The Night Charmers

What would happen if

Two great poets went to open war?

The birds would flock astray

The night lose its stars

 

What then must I imagine

Of that wonderful most glorious night

When two of the best, intoxicated,

Went for the verses fight

 

Words as their swords

Couplets as their shields

The king as their judge

Poems each wields

 

Ghalib in all his arrogance

Gave himself all the glory

Zaug in all humility

Ignored the pompous story

 

But the king beckoned Zaug

That he should in couplets reply

Thence flew the birds astray

Thence hid the stars in the sky.

 

* On 2nd April 1852, Ghalib insulted the court of the last Mughal King by proclaiming himself the best poet in the empire, when in reality the king himself was an accomplished poet. Upon this the King asked Zaug to relpy and thus al night were thrown couplets on couplets at the wedding that were published in newspapers the next day.

The Eluded City

There was once an empire

In history incorrectly shown

Its court a place of religion

Its people humans as their own

There was that old empire

Vultured by foreign religion

Eaten by ignorance

Brought down by its own

Ruled from the city of palaces

A city unrivaled in the world

Its end it met in mutiny

An emperor's ghazal's forgotten word

Ruins that were made with time

Ruins that should have been restored

But whatever that was left of it

We learnt with care to ignore.

It had its last Rajah

The last of the lost empire

Old with wisdom he was exiled

From his beloved land he loved

Zafar, what must you think?

Lying alone in a grave in Rangoon

How must you see the city now?

The city forgotten so soon.

You must wonder

What I made of it

As I often dream

Of your shining glory

Tears I must have given you

But tears also for me I made

What a wonder this city was

Look what of it I did create

Zafar, Oh! mighty Mughal

Resurrect that eluded greatness

If not in reality

Then in my dreams.