Haroon Rashid Siddiqi
|
PUBLISHED October 19, 2025
“Hindustan ki ilhami kitābain do hain: Muqaddas Vaid aur Dīvān-e-Ghālib.” These famous words were written by Dr. Abdur Rahman Bijnori in his seminal treatise Mahāsin-e-Kalām-e-Ghālib, which he wrote in 1918 when the relentless Spanish flu pandemic cut short his life at the prime age of thirty-three. Although his time was short, he left behind a luminous tribute to Ghalib – published posthumously from Bhopal in 1921 – which remains one of the finest reflections on the poet’s genius.
His remark, bold but deeply reflective, declared that India possessed two revealed scriptures – the sacred Vedas and the Dīvān-e-Ghālib. It was not merely an exaggeration, but a recognition of the unfathomable depth of Ghalib’s poetry: its layered meanings, its metaphysical reach, its inexhaustible capacity to illuminate the human condition.
To really fathom that sea, to chart its boundless expanses and reveal its secret currents, has been the life’s work of many. But if there is one figure – whether from East or West – who has come closest to this Herculean task in our own time, it is undoubtedly Dr. Frances W. Pritchett.
A scholar of Urdu and Persian literature and Professor Emerita at Columbia University, Dr. Pritchett has given us what can only be described as a magnum opus: A desert full of roses. This vast online project is not just a translation of Ghalib’s diwan, but a luminous archive of meanings, a living museum where the voices of centuries of interpreters meet. If Ghalib’s poetry is writing, then Pritchett has built us his cathedral—an edifice at once scientific and aesthetic, each couplet blooming like a rose amid the desert sands of history.
Her achievement lies not only in her philological precision but also in her interpretive generosity. She resists the temptation to impose a singular meaning on Ghalib’s couplets. Instead, she recognizes that his words contain volumes. Every sher [couplet] is presented with a constellation of readings drawn from the most authoritative commentators – Shibli, Hali, Tabatabai, Bekhud Dehalvi, Bekhud Mohani, Gyan Chand, Kalidas Gupta Raza, Yusuf Salim Chishti and many others – so that the reader can witness the dazzling variety of interpretations. After all, Ghalib was a poet who relished ambiguity, who thrived on the glittering instability of language.
Pritchett doesn’t try to “solve” him; rather, she opens the door for us to wander his labyrinths.
Accessible to all and continuously refined, her website has become an indispensable resource for scholars, students and lovers of Urdu poetry across the globe. With its bilingual presentation – romanized Urdu text alongside English translations – it democratizes access to Ghalib and ensures that the poet who once claimed to be understood by no one can now be met by anyone with curiosity and patience.
One of the subtle triumphs of A Desertful of Roses is how it situates Ghalib within the wider tapestry of Mughal aesthetics. The Mughal world, with its architecture of arches and domes, its miniature paintings, its intricate calligraphy, is not just a historical backdrop – it is an interpretive symbolism. Pritchett’s work allows us to see Ghalib’s poetry as an extension of this sensibility: decorative yet profound, playful yet serious, endlessly self-renewing. Much like the pietra dura of the Taj Mahal, where semi-precious stones are inlaid in marble, Ghalib’s words sparkle with embedded allusions—to Quranic images, to Persian tropes, to philosophical paradoxes. Pritchett has curated these details with the care of a master archivist so that readers are not merely reading verse but entering chambers of a palace, each more wonderful than the last.
What sets A Desertful of Roses apart is its polyphonic nature. No interpreter of Ghalib is silenced; rather, everyone is invited to speak. This diversity reflects the poet’s own awareness of the infinite suggestiveness of language.
To read Pritchett’s project is to witness a symposium across the centuries, in which Shibli and Hali discuss meanings, Bekhud interjects, and Pritchett himself makes explanatory notes—never authoritarian, always respectful of the reader’s imagination. The effect is fascinating. Each couplet becomes a prism. Tilt it one way and you see metaphysical despair; tilt it another and it sparkles with ironic wit. Ghalib once mused that “a thousand meanings arise from every word.” Pritchett’s work proves him right.
The very title of the project – A Desertful of Roses – captures the paradox of Ghalib’s world. The desert suggests barrenness, hardship, endless thirst. The roses promise beauty, fragrance, sudden ecstasy. To cross the diwan is to endure both: the loneliness of existential inquiry and the joy of poetic revelation. Pritchett, as a guide, does not soften the harshness of the desert, but she ensures that its roses are visible, fragrant and unforgettable.
Ultimately, Pritchett’s contribution must be seen as both scientific and civilizing. She has built a bridge between cultures, enabling English-speaking audiences to approach the grandeur of Urdu, while deepening the appreciation of native readers by bringing together centuries of commentary in one place. The Mughal emperors built gardens to reflect paradise on earth; Pritchett has built a textual garden where the roses of Ghalib’s genius bloom forever.
To call her a great Ghalibian of our times is no exaggeration. With A Desertful of Roses she has created a monument as lasting as any marble mausoleum, as fragrant as any rose garden. It is a gift not only to literary studies, but to the world of poetry itself. And just as Ghalib once claimed, “a thousand wishes, each worth dying for,” Pritchett has given us thousands of meanings, each worth pondering forever.
As I reflect on her extraordinary achievement, I feel compelled to offer my own humble tribute in verse – a qitah [ a short detached piece of poetry] dedicated to Dr. Frances Pritchett, who trampled Ghalib’s realm more brilliantly than I could have ever imagined:
Ghalib ki hai dehleez zara soch ke jaana,
Ek alam-e-afaq hai us khamagarri mein;
Have lafz jahan behre tilismaat ho goya,
Darya ko kiya bandh wahan kozagarri mein.
[Tread lightly upon Ghalib’s threshold,
for in his craft lies a universe entire;
Each word a sea of enchantments,
the ocean itself contained within a potter’s clay]
All facts and information are solely the responsibility of the author
Haroon Rashid Siddiqui is a freelance contributor and op-ed writer
