Ghalib--in Memory

I walked through the narrow, criss-crossing lanes of Gali Qasim Jaan with Gulzar’s voice in my head, narrating the same lines from the beginning of his much acclaimed television series on Ghalib. I had watched the episodes again and again. A friend once told me that if Ghalib was alive, his talking voice would be exactly like Naseeruddin Shah’s and his singing voice would be that of Jagjit Singh’s and I could not agree more. For me, Ghalib would come alive from the pages of poetry, invariably looking like Nasseruddin Shah. When I read history or literature, I usually have images of characters in my head. They are real people in my head who talk and think and express opinions. I do it simply to make reading more enjoyable. It is probably why I usually have no particular liking for films that have been adapted from books because if the imagination of the director does not match mine, the film falls flat on me. However, Naseeruddin Shah was exactly how I had imagined Ghalib would be when I had first read him.

The mesh of lanes seemed never ending and I have never been more scared of being run over by a rickshaw in my life. Little shops flanked the two sides of these lanes overflowing with people. Navigation was almost impossible, especially with mean rickshaw wallahs saying things like ‘mote log, hato’. You don’t know what to save, yourself or your bruised ego. I like visiting places of historical importance because it pampers my imagination. I can stand for long hours in such places and play situations in my head that I think might have occurred there long long back. Therefore for me, the idea of visiting Ghalib’s haveli had this magical feel. I knew I would be transported in time and watch the poet in his very own house weaving couplets out of the complexities of life.

‘Bhai, Ghalib kii haveli kahan hai?’ was the constant question I asked every other shopkeeper. The answer to which was almost similar, ‘yehi aagey, chaar-paanch dukaan baad.’ In my excitement and my constant efforts to not get run over, I missed the haveli and ventured further into Ballimaran, only to retrace my footsteps to what people told me was Ghalib’s haveli. A board hung by the side clearly stating that it was the ‘Ghalib Smarak’. As I stepped into what was apparently the courtyard of the haveli through massive doors of dark wood, the crowds outside seemed to fade away somewhere.

True to all the reports that I had read, the courtyard had been partitioned to form little rooms, each displaying some of Ghalib’s memorabilia – clothes, other objects used by him, family trees, poetry in his hand. Most of the objects were just a replica of what he used. In one corner of the courtyard, there were a couple of shops. I asked if I could go upstairs, only to be told that there was nothing much upstairs, except for normal residential quarters. I stood around the courtyard for a while, clicked a few photographs and generally stared into nothingness. Realising there was nothing else left to do, I stepped out into the busy gali of Ballimaran again.

It was only after I had returned from Ghalib’s part of the world, it dawned on me that there was nothing left of Ghalib in that haveli of his. It took me some time to admit to myself that I was simply disappointed. I had all this time fantasized about Ghalib’s haveli. In my head, like always I had planned feelings that I would feel standing in his haveli, that I would get to see places where Ghalib might have sat and composed my favourite lines. I believed that once I stood in his haveli, history would become real. Now I even question why they have that sham of an exhibition in that courtyard. I don’t know how many people would even be interested to travel those lanes to just see something that has lost its very essence – the Ghalib-ness of it all.

The disappointment over the haveli makes me think – had Ghalib been alive, had he not been just a fantasy in the heads of people like me, would he have been the way we imagine him to be? Or would he then just be some drunk, poor poet living off loans? Or do we simply like his fantasized version while the real him is safely locked in history?