As discoveries go, this will be considered a 21st-century milestone. The original manuscript of inarguably the greatest Urdu poet ever, Mirza Assuadullah Khan Ghalib or Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869), went missing during the India-Pakistan partition in 1947, blunting the keen edge of research on this magnificent asset to the Urdu language. But now, its discovery promises a new era of understanding and appreciation of his works, which should make every researcher and admirer of this poet rejoice at their inheritance of riches.
Ghalib’s poems are an inexhaustible mine of the finest human expressions that have been ennobled by his genius to attain the status of a chronicle of history. Deservedly, he has been accorded a place at the pinnacle of Urdu literature. The discovery of the manuscript is an act of providence that will banish the shadow that falls between authorised works and original texts, a divide that very often withholds true knowledge from the inquiring mind. While scholarly interpretations of Ghalib’s works are good food for thought, direct evidence of how the muse inspired him is the finest intellectual nourishment to aspire to.
