To my ears, the sound of the Urdu language and the ghazal were the most enticing when I was in my teens, even though I could not understand...
To my ears, the sound of the Urdu language and the ghazal were the most enticing when I was in my teens, even though I could not understand most of the words. I had no idea that the couplet had a form, and that it was necessary to tune in to the conventions of the ghazal to truly appreciate it.
We studied Hindi and English in school and spoke a broad, not very elegant, Hindustani at home. But, despite my ignorance, the recitation of a ghazal always transported me to a romantic world of make-believe which I preferred to all others. The heartbreak of unrequited love, the incredible selflessness of the lover who gloried in the pain that connected him to the beloved, the perfumed gardens where the rose and the bulbul conversed about life and the spinning planets of the universe – all merged into an illogical resplendence that was quite addictive.
I could easily get my “fix” by chanting some memorised lines and pronouncing the special q, z, gh and kh sounds of Urdu with dramatic exaggeration. Even though the meaning of what I recited was a mystery to me, I could summon up the atmosphere. My friends envied the...
