[Reader-list] Ghalib and the damn Muslim problem

[ambarien qadar]

Hi 

I'm not very sure if we can read what Hali wrote nearly a century back, with the same interpretative lenses today. 
To me, Hali's piece on Ghalib (quoted in Mahmood's mail) already reads as a ceratin kind of break from the mores of traditional, ritualistic, wahabi Islamic practices that he so brilliantly represented. 
This rupture is particularly relevant in our times for it reaffirms a poetic possibility of dissent.
Moreover, it is Hali's version of how he 'saw' Ghalib. I'm not sure if we can comment on it in essentialist ways. At best, it can provide possible insights into the myriad ways the Poet and his times have been written and understood.
The choice actually lies with us- to understand Ghalib through his grief at the plight of the larger muslim community (according to Hali) or through our knowledge of his stunningly syncretic oeuvre...and think about our 'pareshani' or ways of countering it..poetic or otherwise.

(No offences meant!)
Cheers
Ambarien  

  


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