Boston Hindi-Urdu Poetry Reading and Discussion

Discuss Mirza Ghalib’s "Koi Ummid Bar Nahi Aati" at The Foundry

Sun, Oct 18 · 11:30 AM EDT

The Foundry Cambridge, 101 Rogers St Cambridge, MA 02142, Cambridge, MA, US

Join us at The Foundry, Black Room (Shop 5) on SUNDAY October 18 at 11:30AM for a brown bag lunch (you are welcome to bring a packed lunch and/or non-alcoholic beverage), as Nihal leads our reading and discussion of Ghalib's beloved ghazal 'Koi Ummid Bar Nahi Aati'. You can use the dropdown menu on Rekhta to switch from the romanized version to Hindi or Urdu scripts. Here are embedded glossaries in Roman, Hindi, and Urdu (we will provide printed copies at our gathering). If you have any issues accessing the poem, please DM Mariyam.

You can find links to scholarly commentary on the ghazal at Fran Pritchett's website. You might also enjoy these renditions of the ghazal by several legendary singers: Abida Parveen, Lata Mangeshkar, Begum Akhtar, Jagjit Singh, with introduction by Gulzar, and Nihal's favorite, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's qawwali version, which includes iconic ashaar from several of Ghalib's other ghazals.

About the location: The Foundry is a community event space in Cambridge, and we will be in the Black Room (Shop 5).

• The Black Room is wheelchair accessible.
• There is parking on the surrounding streets: Rogers Street, Bent Street, Third Street, Fifth Street, among others. There are two accessible parking spots on Rogers Street in front of the main entrance.
• The building is half a mile from the Kendall MIT stop, where you can catch the red line and 64, 68, 85, CT2, 64, 68, and 85 buses.
• The building is also half a mile from Lechmere, where you can catch the green line and 69, 80, 87, and 88 buses.

Who should attend:

Our meetings are best suited for those with intermediate-advanced proficiency or higher. Our goal is to speak in Hindi and Urdu as much as possible, while being supportive of language learners who might need to use some English. If you can understand about half the words in the session's poem, we encourage you to attend at least once to gauge if the group is a fit for you.

Prior knowledge of Hindi-Urdu poetry isn't assumed. We will read and interpret the poem together, so the poetry-curious are especially welcome!

Meeting Format
11:30-11:40: Intros, greetings.
11:40-11:50: Facilitator will help place the poet in historical and cultural context. Attendees are encouraged to share what they know of the poet.
11:50-12:00: Read through the poem.
12:00-12:45: We'll go over the literal meanings of difficult words and cultural references in each sher (couplet), and then make our own personal meaning, sharing with the group as desired. Meaning could be literary, intellectual, experiential, emotional, historical, cultural, etc. We hope each attendee develops a personal relationship with the ghazal.
12:45-1:15: Open conversation (either freeform chats about themes from the poem, or about other matters entirely).
1:15-1:30: Restore room, farewell.

About the poet: Mirza Asad Ullah Khan Ghalib (1797 - 1869), arguably* the greatest Urdu poet of all time, is as beloved by speakers of Hindi and Urdu today as he was in his own time. The great philosopher and poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal pays tribute to Ghalib's genius in this poem.

The young and frighteningly talented Ghalib wanted to be recognized as a great Farsi poet rather than an Urdu one. His early Urdu poetry used so many complex references and Farsi words that a contemporary composed these famous satirical couplets as a critique.

But Ghalib got only modest recognition for his Farsi work, and ended up as the greatest Urdu poet instead, despite having written about 80 percent of his poetry by the age of 25. He wrote a total of about 20,000 shers, but ended up discarding the majority as not good enough--only 2,000 passed his exacting standards and make up his final, official anthology. The discarded poetry is stellar by any but Ghalib's standards, and continues to be published in its own anthologies today.

Ghalib's other major contribution to Urdu literature is his letters to his friends, many of whom were also literary giants of the time. The backdrop for these was Delhi, during and after the First War of Indian Independence (1857), a time of great violence and turmoil.

Ghalib and his poetry continue to live in the imaginations of Hindi and Urdu speakers around the world, and many of his turns of phrase have become Hindi-Urdu idiom. His ghazals are read and sung by the leading singers of every era. Movies and TV series based on his life are made in India and Pakistan every few years, the two most famous being the 1954 film starring Bharat Bhushan, and the 1988 TV series starring Naseeruddin Shah.

*Mir Taqi Mir is the other contender.