Daily Times

The 221st birth anniversary of legendary poet Mirza Ghalib who took Urdu to the zenith of glory, was observed on Thursday.

Mirza Ghalib was truly, the poet who took Urdu to the zenith of its glory as a poetic language.

Born on December 27, 1797, in Agra, Ghalib was a nobleman in the court of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and was a good friend and poetry coach to him.

He is said to have written his first poem at the age of 11 and by 19, was writing verses that became increasingly incomprehensible to even his contemporaries. And yet, even today, his popularity across the Urdu-Hindustani speaking people of the subcontinent is unparalleled.

Ghalib had been married at the age of 13 to Umrao Begum, but it was an unhappy marriage, compounded by the death of seven infant children. He once wrote there was only one pain greater than marriage — the pain of life itself.

Published in Daily Times, December 28^th 2018.