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There is much to be learned from the great poets of our olden times. Mirza Ghalib, a spectacle of the early 19th century, and Hafiz Sherazi, a 14th century Persian poet whose work is often regarded as the pinnacle of Persian literature – both offer us profound lessons through their intellectual and emotional acuity, which we must turn to from time to time.
Safina jab ke kinare pe aa laga Ghalib,
Khuda se kya sitam o joure nakhuda kahiye
When the ship has at last reached the shore, says Ghalib, what grievance can remain against God or the ship’s master? The verse holds that quiet wisdom which comes only when complaint has exhausted itself before the whims of fate. The voyage has spent its fury, the winds have lost their sting, and the traveller — humbled but not broken — stands at peace with what once appeared as merciless adversity. There is a calm that comes not from triumph but from comprehension. Even the storms, seen in retrospect, appear to have carried a hidden design.
Hafiz Sherazi, in his tender mystic accent, offers a kindred consolation:
Kashti shekastagan im ee bad-e sharte bar khiz,
Bashad ke baz beenam didar-e ashna ra
O auspicious wind, rise once more — the broken boat is now my prize;
Perhaps, I shall behold again that well-beloved friend.
In this vision, Hafiz transforms ruin into promise. The wrecked vessel is no longer a symbol of despair but a providential gift – for only when the old craft is shattered may the soul glimpse its true destination. The poet’s faith turns calamity into reunion, seeing in every loss the secret possibility of grace. The wind that once scattered now becomes the breath of return. Thus, Hafiz redeems the voyage through hope, as Ghalib redeems it through understanding.
Ghalib, ever the ironist of his own fate, finds poise even in confinement:
Nai teer kaman mein hai, na sayyad kameen mein,
Goshay mein qafas ke mujhe aaram bahut hai.
There is no arrow on the bow, no hunter in ambush
and in the corner of the cage, he discovers an unexpected repose.
It is the paradox of his genius that he can draw solace from captivity, turning the cage itself into a metaphor of inward freedom. His acceptance is not submission; it is the stillness of a mind that has seen too much to rebel and too deeply to despair.
Taken together, Hafiz and Ghalib speak not merely of voyage and arrival but of an inward journey — from turbulence to equilibrium. The true shore lies not in distance but in comprehension. Whether in the toss of waves or within the bars of the cage, serenity is fashioned, not bestowed. The awakened heart learns that peace is not a gift of circumstance but a creation of understanding.
And yet – let me end this reflection on a more pained note, with one of Ghalib’s verses that return to me in those solitary hours when memory lengthens into silence:
Khamoshi mein nihan khoon gashta laakhon aarzoein hain,
Chiraghe murda hoon mein bai zabaan gore ghareeban ka
In silence lie buried a thousand blood-stained desires; I am but an extinguished lamp upon the wordless grave of the unknown. It is here, in this tremor of verse, that Ghalib’s greatness attains its last refinement — the ability to turn anguish into art, and defeat into dignity. The voyage, the shore, the cage and the grave all merge into one continuous truth: that the human spirit, even in its mute suffering, still glows — faintly, stubbornly — with the light of remembrance.
