‘Composing a good sher [verse] in the short metre merits a certificate of perfection (kamaal ki daleel) in the world of the ghazal’.

I was taken aback when I came across this pronouncement since I had never thought of metre in quite this way. Now I had an inspiration: why not apply the short metre test to weigh in on the ‘Great Comparison’ — the longstanding debate as to who is the greater poet, Mir Taqi Mir or Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib?

As I was writing this, I came across a title from Harvard University Press; it was Nigel Smith’s Is Milton Better than Shakespeare? I felt this vindicated my plunge into the bottomless ocean of comparison.

Urdu metres are based on the Arabic model, which is quantitative. To be metrical, the words in each line of a two-line verse have to conform to a pattern of ‘weights’ that scan per the rules of aruz [metrical system]. Urdu poets have generally composed ghazals using 12 standard metres and their acceptable variants.

I had a notion that Ghalib deployed the short metre more frequently than Mir. Was he, then, the better poet? I went through Ghalib’s slender divan of 234 ghazals and found some 22 ghazals in the short metre. In my haste, I had forgotten that Mir’s ghazal output is at least six times more than Ghalib’s! Using the short metre by itself is not a guarantee of a perfect sher. How the poet uses the concision of expression to articulate his thoughts is equally significant. The economy of words pinions the sher pointedly, compelling the poet to present the essence of the experience.

Ghalib has been recognised for his individualism. However, some critics find that Ghalib’s cerebral approach invokes cold awe rather than the soul stirring rapture that Mir’s poetry produces. Compared to ada bandi, or novel descriptions of the beloved’s endearing ways, and lovers’ dialogues, which was Mir’s forte, Ghalib’s khayaal [thought] bandi is a complicated, sophisticated style.

Another issue that I need to touch upon before delving into examples of the pungency of short metres is of jadeed zehniyat, or ‘proclivity for the modern’, as evidenced in Ghalib. Mir, on the other hand, is generally perceived as a great classical poet, but having a medieval, undoubtedly pre-modern zehniyat. His graphic account of his lunacy, the tribulations of his childhood and the turbulence of the times, all have been read into his poetry.

Though Mir’s persona is individualistic, his poetry is inclusive, his idiom even more so, of the common man’s everyday struggle with life. But Ghalib’s self-conscious exploration of individualism leads him to see himself apart from ordinary mortals. He pits himself against mankind, even with the world at large — a collision that can shatter one’s self-belief, but in Ghalib it produces even greater self-assurance, a buoyancy in the realm of possibilities:

“Tu aur araish-i-kham-i-kakul
Main aur andesha ha-i-dur daraaz”

[You, and your fascination with arranging curls
Me and my far-flung uncertainties]

Mir’s attitude towards life is to find elements of the spiritual in the mundane, and mundane in the spiritual. He gives the highest meaning in life to ishq, or love. Mir does not see ishq as separate from life; it is all consuming and subsumes life. Thus, Mir’s lover carries boundless relationships which are a part of human existence and approaches the beloved:

“Masaib aur thay par dil ka jana
Ajab ek saniha sa ho gaya hai”

[There were other hardships, but losing the heart
Is like a catastrophe]

In short, Mir’s ishq embraces lots of pain, pining, tenderness and understanding of the human condition.

Ghalib’s well-known ghazal in the short metre, ‘Dil-i-Nadaan’, presents a rare, soul-searching, innocent bewilderment at love’s searing experiences:

“Dil-i-nadaan tujhe hua kya hai
Aakhir is dard ki dava kya hai”

[O foolish heart, what has happened to you
What is the remedy for this pain]

But even in moments of surrender or bewilderment, Ghalib holds himself apart from the common experience. His focus is on his own self (zaat):

“Na gul-i-naghma hoon na parda-i-saaz
Main hoon apni shikast ki awaaz”

[I am not the blossoming of song, nor the curtain of music
I am the sound of my own breaking]

In short metres, Mir immerses his self within the common experience of humanity at large:

“Vajh-i-begaanagi nahin maaloom
Tum jahaan ke ho vahaan ke ham bhi hain”

[We are puzzled by your othering of us
We, too, belong to where you do]

In the two-line verses that comprise a ghazal, every word is crucial. My point is that the semantics of the sher are locked in a word-based clasp, within which abstract thought, wordplay, sound effect and imagery have to be effectively articulated. Thus, rabt, or connectivity — undoubtedly the most essential feature of a self-contained, two-line verse — hinges on the ‘snugness’ of each word within the metrical line. In selecting a short metre, the poet is ready to pack so much meaning in a small space that the sher jumps out and grabs us with its energy of tightly balanced words and tension between the two lines.

One could hypothesise that if rabt is so vital to a sher and so explicit in the short metres, it is, therefore, logical that short metres are superior to long metres. However, such aphorisms are simplistic. Even though concision is a hallmark of excellence, there are other qualities that are more apparent in longer metres than short ones. The most obvious is ravaani, or flow — a harmony of sound so musical that it can be savoured as it glides across the tongue and imparts a beauty of sound to even an ordinary sher, making it linger in memory.

The ghazal poet is a wordsmith who weighs every word for meaning and affect. I realise that employing Mir and Ghalib’s use of metre as the basis of deciding ‘who was the better poet’ is an unbalanced critique; one cannot gainsay the fact that the choice (mating) of metre (with meaning) to enhance reception of meaning plays a crucial role in the overall impact of a sher.

The columnist is associate professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 14th, 2021