Thought I will share a wonderful, recent discovery of mine – a painstakingly created index of Mirza Ghalib‘s ghazals, with commentaries collected from various sources, presented in Urdu, Devanagari, Diacritics and plain Roman, providing background information, anecdotes etc. wherever appropriate.
This labour of love is the work of Dr. Frances W. Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages in Columbia University, New York.
Amongst the various anecdotes from his life found on the website was this,
[When the British retook Delhi after the Rebellion of 1857, he was taken before a British officer who asked him if he was a Muslim.] Mirza said, ‘Half’. The Colonel said, ‘What does that mean?’ Mirza said, ‘I drink wine; I don’t eat pork’. Having heard this, the Colonel began to laugh.
And thought I would point out this ghazal. And this one. There’s many more. Start digging!
