Many have tried to walk down this path before, but that hasn’t made it any easier to traverse. Poetry, after all, is what is lost in translation and Niazi is acutely aware of the illogicality of his undertaking. But he makes a bold attempt to sneak past the language barrier by beginning the book with a glossary of unusual words, historic characters and incidences, and peculiar idioms found in Ghalib’s poetry.
This helps him convey “the meaning of a thought and a scene created through the elements of language, of cultural, social and religious nuances, and of rare culture-specific idioms” to the 21st century reader. Sample this:
“Besides Qais, no one else entered in the field of action,
The desert was perhaps as narrow as a jealous eye.”
Without the knowledge that Qais was the real name of Majnun, the star-crossed lover of Laila in the Arabic story tradition, it will be difficult for a reader to grasp that ‘field of action’ here refers to being in love and the ‘desert’ to the despair of lost love. Men are also known to go crazy searching for a way out of deserts, just as Majnun went crazy in his love for Laila – another evocation that will easily be lost on an ignorant reader.
http://newageislam.com/gallivanting-with-ghalib/islamic-culture/d/2297
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4:30 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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