My sources suggest that Urdu arrived in Delhi with the Muslim sultanate in the late twelfth century and that Urdu although its own beast now, bears resemblance to Persian, Turkish and Arabic. India's 2002 census states that 51,536,111 :) people speak Urdu.
While Bert was away, and because I am bent on having to pay for more luggage on the way home in January, I went off in search of some Urdu poetry with English translation. There are plenty of volumes to choose from.
The ghazal is a closed form of poetry with quite strict guide lines. It is the kind of intricate puzzle I would have set my poetry students to master: short (usually not more than 12 lines); opens with a rhyming couplet with this rhyme repeated at the end of the second line of every verse, AA, BA, CA, DD; the second to last word in the opening line should rhyme with its counterpart in the second line and then every counterpart in each second line of verse; the last couplet often includes the poet's name in some form; the couplets in a ghazal may not hang together logically; the last couplet can be more personal. Ghazal is an Arabic word = talking to women, and ghazaal is an Arabic word= the painful wail of a wounded deer.*
Given how formal the structure is it comes as a bit of surprise that the ghazal's main subject matter is pining away for the poet's mistress. It comes as even more of a surprise that these verses also doubled as verses of devotion to God. Although mistresses seemed the rule rather than the exception, "love outside marriage was deemed immoral"* so these verses are often very ambiguous in their language, addressing lover as God, or God as lover, and carrying a tone of unrequited love and persecution. Put this in the context of a time of rigorous observance of Muslim worship -certainly a far cry from 'Jesus, Lover of my soul'!
I shan't be adding ghazals to any future high school poetry class. :)
Mir Taqi Mir (1723-1810)
Every bright and beauteous thing derives from His grace,
It's but His spark divine that sets the sun ablaze.
As my agitated heart erupted unrestrained,
The din of doom was let loose with every wail I raised.
When I realized myself, I realized my God,
Far away from myself, I know, I'd strayed.
Dull was your inward flame, or, O, Moses wise,
A thousand Sinais lay ambushed in the lightning blaze.
Without your glowing presence, love, at the nightly meet,
Orphaned stood the moth, the candle desolate.
What matters, O heavens, if I'm razed to dust,
How else my coquettish love to taught to mend her ways?
What if the rich possessed velvets and brocades,
Did he not spend his night, the unprovided, naked rake?
This one seems a bit more hopeful in recognizing an inconsistency:
Mirza Ghalib (1788-1855)
Thousands of desires, each a deadly force,
I have had surfeit of them, still I yearn for more.
Often have we heard of Adam's inglorious exile
but more ignominious was my exit from your door.
The truth about your stature tall will stand exposed, O despot!
If your curls, coil on coil, straighten out their folds.
Let him come, he who wants a letter to my friend inscribed,
with a pen behind my ear, every morn I hawk and stroll.
Those I thought would sympathize with my tale of woes,
Proved to be the sufferers of even harsher blows.
No difference in life and death when we are in love,
The same infidel sustains our life, who makes our life a load.
The preacher and the tavern door, Ghalib, lie poles apart,
Yet yesterday, as I was coming, I saw him slip indoors.
* Glimpses of Urdu Poetry by K.C. Kanda
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