could laugh
at the wanton whimsies of my heart
… But now my heart has lost all hope
and naught can make me smile.

I am in that far off land where even the news of my
own self is rare to obtain.
I know the reward of piety, good thoughts and
pious deeds. No more I can solace myself, no
more I feel inclined.

What face you will show in Kaaba with all your sinful past?
Don't you feel ashamed, oh Ghalib, to even think such things.
(Translation by J.L. Kaul)

I have always thought that this is a masterpiece of a poem which so beautifully records an almost clinical picture of a psychological illness. An occasional sad couplet or ghazal is certainly not unusual in any poet's collection; but here it is not one or two couplets. The mood pervades through the whole poem. The remarkable thing which makes it distinctive is not sadness (other poets may have written about sadder things) but the accuracy of description. There cannot be much doubt that Ghalib had personally experienced such depressed moods of clinical intensity.

Here is another example, also a ghazal, written around 1828–33:

I long to go to a lonely place
Far, far away from here
No doors, no walls, I'd build me there
A shelter lone and bare
A way from man's vain company
And all this petty strife
Unwatched by neighbour's prying eyes
I'd lead a lonely life

If I fall ill, no fellow-man
Need minister to me.
And if, perchance, I die, no one
Need grieve or mourn for me.
(Translation by J.L. Kaul)

The above are only two instances taken from among his various ghazals, reflecting the same mood. As is well known in modern psychology, a person suffering from such depression can also experience at times an absolutely contrary feeling, marked by an undue elation, extraordinary happiness and a sense of extreme confidence and superiority in himself. This type of personality is called cyclic, cyclothymic or manic-depressive. Such persons will suddenly go into a state of gloom for days and weeks on minor provocation and then would swing to the opposite side of complete elation without apparent cause. This was also Ghalib's case as a section of his poetry amply demonstrates. As an example, I am quoting below only the first few lines of a ghazal:

'Bazicha-e-atfal hai'

This world is a children's nursery for me. I delight
in the spectacle of creation morning and evening.
King Sulaeman's throne is a play-thing of children
for me. Christ's miracles hold no wonder for me.

Seeing me, the desert covers itself in sand.
The mighty river humbles itself before me lying low in dust.

Don't bother how I feel in your absence. You had better watch how you look in my presence.

A lover, yes, but a clever lover am I. When I am there
Laila forgets Majnu and belittles him in my presence.

Laila and Majnu's love is as sacrosanct as anything can be in Urdu poetry, but here Ghalib in his elated mood feels confident that Laila is ready to deceive Majnu for him.

I have made efforts to trace the dates of writing of various ghazals to see if the varying moods of Ghalib can be correlated with actual events in his life. Dating the ghazals is not easy as there is a lack of agreement among authorities. The ghazal 'Koi Ummid bar nahin ati' was written probably sometime between 1847–1850. Very few of Ghalib's letters of this period are available. However, a newly published collection of his letters, Nadirat-e-Ghalib, has some belonging to this period. I have come across one such letter in the collection which Ghalib wrote to his friend Nabi Bakhsh 'Haqeer' on January 9, 1850 and which I am quoting below:

My dear friend,

I owe you the reply to a letter. But what can I do? I am so grief-stricken and depressed. Further, stay in this city is no longer to my liking. On the other hand, there are so many impediments in my way that I cannot go away from here. My grief and sorrow has reached a point where my only hope lies in death.

One whose only solace is in death.

His disappointment has no bounds.

In this flood of depression and sorrow, I began thinking today of you and your children. It is a long time you have not written anything about yourself or the children either … I wish you all well.

Most probably the ghazal 'Koi Ummid bar nahin ati' was also written during the same period. The similarity of the mood is striking. The period is soon after the imprisonment of Ghalib in the summer of 1847. Some other ghazals reflecting a similar depressive mood might also have been written at about then.

The other ghazal which I have quoted to depict his elated mood, namely, 'Bazicha-e-atfal hai' can be timed more accurately. In one of his letters, written in July 1854, Ghalib refers to this ghazal and says it was written a year ago. This would put it in the year 1853—a period when he was relatively well off and happily settled in the King's court. Another ghazal depicting also a confident mood, was written a year later, in 1854, which was incidentally the year of the death of Zauq, one of Ghalib's main literary rivals in Delhi.

A cyclothymic or manic-depressive personality is often a victim of heredity. Manic-depressive psychosis, one form of insanity, is closely associated with such personality. Details of Ghalib's brother's mental illness are not available, but possibly he could have suffered from a similar disease. It must, however, be made clear that Ghalib himself never suffered from any insanity or mental illness. Cyclothymic personality is only a variation of normal and is fully compatible with high intelligence and excellence of other faculties.

Other notable features of such a personality are his extrovert nature, gregariousness, love for eating and drinking, etc. All of these were present in Ghalib. It has been suggested that, generally, drinking was a source of inspiration for his poems, which he mostly composed in the evening after his drinks. Much of the mystical quality of his couplets reminds one of alcoholically inspired ecstasy.

The contrast in Ghalib's mood and attitude towards life is evident not only in his poetry but in other spheres also. At times we find him supremely self-confident, headstrong and cocky. At other times he is vacillating, apologetic and unsure of himself. Under the façade of self-assurance and self-aggrandizement, there was basically an insecure personality, which can be traced to the childhood events, death of his father and other happenings. In such moods of exaltedness he was quick to offend people. But he was not a good fighter and when pressed hard, would rather compromise than fight. In 1851, for example, he wrote a beautiful 'sehra' for the prince and was so carried away by its poetical excellence that the last two lines of the poem contained a veiled but slighting reference to Zauq who was then King's mentor, as if challenging him or anyone else to write a better 'sehra'. When he heard about the King's displeasure about this reference, he wrote a long poem of apology saying, how could he dare compete with Zauq. His famous literary quarrel in Calcutta in 1828 was also typical. When he read a Persian poem in a private gathering, some people criticized the grammatical use of certain words and phrases and quoted certain authorities in support. Ghalib immediately and arrogantly dismissed those quoted authorities as non-entities with no knowledge of Persian. The result was an uproar, and for weeks following the event, Ghalib was criticised in public and press. Finally, though he was convinced of his literary ground, he decided to issue a letter of apology.

The same pattern we find in the defamation case of Qati-Burhan in his later years. During the days of mutiny he had a copy of the Persian dictionary Burhan-Qati with him. As he had nothing better to do those days, he went through the book, found it full of mistakes and ended up by writing a new book on its corrections. When it was published, it raised a storm of protest from traditional and conservative exponents of Persian language. Some people went to the extent of sending Ghalib threatening and abusive letters. One of them wrote a book derogatory to Ghalib, full of vulgar and obscene language. Ghalib filed a court suit claiming damages for defamation, but when he found a large number of defence witnesses against him, he ended up by compromising outside the court without pursuing the case.

Similar examples can also be cited from Ghalib's behaviour during the 1857 mutiny, when he first tried to remain on the side of the King and afterwards was as pro-British as any one could be.

It will be naïve to suggest that by analysing certain traits of his personality we can understand the genius of Ghalib or the beauty of his poetry. A genius is beyond analysis. It is a mysterious quality, almost a divine gift. Ghalib was intensely aware of his greatness, his destined place in history. In one Persian poem he predicts how posterity will remember him and how believers and non-believers will both find expositions of their viewpoints in his poetry. Ghalib's tragedy was that of a tormented soul—a genius who is caught in the midst of mediocres who do not know his worth. As he says:

They have never understood nor will understand what I say. Oh God, give them a new heart if you cannot spare a new tongue for me.

There are many a poet in this world highly praised and highly talked. But the style of Ghalib is his own, unrivalled and unmatched.