Love-life of Josh Malihabadi

Josh Malihabadi’s autobiography Yaadon ki Baraat is a book of wonders. It is a fabulous memoir of a life lived in a series of adventures. In this extraordinary narrative spread over 729 pages, he has narrated his love-life in 57 pages and unabashedly claimed that he loved “not once but eighteen times”. Apparently, it sounds impossible and leaves one wondering: was he so virile that he could sustain as many as eighteen loves one after another or was he so incapable that he had to make stories to cover his weakness. One might defer providing a certain answer on the excuse that Josh was indeed a poet and a person of extraordinary strength and took amazing pride in his matchless physical and creative prowess.

Except for a few, Josh does not name all his beloveds by name but by alphabets. Was this an act of subterfuge, or a matter of social constraints that kept him from revealing identities? Again, we don’t have an answer because he alone knew why he did what he did. He only said that he clearly distinguished between love and lust and rushed to admit further that he surely fell prey to lust at times but got rid of it the very next moment. Of course, he did not want it to prevail over love.

Some of his stormy affairs that he chooses to mention by name are those with Miss Mary Ronald, Miss Glenzy, M. Begum, and R. Kumari. In the case of the last two, he does not spell out the M and the R and prefers to keep them under the veil. All the accounts of his love, irrespective of names, read like enticing literary narratives built carefully to engage the attention of his readers. He presents them with graphic details and takes the readers along with the sequence of events as they unfold with time.

When Josh tells the story of Mary, he presents her as one who was dying to entice him. He says that she called him to his quarters and created a condition where a physical relationship could grow and reach a stage of sexual encounter. He also does not shy away from saying that his father got furious on knowing about this and said he would allow him to marry her only if she embraced his faith. As it happens in romantic stories, Mary refused to do so. In a fit of desperation and anger, Josh revolted against her. He walked out of her house never to go back. In such a state, he even left Lucknow and shifted to Agra. As love stories do not end so abruptly, this too found a new turn. His luck brought him to see her after a year but this time he was meeting a totally dishevelled Mary. Unable to check himself, he embraced her passionately but she tried to disengage from him saying that in separation from him, she had become a victim of tuberculosis. She also added that after he left her, she gave birth to a baby girl who was exactly his image but the baby could not survive. A desperate and remorseful Josh arranged for her treatment but it did not help much. She was destined to meet her end soon, and she did.

Another episode in his love-life relates with Miss Glenzy. She was a medical doctor and was sent by his father to examine a girl and ascertain her puberty so that she could be married to Josh. Instead of taking leave after doing her job, Dr. Glenzy stayed back and met Josh. Josh tells us, as he told us in the case of Mary, that she too was enamoured by him. Unable to control her intense liking, she called him to her room and made obvious gestures that naturally pulled Josh towards her. As expected, this ended in sexual encounter. With this, the plot grew thicker. This time again, when his father came to know of yet another affair of the same nature, he grew angrier than before and gave him a tight slap. Although he warned Josh sternly against any further move towards her but that was too tough an admonishment for Josh to take. So, when the possibility of their getting into wedlock was contemplated finally, he posed the same condition that she should first embrace his faith. Glenzy was totally broke with such a condition coming her way. She met Josh’s mother, touched her feet and begged that she may be allowed to marry Josh. When his father appeared, she bowed down before him too and cuddled his feet. She implored as pathetically as she kept asking for Josh’s hand. Being a sympathetic man, he was moved by her passionate beseeching and agreed for her nikah with Josh. Unfortunately for both of Josh and Glenzy, the appointed day and time remained only an illusion. She suddenly collapsed and before she could be retrieved, she succumbed to death. This broke Josh once again but not for good.

There are many more stories that preceded and followed Josh’s affair with Mary and Glenzy. In all of these, he presents himself as the one sought after rather than the seeking one. In spite of this, Josh also emerges as one who remained sincere with each of his beloveds and gave himself completely to them without any consideration of the mundane kind. In spite of all the hurdles that Josh faced, he remained a sincere lover and a sympathetic human being. An emotionally honest Josh has remained an icon of love with a difference.

Heer Ranjha

Some stories never die; they are told again and again, from time to time, place to place, author to author. One such is the story of Heer and Ranjha. About six centuries old now, it was first narrated in verse by one Damodar Arora during the reign of Emperor Akbar. Damodar was a native of Jhang where the story is broadly based and he had heard it from one Raja Ram Khatri who is supposed to be an eyewitness to all that happened. Since then it has been narrated variously and in various languages, both in verse and prose. One of the most notable narratives came from Waris Shah in 1766, apart from several others in Sindhi, Haryanavi, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, and English. In Persian alone, there are as many as twenty versions of this story and in Urdu not less than fifteen.

Ranjha was the son of a landlord and lived in Takht Hazara by the river Chenab. Heer was the daughter of another prosperous person from Jhang. Both were young, both were beautiful and both were destined to fall in passionate love and suffer, as suffering has ever been the destiny of genuine lovers.

The young Ranjha did not have much of the worldly skills but he was a good shepherd and a fine flute player. After the death of his father, he was considered a burden on the family. His brothers ill-treated him and denied him proper share in ancestral land. In anger, he walked out of his home.
While at home, Ranjha had a dream and in his dream he had the vision of an exceptionally beautiful girl. He was enamoured by her and wished to meet her. So, when he left his home, he decided to move towards Multan to seek solace from the famous five pirs and find the whereabouts of his dream girl from them. Wandering from place to place, he happened to reach a mosque where he thought of spending the night. To assuage himself, he played his flute there but the imam of the mosque objected to this saying that music was not allowed in Islam. When he offered his logic that music knew no religion and could assuage a suffering soul, the imam saw sense and allowed him to spend the night there.

Following this, Ranjha kept wandering from place to place in Jhang like a love-lorn being. It was during his wanderings that he happened to meet the five pirs who told him about Heer’s whereabouts. As he moved on in search of his destination, he came to a lush green field of crops. It was owned by one Chochak Khan who happened to be the chief of the Siyal tribe. He liked the young Ranjha and thought of employing him as one who could take care of his cattle and also play his flute to keep everyone happy. He took him to his home and to his utter surprise it was here that he met Heer. As love stories have it, they instantly recognised each other as their complimentary beings and fell in love instantly. Being together day and night, they grew closer and closer –day after day.

When Heer’s parents got to know of their intimacy, they imposed severe restrictions on her but Heer defied the bondage and started meeting Ranjha during the nights. Heer’s uncle, Kaido, spotted them meeting in privacy one night and objected fiercely. This made the parents still more oppressive and they put Heer in solitary confinement. With this, began the immeasurable suffering of Ranjha once again.

Since Heer’s father could by no means think of giving her daughter’s hand to a shepherd with hardly any means, he thought of finding a suitable match for her. He ultimately found a young and affluent man called Saida Khera from Rangpura. Heer did not agree to enter into this marital bond and argued with the qazi at the time of her nikah. But the nikah had to be solemnised and it was performed under duress brining much pain to Heer. She was sent to her new home with her husband and all the wedding gifts including a herd of buffaloes. The buffaloes had become so friendly with Ranjha that they did not budge without him. With no choice left, Ranjha had to be sent with the buffaloes to look after them. Even after being put in a marital bond, angry Heer did not show any concern for her husband and kept meeting Ranjha secretly. When the word spread and people started gossiping, Ranjha was sent out of Rangpura. With this, Heer’s suffering grew many folds. She started shedding tears and suffering in separation.

Ranjha again started wandering in forlorn places. One day, he met some yogis in the jungle and chose to become one like them. One day, he entered Saida’s village in the guise of a yogi with ears pierced and rings hanging byhis earlobes. Heer could easily sense who this yogi was. She sought help from Said’a sister who had been sympathetic to both Heer and Ranajha. With her help, she found an opportune moment to flee from Rangupra with Ranjha. Both were, however, caught on the way. The matter was brought before a qazi who directed that Heer be brought back and reunited with her husband, Saida. This made both Heer and Ranjha curse him which led to a disastrous fire. Now, the matter reached the town’s headman who gave his verdict in favour of Ranjha. After this, as per Damodar, both Heer and Ranjha left for an unknown destination.

Some other narrators of this story like Aaram and Waris Shah carry this account further. According to Aaram, both Heer and Ranjha were brought to Heer’s home after the verdict of the town’s headman where her parents agreed to put them in wedlock. This was, however, only a deception. On the day of their wedding, Heer’s uncle, Kaido, put poison in Heer’s sweets which would lead to her death than to her wedding. Kaido succeeded in his nefarious plan and Heer died as soon as she tasted the sweet. A heartbroken Ranjha was also made to taste the same sweet and to meet the same end.

According to another narrative, after the town’s headman gave his verdict in favour of Ranjha, he was sent to Hazara to make preparations for his wedding and come to Heer’s home as a bride. While preparing for his wedding, he came to know of Heer’s poisoning. A devastated Ranjha rushed to Jhang but only to see her dead. Unable to bear this immensely tragic moment, Ranjha took no time to taste the same sweet that Heer had been deceptively made to taste. A true and genuine lover that Ranjha was, he fell by her side and breathed his last to meet Heer in death.

Heer and Ranjha could not really unite with each other in life but they actually did in death. They lie buried in Jhang, Heer’s hometown. They are visited by lovers and admirers of love in life and life and love.

The love-life of Nawab Mirza Khan Dagh Dehlvi (1831-1905)

Dagh Dehlvi lived a life of pain and pining in love. He left behind a treasure-trove of love poetry but did not experience the blessings of love. His coffer was empty; he only knew of an illusory love and died with a wish for turning that illusion into a reality.

One has often heard that love is blind and that it brings only misery. If this be true, this must be true in the case of Dagh Dehlvi. Dagh was a man of colourful disposition and craved for the company of the beauteous beings. As his luck would have it, he came across a young and beautiful lady known as Munni Bai at the unique annual fair of Rampur appropriately called Benazir. Munni Bai was a courtesan and she had travelled all the way from Calcutta to Rampur to enjoy herself at the fair which promised impressive spectacles to its visitors from far off places. Dagh fell for her as he loved her looks and Munni Bai fell for him as she loved his poetry. Inflamed in love, Dagh expressed himself unreservedly in his masnawi Faryaad-e Dagh which has immortalised both Dagh and Munni Bai:

Another reason for Dagh to be enamoured by Munni Bai was that she too was a poet of considerable merit. Interestingly, this courtesan-poet chose “Hijab” for her pen-name which meant “veil” and a veil, as one knows, does not allow anyone to cast a glance at the face. Yet Dagh saw her, as did others, in great admiration. Hijab stayed for some time in Rampur but once the fair was over, she had to leave. She did leave indeed and left a lover behind pining for her. As they separated they took vows, as lovers do, to remain committed in their love and keep in touch through letters. Dagh recorded this moment:

Bit by the love-bug in the same measure, Munni Bai too wrote an equally passionate verse on this occasion:

Separation weighed too heavily on their hearts but they continued exchanging letters to assuage themselves as much they could. In one of his letters, an impatient Dagh complained ruefully that she was writing less frequently now and that he did not receive even two letters every week, as promised. In utter desperation, he even wrote that he would consume poison and die if she did not meet her promise. He grew obsessive and kept looking for people who came from Calcutta so that he could ask about her. This hardly brought any solace to him. Luckily for him, the Banazir fair was approaching. Dagh invited Munni Bai in March 1881 to the Benazir fair. She came back and Dagh celebrated their reunion:

It is rightly said that love between two sometimes attracts jealousy from others. This happened in their case as well. Some disgruntled ones approached Munni Bai and spoke ill of Dagh. The trick worked well and she became angry with him. She shunned his company and sulked for some time but Dagh, being a persistent lover, won her back. Between these acts of romancing and sulking, came the time for the Benazir fair to be over. Munni Bai had to leave Rampur again; and again they were destined to suffer in separation. As she prepared to go, she chose to invite Dagh to Calcutta. It was his turn now to accept her kind invitation which he heartily did. He set out on his long journey to Calcutta via Delhi, Lucknow, Azimabad (now Patna) and reached there in June 1883. Dagh found a place separately for himself on rent opposite the historic Nakhuda mosque where he was well received by those who admired his poetry. He stayed there for three months in close companionship with her. But the three months passed too soon to be followed by another phase of separation. An exasperated Dagh lamented:

Here came a turning point in Dagh’s life with the demise of Nawab Kalbe Ali Khan of Rampur in March 1887. He got dismayed and chose to leave Rampur. A few months later he came to Delhi with which his name has ever remained associated. He did not, however, stay here for long and left for Hyderabad where he chose to stay for the rest of his life. This was the time when life’s worries occupied him more than the thoughts of Munni Bai but love being love knows no way of perishing. In 1899, the Nizam of Hyderabad set out for Calcutta on a personal trip and he chose Dagh, the respected poet, for a company. This journey brought back the memories of Munni Bai to him with full intensity. He tried to find her whereabouts and came to know to his utter dismay that Munni Bai, the courtesan, had chosen a maulvi (or the maulvi had chosen her) for entering into a marital relationship. Munni Bai had turned religious and distanced herself from the old ways of her life. This shocked him and he suffered immeasurably as he could not meet her. Seeing him in great pain, a close acquaintance of both Munni Bai and Dagh approached Qazi Abdul Hameed and asked him to persuade Munni Bai to divorce her husband and marry Dagh who would love her more than any other person. Even Dagh wrote several letters to Qazi sahib and passionately pleaded that he must get Munni Bai back. In one his letters he even said that he had grown old and that she too was not as young as before, so if she joined hands, both would live happily. He also added that even if he had grown old but his love for her was as young as ever, and that if she could come to him, he would accept her heartily. Unable to control himself, he also wrote a letter to Munni Bai:

“Bai ji, it is pathetic that you have gone away from me; had you been closer, I would have been blessed. I would dance around you like a flame, I would have made you a lamp and hover around like a moth….For God’s sake come now, or give me a date when I may come; I am in great pain…”

The pathetic tale of their love was spread over a very long period of time. During the entire period they had three stints of meeting but Dagh’s love for Munni Bai did not fade out. It was not a case of the proverbial “out of sight out of mind” situation but a unique case of “out of sight but inside the mind” condition. Having advanced in age, she once wrote to Dagh in the nineteenth year of her stranger-than-fiction relationship that she had abandoned things that were prohibited and wanted to get into a nikah and remain under veil as long as she lived. She also wrote a matter-of-fact letter to him which had no trace of love in it. Instead, it read like a conditional message devoid of any emotional connect whatsoever:

“I would not see you unless I enter into a nikah with you. I cannot disobey the sharia. Do not be misled now that I will come to you according to your wishes. If you desire to enter into a marital relationship with me, get me a home and I will be yours only in that home. You would not see my face as long as the Qazi brings us together in nikah.”

Unable to resolve the crisis, a totally shaken Dagh bid farewell to Munni Bai. The story seemed to over but a few years later, an old Munni Bai reached Hyderabad to meet Dagh in January 1902. Dagh was over seventy by then. Munni Bai was in veil and completely given to observing the ways of sharia. She met Dagh in veils. Stunned to the core, Dagh made arrangement for her stay in a different house and paid for all her expenses. He was still enamoured by her and wanted to enter into wedlock. A friend asked him, “what makes you think you are fit for entering into this relationship at this age with your teeth fallen and your hair grown grey”. Dagh replied coolly, “More than a wife, I need a sympathiser at this stage of my life. I think the first wife is a wife, the second wife is a companion, and the third wife a total disaster for life”.

Dagh was ready for a nikah but his daughter, son-in-law, and friends made him see sense. They pleaded with him that she had evil designs in mind and wanted to encroach upon all his possessions after nikah. Dagh started seeing some reason; he went slow and took a while to understand. Munni Bai could not bear any delay; she got angry. Soon they grew bitter with each other. She had come to Hyderabad thinking that she would allure Dagh and find a safe haven for the rest of her life. She failed in squeezing any favours from Dagh but she stayed on to watch if things would turn in her favour. In spite of the wedge that had surfaced in their relationship, Dagh kept on paying for all her expenses. In the meanwhile, she was joined by over a dozen of her associates from Calcutta who had come to stay with her for good. Dagh found it too demanding and thought it was no longer possible for him to pay such a heavy cost for a love that had lost all its sheen and become ruthlessly practical at the end. Hijab was upset at her failure to make a space for herself with Dagh. Both grew distant and started hating each other. Munni Bai was left with no other way; she returned to Calcutta utterly despaired and broken. Their long-drawn story of helpless love spread over two decades reached a pathetic end. In his masnawi, Dagh wrote:

Dagh grew more and more miserable with each passing day. He fell ill in September 1904 never to be cured. He departed in September 1905, leaving behind a treasure house of poetry and an empty coffer of an illusory love story.

The Love-Life of Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869)

To think of love and life is to think of Ghalib the lover, and Ghalib the beloved. He was not angelic in form and moving, nor a god in his apprehension but he surely was a piece of work, not very noble in reason but infinite in faculty. He was indeed Shakespeare’s ‘quintessence of dust’ who saw his love going to dust with emotional attachment and philosophical detachment.

Although Ghalib configured his love metaphorically, it is not difficult to recognise faces that wear the veil of his poetry. While some of them are imaginary, others are as real as life itself. We know that he was married to Umrao Begum, the thirteen-year-old daughter of nawab Ilahi Bakhsh and niece of the nawab of Ferozepur Jhirka. We also know that he fathered seven children but none of them could survive beyond a few months. It has been often said that he was unhappy in his married life but there are evidences to show that he cared for Umrao Begum although he was bitter with her for many other reasons. Indeed, Ghalib shared a richly ambiguous relationship with her knowing not how to fare forward. This is probably why he considered life as a term of imprisonment.

Not finding the desired gratification in the institution of marriage, men are known to have sought their pleasures elsewhere. Is it a matter of infidelity, one wonders. Some may say “yes” but Ghalib probably did not think so. And if he did, he did not how to resolve this dichotomy. So, whatever he did, he did only naturally and without much rationality behind them. There are two cases to mention here. He was enamoured by a coquettish singing girl but showed utmost poise in his relationship with her. Visiting the singing, or dancing girls, or even courtesans, was not supposed to be a demeaning act during those days. Indeed, men of high status visited them and enjoyed their company. One such girl whom Ghalib visited was known as Mughal Jaan and he was deeply fascinated by her.

Unfortunately for Ghalib, she was also the cynosure of a good looking, suave and a contemporary poet of great merit called Hatim Ali Mehr who also admired her and visited her as Ghalib did. Mughal Jaan did not hide her dual sympathies and she shared his liking for her with Ghalib. Ghalib, being Ghalib, did not burn in anger and did not think of him as a rival. None of the three knew, however, that God had a different design for them. Mughal Jaan did not live long enough to let this plot thicken. She passed away too soon in her life. Mehr was deeply aggrieved as was Ghalib but Ghalib showed the highest kind of courtesy in writing a note to Mahr to assuage him and to share his grief with him. Ghalib’s love for Mughal Jaan was of a rare kind; he was romantically disposed towards her but was painfully aware that his sympathies would not go too far. Mughal Jaan was both–Ghalib’s fantasy and impossible reality.

Human nature is also known to make peace with loss. So did Ghalib. After Mughal Jaan, his love-life did not reach an end. This time he got into contact with a respectable lady from a respectable family. This is said to have continued secretly as his shers during the period bear him out. This affair did not last long. He found another beauteous being yet again who would give all he wanted—emotional solace and physical contact. This lady was an admirer of poetry and poets and Ghalib undoubtedly was the one whose companionship any poetry lover would pine for. She used to send her ghazals to him for his opinion. This brought both of them closer to each other although she was a minor poet and Ghalib would not have otherwise drawn closer to her but for his amorous nature. Ghalib referred to her as the “Turk lady” and enjoyed her special companionship the most. Their affair went on secretly and reached a stage where every excuse would only bring greater damage to their reputation than repair it. Fearing the onslaughts of the society for doing an inexcusable wrong, the lady chose to sacrifice her life. This put Ghalib to great agony. The incident might have lost its fire with time but it remained fresh in his imagination. A ghazal he wrote subsequently with the radeef of “hai hai” is more expressive than many other of his ghazals. This ghazal is an epitaph for his “Turk lady”, as well as an act of love-sharing with her that shows Ghalib’s genuine respect for her. Unable to bear the loss, he fell ill and expressed his grief in the most poignant terms possible. Incidentally, this also happens to be one the best known ghazals of Ghalib.