Attended a talk today by the Columbia Professor Frances Pritchett। The talk was titled 'How to read Ghalib'. Her claim to fame is that she has commented on each of the 1459 (if I remember correctly) shers that Ghalib wrote in his entire life and that shes now going for a second round. She tried explaining why the West is more smitten by Ghalib than any other Urdu Ustaad. The talk was more about how the language researchers should go about understanding Ghalib. She also explained a few of Ghalib's sher in this regard. I could hardly understand a few (until she translated them to English) due to my Urdu Illiteracy :).
जो खुदी को देखूं तो एक भीड़ नज़र आए
लोगों मे मैं नहीं मुझमे लोग नज़र आए
कहते हैं दुनिया मैं होना नहीं काफ़ी
वो होकर तो दिखाएं जो रहे कुछ बाकी
'अमन' ज़िंदगी से एक सवाल पूछे
तेरी मुझसे रंजिशी क्या है
