'sham'a har rang meiN jalti hai seHer hone tak'

ek dost ne yeh sawaal kiya thha ke agar 'dewan-e-Ghalib' se kisi ek shayr hi ka inteKhaab karna ho tau mera pasandeedah shayr kaun sa hoga. maine kahaa ke bhai jis shayar ko saari urdu duniya aqeedat ki nazar se dekhti hai, jis ne aanewaali nasloN par apna aisa acar chhoRa aur yeh keh kar chhoRa ke woh 'andaleeb-e-gulshan-e-nafreedah'hai, jis ke ta'lluq se Haali ne kaha ke:

Haali suKhan meiN Shefta* se mustafiid hai
Ghalib ka mo'ataqid hai, muqallid hai Meer ka

(In verse, Haali has revered Ghalib, benefited from Shefta
And has followed the style of Meer)

jis ke baare meiN likhte huwe Haali ne mazeed kaha ke 'Khaak ko aasmaaN' se kya nisbat--ya'ni Khud ko 'Khaak' aur Ghalib ko 'aasmaan' se tashbeeh dete huwe, aise shayar ke dewan meiN se mujh jaisa Haqeer taalib-e-ilm kaun sa ek shayr chun sakta hai--
pahunch gaya hai woh us manzil-e-tafakkur par
jahaaN dimaaGh bhi dil ki taraH dhhaDakta hai--Dilaawar Figar
(He's reached that summit of thought
Where the mind beats like the heart)

*Nawab Mustafa Ali Khan 'Shefta' Dehlavi, Ghalib's very close friend and the only friend to have visited Ghalib on a regular basis when he was imprisoned on charges of gambling, as Ghalib acknowledges in his celebrated zindaan naamah in faarsi.
To write about Ghalib is never easy--it hasn't been for the greatest of writers. I have three annotated texts with me (sharHeN) and they don't always simplify Ghalib. I go to the ones I have-beKhud Dehlavi's sharH or Yusuf Saleem Chishti's sharH or Maulana Baquar's sharH--'bayaan-e-Ghalib'. A 'sharH' interprets each shayr from every single Ghazal in same order in which the 'dewan is compiled. And for those who may not know a 'dewan' is arranged alphabetically based on the end letter or 'radeef'of a Ghazal. So, Ghazals ending (in terms of radeeef) with 'alif' come first. More on this later.......

Aah Ko Chahiye [ audio]