Ghalib- A Thousand Desires

Mirza Ghalib is perhaps the most widely chronicled Urdu poet in English. The current books cape shows several volumes on him, a veritable plethora. There are Internet sites devoted to him, and Ghalib's couplets circulate relentlessly across social media. The terrain of Ghalib scholarship, it would appear, is well-mapped.

So where does my modest contribution fit in?

This book is designed to introduce Ghalib to a newer readership. I have attempted to write it in relatively contemporary language to target a new generation. There are several young people whose interest in Ghalib is immense thanks to his ubiquity in popular culture, but whose ability to engage seriously with him is hampered. This may be because of their unfamiliarity with Urdu and its outsider-unfriendly metaphorical conventions. But we also lack engaging material that melds together history and anecdote, poetry and meaning, the serenely effulgent world of the mushaira and the brutal historic political conflagrations of Ghalib's time. My relatively short book has ambitions to bridge that chasm.

**Contents and Sample Pages**