Ghalib’s fantasy and impossible reality - A glorious Tawaif
"All
people are not poets, but all poets have a love affair with life. If poetry is
a love affair with life, which it is, then the poets must have a beloved..."
In some cases, poets have had more than one beloved. This made them and their poetry amazingly curious and curiously amazing. To think of love and life is to think of Ghalib the lover and Ghalib the beloved.
A
glimpse………
The
courtesans of Awadh, also known as tawaif or nautch-girls, were famed for their
beauty and talent. The word can be taken to mean a prostitute, but the women
involved were much more than that. As eminent historian Veena Talwar Oldenberg
writes in Places of Performance: The Mughal Court and the Culture of a Northern
Indian City 1550-1750 (1997), "Nearly all the women are known by their
first names, indicating that they were not anonymous commodities but had
individual personalities."
The
celebrated poet Ghalib was said to have composed many of his verses on the most
beautiful among them and we hear the most famous love story of Ghalib and Nawab
Jaan…..
Ishq
par zor nahin, hai yeh woh aatish Ghalib Jo lagaye na lage aur bujhaaye na bane! (One can’t control love, it’s such a flame
that can neither be ignited nor extinguished) being sung melodiously by
Nawab Jaan when he enters her mansion. When he asks her who has written it, she
tells him it’s her favourite Ghalib and that she is praying to Allah to make
him the most popular.
Ghalib
was floored when she recited his verses. That was her charm! He tried to avoid her invitation to
her Kotha, but she was relentless in her pursuit of him. As their relationship
became more intimate, Ghalib softened and he began to battle his personal
demons. He had penury and drinking habits; he lost many of his loved ones due
to gambling problems; and his wife's sadness made him feel helpless and
hopeless and he decided to not visit her. One day Ghalib visited Nawaab Jaan's
Kotha—but there was no one there! Years later, in Benares, he met Nawaab Jaan's
mother. He was befuddled and wanted to meet Nawaab Jaan once more. Her mother
directed him to the place where she was buried—her grave. He fell down on his
knees in front of the pristine white gravestone, beneath which lay Nawaab Jaan,
incomplete and heartbroken. That evening Ghalib wrote:
“Hazaaron khwahishen aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle
Bahut niklay mere
armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle...."
Ghalib’s love for Nawab Jaan was a rare
kind—a love based on fantasy and desire rather than reality.
To add: Nawab Jaan was not only a great
poet but also a practical woman and diplomat. She did not hide her dual
sympathies with Ghalib and shared his liking for her with Ghalib. In the times when women were supposed to follow the purdah etiquette, she had her heart set out to two men and owned it, proudly!
Tawaifs,
or courtesans, were the ultimate trendsetters in Awadh. They were the Beyoncé
and or Ariana Grande, of their times. From dressing to behaving to writing to
performing music- they influenced, shaped and defined popular culture. Yet
today they are a footnote in history......which is why I am telling you about it.
