Zip file of the entire book (29 MB)

I highly recommend this book to all lovers of urduu poetry. It is particularly useful to serious students of the Ghazal form for whom interpreting Ghalib has always been an “issue”. Not only does Dr. Niazi dwell at length on the imageries used by Ghalib, but in many cases also gives contextual references to incidents in Ghalib’s life to help interpret a couplet better. Again, some couplets/terms (eg. kAGhazI paErahan) are understood only within a historical/social context – and Dr. Niazi provides the same in such cases. Note that each couplet is followed by a LITERAL (not idiomatic) translation and then by an elaborate explication. The explication also addresses multiple inherent interpretations if they exist. Dr. Niazi also points out, in many cases, erroneous interpretations that are in vogue.

Budding/Fledgeling poets may use this work to enhance their own understanding of symbols and idioms as used in urduu poetry (in addition to making sense out of the obscurity that is Ghalib). For established scholars this book can serve as a ready reference (or sanity check!).

Note: While the couplets are presented first in the original persian script, they are also transliterated using the roman script for the benefit of those who do not read the original.