GHAZALS

Ghazal

With a touch of sun in the air here in the East, spring is definitely on its way and what better season than spring to pen down beautiful love songs or poems. It is indeed the season for romance, whether writing, reading or doing.

This week, I am going to tell you about my personal favorite among the poetry forms – that is ghazals, mainly ghazals adapted in English. Though I will primarily be teaching about writing a ghazal in English, it can be used for Urdu or Hindi too as the primary form remains the same and I will be using the Urdu words for the technical aspects anyway.

I grew up listening to ghazals of Mirza Ghalib and grew addicted to the magic and mystic of a ghazal. Though a very intricate form, ghazal flows seamlessly and is quite a challenging form to master. To learn more about ghazals it is important to know a little about the history of the same

Origin and History Of Ghazal

The origin if ghazal form can be traced back to the 10th century A.D in Iran. It grew from the Persian form qasida, which had come from Arabia in verse form. The qasida was a panegyric written in the praise of the lord or the emperor. The part of the qasida called tashbib got detached and developed in due course of time into the ghazal. Whereas the qasida sometimes ran into as many as 100 couplets or more in mono-rhyme, the ghazal seldom exceeded twelve, and settled down to an average of seven. Because of its comparative brevity and concentration, its thematic variety and rich suggestiveness, the ghazal soon eclipsed the qasida and became the most popular form of poetry in Iran.

Since the arrival of the Turkic and Afghan tribesmen in India in about A.D. 1000, a most important place, a power base or shakti sthala has been occupied in Indian poetry and music by the lyric form called ghazal. This word, of Arabic origin, is now common heritage to all Indian languages and many Indian poets use it as the preferred form.
In Arabic, ghazal means a lover talking to his beloved amorously. The ghazal was developed further and to its maximum potential in Iran and in India where Persian was the court language of the Turcomans, Afghans and the Mughals who ruled in the North and the Bahamanis and their successors in the South. Of the Persian poets, Hafiz of Shiraz enjoys the highest reputation. The Indian poets held in esteem for Persian verse are Amir Khusrau (13th century) and Mirza Bedil (18th century). Khusrau also wrote in Hindi and was devoted to the great Sufi Nizamuddin Auliya. Khusrau's Persian and Hindi verse is sung at Sufi shrines even today, some seven centuries later. On the anniversary of the saint's death, the Urs festivities start with qawwals singing a Khusrau verse.

Author:Unknown

What is a ghazal

The most commonly used definition for a ghazal is very simplistic and yet kind of misleading. A ghazal is commonly defined to be a collection of shers (couplets). A sher is a couplet, which means two line of poetry and makes sense all by itself. In other words, each sher is a poem by itself and it doesn't depend on the rest of the ghazal to make sense. This also means that there is absolutely no enjambments anywhere in the ghazal not even between the two lines of the sher.

Consider this sher,

The day we met my life was bound, with you
Every dream I dreamt of was found, with you.

You would notice that each line makes sense by itself and the sher is a complete poem by itself. Yet not all collections of shers form a ghazal. Lets look at the other rules which have to be followed.

Beher

Beher refers to the meter of the ghazal. All the shers should have the same meter. The types of beher are loosely classified as:

Short

Just that day, I was yours
In every way, I was yours

Medium

The day we met my life was bound, with you
Every dream I dreamt of was found, with you.

Long

Just for that one joy in my lifetime, I would do anything
To live with your love so sublime, I would do anything

As you see the number of syllables is not same in each line but close enough
Author:Unknown

Ghazal

Radif

Radif or the refrain is the phrase or word with which all the shers end. The last line of all the shers end with the same word or set of words.

Refer

Just that day, I was yours
In every way, I was yours

"I was yours" forms the radif here. The opening sher in all ghazal must have the radif in both the lines and is called the matla. All the examples cited above are matlas.

Kaafiya

Kaafiyaa' is the rhyming pattern which all the words before 'Radif' MUST have. The ghazal follows an intricate internal rhyming pattern.

Just that day, I was yours
In every way, I was yours

Day and way form the kaafiya in our example.

Maqta

In the last sher of the ghazal the shayar generally uses his nick name or alias in the poem. This may be in first person, second person or third persona and may be in any part of the last sher, though this is not a compulsory pat of the ghazal it is commonly used.

When you were away from me, my love
My heart was away ground, with you

Ephemeral though this life may be, dearest,
By love, I will our world surround, with you

Here I take the nickname Ephemeral and use it to portray the timelessness of love.

Now coming to the most important rule of a ghazal. All the shers of the ghzals MUST NOT follow the same line of thought. Each sher should be a separate line of thought and yet must have the same underlying theme. Each sher shouldn't follow each other but must be disjointed. If the shers are scrambled and arranged in different orders It should still make sense. Remember it is a collection where except for the matla the placement of the rest shouldn't really matter.
Author :Unknown

Ghazal

Consider this ghazal I wrote a while ago.

You look up with a smile, as love catches me unawares
Your dancing eyes beguile, as love catches me unawares

Stolen kisses whispered words, walks in the moonlight
Fond memories pile, as love catches me unawares

Nose pressed to the window, ears tuned to the door
My dreams run fertile, as love catches me unawares

Snow kissing my nose, wind whipping away my cape
I walk with steps agile, as love catches me unawares

Roses bloom in splendor, spring has spread her beauty,
I just want to sit down awhile, as love catches me unawares

Waves kissing the shore, branches swaying to the wind
Flowers bloom in style, as love catches me unawares

Wind whispers in my ears, the promises of a sweet tomorrow
My heart yearns to walk the aisle, as love catches me unawares

In some cases the whole second line of the sher is used as the radif throughout the poem.

The wind lovingly ruffles your hair
As the rain splatters against the pane

A new found love blossoms in passion
As the rain splatters against the pane

A matured love basks in familiar comfort
As the rain splatters against the pane.

A young couple share the day's worries
As the rain splatters against the pane.

A young heart dreamily yearns for love
As the rain splatters against the pane.

An old souls knits memories of love
As the rain splatters against the pane.

My heart just wishes you were still be my side
As the rain splatters against the pane.

Generally when writing a new form of poetry I use a blank form and then fit my words in it.
Author:Unknown

Ghazal

A class about ghazals would be incomplete without the mention of nazms.

A nazm is very similar to a ghazal except that all the shers are bound together by a single thought.

Some contemporary shayars use the nazm within the sher too.

An example of a nazm

I stood waiting for you near the door, just to be by your side
That's what I wanted since I was four, just to be by your side

When we met for the first time holding our mommy's hands
I hated you and thought it a bore, just to be by your side

Yet I pounced on excuses and often landed on your door
even when the rain did pour, just to be by your side

The year when i turned sixteen you made me yours with a kiss
My heart did pound and blood did roar, just to be by your side

All through the tumultuous years we were together and fought
I wanted even when we were at war, just to be by your side

And then came the day when we were named man and wife
That was the day I solemnly swore, just to be by your side

Now as you sleep carelessly on the bed with an arm around me
I know I am blessed, even if you do snore, just to be by your side

The ghazal takes a little bit of time in the beginning to master the rules but is a pleasure to write later on. It is a very beautiful form to capture the myriad emotions of love. The ghazals of Ghalib are a treasure to read and I have provided the link below.

Recommended Reading
http://www.msci.memphis.edu/~ramamurt/ghalib.html

Wrapping up the rules pertaining to a ghazal are

A poem of five to fifteen couplets

No enjambment between couplets. Think of each couplet as a separate poem. One must have a sense that line 2 is amplifying line 1, turning things around, surprising us.

Once again, ABSOLUTELY no enjambment between couplets—each couplet must be like a precious stone that can shine even when plucked from the necklace though it certainly has greater luster in its setting.

What links these couplets is a strict formal scheme. This is how it works: The entire ghazal employs the same rhyme and refrain. The rhyme must always immediately precede the refrain. If the rhyme is merely buried somewhere in the line, that will have its charm, of course, but it would not lead to the wonderful pleasure of IMMEDIATE recognition which is central to the ghazal. The refrain may be a word or phrase.

Each line must be of the same length (inclusive of the rhyme and refrain). In Urdu and Persian, all the lines are usually in the same meter and have the same metrical length. So establish some system—metrical or syllabic—for maintaining consistency in line lengths.

The last couplet may be (and usually is) a signature couplet in which the poet may invoke his/her name in the first, second, or third person.

The scheme of rhyme and refrain occurs in BOTH lines of the first couplet (that is how one learns what the scheme is), and then in only the second line of every succeeding couplet (that is, the first line of every succeeding couplet has no restrictions other than to maintain the syllabic or metrical length.

There is an epigrammatic terseness in the ghazal, but with immense lyricism, evocation, sorrow, heartbreak, wit. What defines the ghazal is a constant longing.
Author:Unknown

The ghazal and the qawwali

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan attempted to globalise the Sufi mystic experience by collaborating with musicians from other countries.

AKHILESH MITHAL

NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN'S death at the age of 49 is a matter of sadness, a great tragedy. He was a true artist, inheritor and practitioner of a vanishing musical heritage: the qawwali. This musical form of the Sufi mystic tradition has been sung for many centuries and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan came from a family or dynasty of qawwals.

In the Indian (this includes the Pakistani and the Bangladeshi) schools of Sufi mysticism which permit countenance and encourage the sama or seance, the qawwali is used for the design, creation and cultivation of techniques that induce ecstasy (haal or wajd) in the listener. Qawwali is thus an essential ingredient of worship as practised by Sufis, their disciples and the devotees who flock to the shrines of Sufi saints.

PABLO BARTHOLOMEW/ GAMMA LIASION


Sufis, like the aiyanars and other bhaktas, love God with an all-consuming passion which leaves no room in the heart for either the world or worldly pursuits. Qawwals using words from poetry embellished by notes and percussion from the classical and semi-classical tradition of Indian music serve the needs of Sufi dargahs or tombs by creating the atmosphere for a seance. They verbalise and point with music the yearning and suffering of the lover separated from the beloved.

Their call to love is given through verses selected for poignance from lyrics. The ghazal in Urdu or Persian and the geet in Hindi verses become canvasses to absorb and radiate colour from the note patterns of the modes chosen to render the songs.

These modes (ragas and raginis) transform the verses into mantras or chants, incantations or formulae. Magic arises from the fusion to make the multi-layered meaning of the words manifest itself. The drumming (tabla) targets the heart by first merging with and then taking over and regulating the heartbeat. Variations in speed, decibels and the quantum of sound produced - from the almost-inaudible to the eardrum-splitting crescendo - obliterate the outside world with its insistence on objective reality and focusses the sensitivity of the listener inwards and just into the region of the heart. The one feeling that survives is the capacity to suffer.

Newcomers and casual visitors to qawwalis are sensitised as if by osmosis from the overflow of immense feeling exuded by others in the audience. The novices react to the level and extent of emotion their hearts are capable of experiencing. Tears well up to pulsate on the tip of the eyelash or flow incessantly from the eyes; lumps rise to choke the throat and breathing is in intervals and takes the form of short, sharp gasps.

It is, increasingly, a rare qawwal who can deliver this formula every time he performs and Nusrat Fateh Ali never failed. Farewell, Nusrat Fateh Ali, farewell!

AS the centre of the qawwali art form is the lyric or the ghazal, perhaps it would be illustrating to go into its origin and development. Since the arrival of the Turkic and Afghan tribesmen in India in about A.D. 1000, a most important place, a power base or shakti sthala has been occupied in Indian poetry and music by the lyric form called ghazal. This word, of Arabic origin, is now common heritage to all Indian languages and many Indian poets use it as the preferred form.

In Arabic, ghazal means a lover talking to his beloved amorously. The ghazal was developed further and to its maximum potential in Iran and in India where Persian was the court language of the Turcomans, Afghans and the Mughals who ruled in the North and the Bahamanis and their sucessors in the South. Of the Persian poets, Hafiz of Shiraz enjoys the highest reputation. The Indian poets held in esteem for Persian verse are Amir Khusrau (13th century) and Mirza Bedil (18th century). Khusrau also wrote in Hindi and was devoted to the great Sufi Nizamuddin Auliya. Khusrau's Persian and Hindi verse is sung at Sufi shrines even today, some seven centuries later. On the anniversary of the saint's death, the Urs festivities start with qawwals singing a Khusrau verse.

The ghazal and the geet both found the qawwali their natural habitat as they represent a lover talking to the beloved amorously. The status of love was very high in the Athens of Socrates and Plato and the Dillee of Hazrat Nizamuddin and Amir Khusrau. Their belief was that God was the only true male and that all of creation was female. Just as the female yearns for the male so also does the finite soul yearn for the Infinite. Life on Earth is separation and exile. Death is reunion with the Beloved. The anniversary of the death of a saint is celebrated as would be a wedding. It is called 'Urs' which means "Nuptial Union". The Urs of Hazrat Nizamuddin commences with the qawwals singing Khusrau's verse written at the death of the saint. It reads:

"Goaree soawaiy seij purra, mukha purra daareiy kaiys;
Chull Khusrau ghurr appuney, reiyn bhuyee chahoun deys."

("The fair one is asleep on the bed and her hair covers her face; O Khusrau! Wend your way home, for the world has become dark.")

When this verse is sung again and again and portions of it are "lifted" into the higher octaves, the hearts of the listeners are plunged into grief. Khusrau's sorrow at the death of his beloved Master envelops all present. Tears well up in many eyes. Some get up and gyrate in the tight circle of their seat walled in by the huge crowd. A great catharsis occurs and all pilgrims return lighter and fulfilled.

The Sufi shrines were active all over India, from Srinagar to Chikmagalur. The kind of world which developed around the ghazal and the qawwali has now all but disappeared. When an echo occurs it can still come alive. This can perhaps be invoked by a story.

In the early 1980s, the Pakistani Urdu poet Ahmad Faraz made his first visit to Hyderabad (India). Deeply affected by a verse of Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, a 16th-century prince of Golconda in the Deccan, he returned repeating it and echoing it in a brand new ghazal of his own. (Interestingly, Ahmad Faraz is a Pathan and Muhammad Qui Qutb was a Qara Quinloo Turk from Central Asia whose grandfather Sultan Quli had emigrated to India from Hamadan in Persia in the 15th century.)

The Deccan (Dukhkhin) is synonymous with Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, which encompasses in history the cities of Golconda, Bhagnagar and Secunderabad. Urdu poetry originated in some area vaguely called Deccan (or Dukhkhin).

A pioneer in writing Urdu ghazals from somewhere near Ahmedabad in Gujarat is known as Wali Dukhkhinee. His name suggests that anyone from outside the twin capital cities, Agra and Dillee, or the North of India was called Dukhkhinee or some kind of an outsider.

This is the Urdu verse with which Ahmad Faraz regaled his audiences in India and Pakistan on his return from Hyderabad:

"Quli Qutb hoa, ya kay Ahmad Faraz, Piyaa Baaj such hay jiyaa jaayay naa."

(Be it Quli Qutb Shah or Ahmad Faraz, it remains an eternal verity and an abiding truth that a lover cannot pass his days and live in any real sense if he is separated from his beloved.)

This tribute from a 20th-century Pakistani poet to the 16th-century Qutb Shahi Sultan of Golconda stems from and echoes a verse of the Sultan:

"Piya baaj piyalaa piyaa jaayey naa; Piyaa baaj ik pal jiyaa jaayey naa."

(It is impossible to quaff a measure of wine in the absence of the beloved. O! How can I survive for one single moment without the beloved!)

A great poet creates a new space which he fills with his own fresh, newly minted verse and in the process creates a brand new tongue. Although Urdu/Reykhtaa/Dukhkhinee had been in existence for a few centuries before the birth, life and times of Sultan Quli Qutb Shah, his cascade of 50,000 verses gave the critical mass necessary for a new dynamism and viability for the new language. His leadership by precept and example made the poetry of the Dukhkhinee language not only acceptable but fashionable among the elite and his generous patronage helped draw fresh talent into its fold.

Perhaps the 21st century will witness the birth of a poet who will enable Urdu to rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of the great holocaust caused by the communal divide. It is possible that this genius and innovator will freely use words from English and other European languages - besides, of course, the Indian languages like Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam - which help give precision in meaning to new images and concepts.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was attempting a globalisation of the mystic experience by collaborating with musicians from other countries and performances in countries with no Urdu. Such experiments may well breathe new life into the ghazal and the qawwali.

Ghazal
Encyclopdia Britannica Article





also spelled Ghazel, Gasal, or Gazel, in Islamic literature, genre of lyric poem, generally short and graceful in form and typically dealing with themes of love. As a genre the ghazal developed in Arabia in the late 7th century from the nasib, which itself was the often amorous prelude to the qasida (ode). Two main types of ghazal can be identified, one native to Hejaz, the other to Iraq.




The ghazals by 'Umar ibn Abi Rabi'ah (died c. 712/19) of the Quraysh tribe of Mecca are some of the oldest. Umar's poems, based largely on his own life and experiences, are realistic, lively, and urbane in character. They continue to be popular with modern readers.

What became a classic theme of the ghazal was introduced by Jamil (died 701), a member of the 'Udhrah tribe from Hejaz. Jamil's lyrics tell of hopeless, idealistic lovers pining for each other unto death. These enormously popular works were imitated not only in Arabic but also in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu poetry until the 18th century.

Of additional note is the work of Hafez (also spelled Hafiz; died c. 1389/90), considered among the finest lyric poets of Persia, whose depth of imagery and multilayered metaphors revitalized the ghazal and perfected it as a poetic form.

Ghazal, in poetry is a form consisting of five to fifteen couplets (sher), which share a rhyme and a refrain. (The word "Ghazal" is pronounced roughly like the English word "guzzle". The ancient form originated in the 10th century in Persia (modern day Iran). It is derived from the Persian qasida, which in turn derived from an Arabian form that can be traced back to the 8th century. Ghazals were written by the Persian mystics and poets Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (13th century), Hafez (14th century), and the Turkish poet Fuzuli (16th century).

The Ghazal spread into India in the 12th century under the influence of the Mughals. In India, Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869), Altaaf Hussien Haali (1837-1914) and Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), were the masters of Ghazal in Urdu as well as Pharsi (Persian) . Although the Ghazal is most prominently a form of Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi poetry, today, it has followers and writers in many other languages.

Through the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), the Ghazal became very popular in Germany in the 19th century, and the form was used extensively by Friedrich Rckert (1788-1866) and August von Platen (1796-1835). The Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali was a prominent proponent of the form, both in English and in other languages; he edited a volume of "real Ghazals in English."

The Ghazal is a common song form in India and Pakistan today. Strictly speaking, it is not a musical form, but a poetic recitation. Today, however, it is commonly conceived of as an Urdu, Hindi or Punjabi song, with prime importance given to the lyrics.

Details of the form

A poem of five to fifteen couplets.

The second line of each couplet in a Ghazal ends with the repetition of a refrain of one or a few words, preceded by a rhyme (though in a less strict Ghazal the rhyme does not need to precede the refrain immediately).

In the first couplet, which introduces the theme, both lines end in the rhyme and refrain.

There can be no enjambment across the couplets in a strict Ghazal; each couplet must be a complete sentence (or several sentences) in itself.

Each of the couplet must be treated as a separate poem, thematically and emotionally complete in itself. This couplet is called a 'sher' in Urdu and Hindi.

All the couplets, and each line of each couplet, must share the same meter.

The last couplet may be (and usually is) a signature couplet in which the poet may invoke his/her name in the first, second, or third person.

Open Ghazal
by Len Anderson

Kiss the hand and cheek, kiss the lips that open.
Kiss the eyes and tears, kiss the wounds that open.

The nuclei of our atoms are so small, we are mostly nothing.
Whoever did this made our stone walls out of windows always open.

In a thicket: A bag too dark to see, too big to lift, too familiar to walk away from.
God grant me strength to drag it into the open.

6:10, stuck on the freeway again.
Love is singing with window and throat wide open.

My friend refused to greet the stranger in black,
was brought to the surgeon, who cut his heart open.

Go ahead, I dare you, take another breath. Each one is full
of what 14 billion years ago blew this world open.

We safecracker poets sand fingertips, pass long nights on our knees.
All to feel those clicks that mean the door will spring open.

Len says, I love the night sky, but I adore the Milky Way:
It is the edge of Her robe. See how gently it opens.

by Agha Shahid Ali


A poem of five to fifteen couplets. The name rhymes with "guzzle."

No enjambment between couplets. Think of each couplet as a separate poem, in which the first line serves the function of the octave of a Petrarchan sonnet and the second line the sestet—that is, there must be a turn, or volta, between lines 1 and 2 of each couplet. Thus, certain kinds of enjambments would not work even WITHIN the couplets, the kind that would lead to a caesura in line 2. One must have a sense that line 2 is amplifying line 1, turning things around, surprising us.

Once again, ABSOLUTELY no enjambment between couplets—each couplet must be like a precious stone that can shine even when plucked from the necklace though it certainly has greater luster in its setting.

What links these couplets is a strict formal scheme. (I am speaking of the canonical form of the ghazal, shaped by the Persians in, I believe, the twelfth century.) This is how it works: The entire ghazal employs the same rhyme and refrain. The rhyme must always immediately precede the refrain. If the rhyme is merely buried somewhere in the line, that will have its charm, of course, but it would not lead to the wonderful pleasure of IMMEDIATE recognition which is central to the ghazal. The refrain may be a word or phrase.

Each line must be of the same length (inclusive of the rhyme and refrain). In Urdu and Persian, all the lines are usually in the same meter and have the same metrical length. So establish some system—metrical or syllabic—for maintaining consistency in line lengths.

The last couplet may be (and usually is) a signature couplet in which the poet may invoke his/her name in the first, second, or third person.

The scheme of rhyme and refrain occurs in BOTH lines of the first couplet (that is how one learns what the scheme is), and then in only the second line of every succeeding couplet (that is, the first line of every succeeding couplet has no restrictions other than to maintain the syllabic or metrical length.

There is an epigrammatic terseness in the ghazal, but with immense lyricism, evocation, sorrow, heartbreak, wit. What defines the ghazal is a constant longing.

This is what a ghazal looks like:

Couplet one:

---------------------------------------------rhyme A + refrain
---------------------------------------------rhyme A + refrain

Couplet Two, Three, & so on:

------------------------------------------------------------ ---
---------------------------------------------rhyme A + refrain


Here are some opening and concluding couplets of mine:

Example A:

I say That, after all, is the trick of it all
When suddenly you say "Arabic of it all."

………………..

For Shahid too the night went quickly as it came.
After that, O Friend, came the music of it all.


Example B:

What will suffice for a true love knot? Even the rain?
But he has bought grief's lottery, bought even the rain.

………………..

They've found the knife that killed you, but whose prints are these?
No one has such small hands, Shahid, not even the rain.


Example C:

Suspended in the garden, Time, bit by bit, shines—
As you lean over this page, late and alone, it shines.

………………..

Mark how Shahid returns your very words to you.
It's when the heart, still unbriefed, but briefly literature, shines.


Example D:

Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight
Before you agonize him in farewell tonight?

………………..

And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee—
God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight.