You Are What You Do: Reflections on the Opening Lines of Ghalib's Divan

Originally, I was planning to begin with some comments on Trevor Noah's memoir, Born a Crime, which, thanks to my sister, has managed to make its way to my desk. Fate, however, can be a fickle thing, and I have now been inspired to write on Ghalib first. Ghalib, in my opinion, is one of the greatest (and perhaps even the greatest) poet of the Urdu language, a Ghazal writer par excellence, whose work is both powerful and memorable, and whose English translators, with the rare exception every now and then, always do him wrong.

That being said, Ghalib himself is of great significance and his poems hold many lessons for all of us. In what follows, I will be talking about some psychological and moral lessons that I have personally found in the opening lines of his Divan.

The Delicate Tapestry of Art

Ghalib begins his Divan with the following words (1):

نقش فریادی ہے کس کی شوخیٔ تحریر کا 

 کاغذی ہے پیرہن ہر پیکرِ تصویر کا

The first line in this couplet, roughly translated, states that every mark that the scribe's pen leaves is an indication of his skill, though the way the poet says this actually indicates a wider meaning. If we were to translate these words literally, what we would get is:

The marks left behind by the pen are begging attention towards the beauty of the writing.

The focus, then, is not towards the author, but towards the piece of art. What is important is not who the writer is, but what it is he wrote. One verse out of place in a poem can bring the entire edifice crumbling down, and this is why Ghalib cut out so many of his lines from the Divan, and nowhere is this more strongly articulated than in the second part of this couplet, where Ghalib suggests that writing is an extremely delicate matter that must be executed with extreme care. His exact words:

Like paper is the dress worn by each portrait.

And so, the first thing that we get here is Ghalib's philosophy of aesthetic: art, and specifically poetry, is to him something beautiful, organic, and complete; its pieces are all adding to each other and no part of it is meaningless. This does not mean, of course, that artists don't make mistakes, but the thing that makes them who they are is that they hone their skills, spend time on their craft, fix the tiniest of details, and look for ever new ways to depict their feelings and thoughts.

What Ghalib is saying, in other words, is that no artist can get away doing nothing. Artists must strive to improve and they must develop their abilities in order to rise above their own flaws and be able to bend the rules without messing up, for art is a delicate matter that requires a lot of care.

Being and Becoming: A Psychology of the Self

Coming now to the way I had understood these lines when I first read them, the ink marks here can be interpreted as our actions and the art piece can be seen as the tapestry of the human soul. Psychologically, socially, and spiritually, who we are is not some sort of solid immutable entity, but a landscape of infinite potential; as long as we do not think of defying the laws of science, the limits of who we are and what we can be are unknown. And so, who we are is determined by the marks, or the memories, we leave behind — in society, in ourselves, and in the hearts of other people. We are remembered by the personalities we present, the actions we perform, and the impressions we leave behind; and since we are always living and doing more, who we are is also being modified every single minute:

The Koran also makes clear that no created self has achieved its final selfhood — if it ever achieves its final selfhood — because each creature dwells in change and flux. Each "I" is in the process of unfolding, and there is no reason to think that this process will ever come to an end. The difference here between the self of human beings and the self of non-human beings is that, with the slightest amount of reflection, every human self knows that it has not yet come to its end. Each of us knows, if we are alive, that our self has not taken its last [breath]. Other things are not given this sort of self-awareness, so they act without thought and reflection. Recite scripture to asses and you will be wasting your time. But human beings know that they are constantly faced with unknown dimensions of themselves, because they know that they do not know what they will be and what they will do in the next moment.

In many Islamic theological texts, the problem of self-awareness comes up clearly in the issue of free choice. By performing a volitional act, by making a choice, I specify who I am — what my self is — to some degree. Until I make the choice, that moment of my self has not appeared in the world. And of course, here the Koran tells people repeatedly that they will be held responsible for these choices, which is to say that they will have to answer to God when He asks them why they did what they did. They will have to tell God why they chose to make this act appear from their selves and not some other act.

Everyone knows that each of us stands in the midst of development and unfolding. What is being unfolded is simply our self, but each self is unique. We do not know the full answer to what we are because at the moment we are only what we are right now, and at every moment of our existence, we are something new. So what is our self? It is the I of the moment, and each moment is new. (2)

The drawback to this, of course, is that we can never really be sure of who we are. We may define ourselves with reference to some fixed role or to one of the many functional categories we use to organize our lives (you could say, for example, that I am a teacher, an aspiring author, and a student), but even that could eventually change, firstly because we don't know what lies hidden in our unconscious minds and secondly because who you are is actually a set of choices and personalities that come together in a vast array of varying combinations. There are times when you are pleasant, times when you are mean, times when you are a friend, and times when you are an enemy; and so, who you are is not just being modified by the choices that you make and the things that you do and the roles that you adopt, but also by the people around you and the way you choose to present yourself to them.

And so, not only are we the memories that we leave behind, but we are also actually a multitude of personalities or masks (personae, as psychologist Carl Jung would have put it); and it's not that these masks are fake, they are all real, for the human self is a complicated amalgamation of choices, faces, and roles that are constantly swimming around with each other and being organized, added to, and subtracted from as we continue to consciously and unconsciously work on ourselves and develop ourselves into who we want to be; and it just so happens that the reputations we have built and the personalities we have constructed can be broken down and destroyed in just a matter of minutes. Hence, going back to the poem from where we began, the piece of art that is your soul is as delicate and as fragile as a thin piece of paper that can be ripped apart by the smallest mistake or the smallest act of betrayal or even the smallest ray of illumination, transforming the otherwise slow and ever-continuous act of self-development into a powerful and radical upheaval:

By the One who alone is worthy of worship, one of you may perform the acts of the people of paradise until he is just an arms length away from it and then he is overtaken by his fate and begins to perform the acts of the people of hellfire and then enters into it, and one of you may perform the acts of the people of hellfire until he is just an arms length away from it and then he is overtaken by his fate and begins to perform the acts of the people of paradise and then enters into it. (3)

This does not mean, of course, that there is no such thing as an inauthentic person, for there are indeed people who put on false pretenses or who have tricked their own selves into believing they are something that they're not. Such people, without exception, are dangerous and treacherous in the first case and unsatisfied, confused, and deluded in the other. Even if they can convince themselves that they have it all and that they should be happy and that they probably are happy, they are not. And the job of the individual, in all this, is to be consciously involved in the development of his character and to engage with his conscious and unconscious selves, not just to forge a reputation, but to search for the Truth, proclaim it, and thus develop a well-grounded and solid personality, while at the same time being open to the possibility of change. It is only by being actively involved in the construction our own futures that we can become someone we respect. And if instead we choose not to be responsible and to just wait for some magic miracle then all we ever do is become useless burdens who live in their own little worlds until the harsh facts of life strike them in the face and cruelly rip them out from their fantasies. It is only by writing our own futures that we can hope to face "the slings and pangs of outrageous fortune." (4)

The Divine Truths

One may also note here that the metaphor of an ever-unfolding tapestry need not apply to just art or the human self, but may also be extended to the ever-expanding universe and beyond. Just about every religion has presented the world around us as a sign of God's grandeur. Taken from this angle, Ghalib's first line is telling us that everything around us, as we continue to observe it and learn more and more about its intricacies and details and as life continues to evolve and grow and die and be born in front of us, is a tapestry of immense complexity and detail, and that it is an indication, for the believer at least, of the grandeur and the power and the perfection of God's will. The second line of the poem, in this case, would take another meaning, for the delicate balance that it alludes to would then become the delicate balance of the universe — the minute details that exist in every aspect of our existence; the systems, the cycles, and the processes that manage the biological and the physical worlds; and the highly improbable fact of life, all of which are witness to the complexity and the beauty of the universe of which we are just a tiny spec.

On this, too, one could say quite a lot, but I will let the scriptural writings of three of the major religions of the Earth speak for this perspective. First, from my own religion, I present a couple of short but highly emphatic verses from the Qur'an which present the natural world as a theatre for God's act of creation and as a book of signs for the believer:

In the creation of the heavens and earth; in the alternation of night and day; in the ships that sail the seas with goods for people; in the water which God sends down from the sky to give life to the earth when it has been barren, scattering all kinds of creatures over it; in the changing of the winds and clouds that run their appointed courses between the sky and earth: there are signs in all these for those who use their minds. (5)

It is He who sends down water from the sky. With it We produce the shoots of each plant, then bring greenery from it, and from that We bring out grains, one riding on the other in close-packed rows. From the date palm come clusters of low-hanging dates, and there are gardens of vines, olives, and pomegranates, alike yet different. Watch their fruits as they grow and ripen! In all this there are signs for those who would believe. (6)

It is Allah who raised up the heavens with no visible supports and then established Himself on the throne; He has subjected the sun and the moon each to pursue its course for an appointed time; He regulates all things, and makes the revelations clear so that you may be certain of meeting your Lord; it is He who spread out the earth, placed firm mountains and rivers on it, and made two of every kind of fruit; He draws the veil of night over the day. There truly are signs in this for people who reflect. There are, in the land, neighbouring plots, gardens of vineyards, cornfields, palm trees in clusters or otherwise, all watered with the same water, yet We make some of them taste better than others: there truly are signs in this for people who reason. (7)

As for the earth, We have spread it out, set firm mountains on it, and made everything grow there in due balance. (8)

Alongside this, I present the creation narrative in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures, in which God creates the universe and then announces that it is good:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

And God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

And God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."

So God created humankind in his image, 

        in the image of God he created them; 

        male and female he created them. 

God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." God said, "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (9)

Of course, one need not necessarily be a theist to appreciate this view, for even one who does not subscribe to a religious belief can attest to the awe inspiring complexity of the natural world. 

No Anxiety of Influence!

Coming back to the idea of poetry for a minute, I would like to add a few observations. Two ideas that have recently come to plague potential artists, and in a way that is not good, are that of "influence" and "originality." Now while it is true that an artist must be original and speak, write, or draw in a style that is his own, this is often misunderstood to mean that an artist must be so original that he has no influences on his style. If this is what you are aiming for, then allow me to clarify that it is humanly impossible to have no influences! We are always imitating, taking from, adding to, and mixing the words, ideas, and styles of other people, even in matters of common everyday interaction; there is no such thing as the "pure," "unadulterated style" of an artist!

A great artist, in other words, does not produce new art by going to a magical land of strange and mystical ideas, but he brings them out by being engaged with the ever-long tradition of art, ideas, theology, etc., taking from it, adding to it, and mixing its various styles, in the words of Ezra Pound, to "make it new" (10). The problem with many of our students, however, is that they do not understand the relationship between influence and creativity. They think that creativity is this magical thing and that influence is just copying. The truth, however, is that influence is not the same as copying, influence is creativity, and any artist who claims to have no influences has either no awareness of the people he is drawing from or else he's in denial. Every single one of us is standing on the shoulders of our ancestors, and what makes the artist great is not "freedom" from this past, but the ability to engage with the tradition, draw upon the creative resources of society, sing the songs of the ancients, and add to them the story of the contemporary world. As T. S. Eliot puts it:

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. (11, italics mine)

The idea, in other words, is that one should be widely read and that one should engage with the great art of the past and participate in the progressive expansion and modification of the tradition instead of running away from it. Even recently, artist Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, explained how the idea of influence is often misconstrued. To quote his words:

When we say, "Basquiat was influenced by Van Gogh," that isn't really correct, because it implies that Van Gogh is doing something to Basquiat, when actually the opposite is true. (12)

Because Basquiat does not copy Van Gogh, but takes from him and then adds to it with his own personal flavour.

The artist who is influenced, in other words, is not copying, but engaging with, reading, observing, learning from, taking from, and adding to his influences. Or as Billy Collins puts it when talking about voice,

Your voice has an external source. It is not lying within you. It is lying in other people's poetry. It is lying on the shelves of the library. To find your voice, you need to read deeply. You need to look inside yourself, of course, for material, because poetry is something that honors subjectivity. It honors your interiority. It honors what's inside. But to find a way to express that, you have to look outside yourself. 

Read widely, read all the poetry you can get your hands on. And in your reading, you're searching for something. Not so much your voice. You're searching for poets that make you jealous. Professors of writing call this "literary influence." It's jealousy. And it's with every art, whether you play the saxophone, or do charcoal drawings. You're looking to get influenced by people who make you furiously jealous. 

Read widely. Find poets that make you envious. And then copy them. Try to get like them. (13, italics in the original)

This, of course, does not mean that one just copies these poets, but that one constructs, by taking from and adding to their styles, something new, memorable, and worthwhile; something that, as we continue to grow and read and write, is modified the same way as our own selves are altered over time.

Now you might wonder, at this point, how all this is relevant to our topic, or to that one line of poetry we've been talking about. And so, here's a summary of my fourth and final interpretation: the mark that one leaves is on the tapestry of the artistic tradition; what the poet is recognized for is not some strange thing they've fished out of the unknown, but the thing they give to this tradition. This is why, even among the best artists, what is remembered is not all of their work but the best of it. And while one cannot be sure of whether their contribution will be remembered, it is only by seriously engaging with the tradition, by resolving to improve your own skill, and by creatively adding to what has been done that we can hope to produce great and powerful pieces of art. The same can be said about human beings: while success can never be assured, those who do not grow will not succeed.

Notes

1. Ghalib, Mirza Asadullah Khan. Divan-e-Ghalib. Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu (Hind) Nai Delhi. p. 7.
2. Chittick, William C. Sufism: A Beginner's Guide. Oneworld, 2008. pp. 54-55.
3. Muslim, Abu Hussain. Sahih Muslim. Darussalam, 2000, p. 1151. (Hadith no. 2643a).
4. Shakespeare, William. The Works of Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Hamlet. Edited by Edward Dowden, Methuen and Co., 1899. p. 99.
5. Translation by M. Abdel Haleem, 2: 164
6. Ibid., 6: 99
7. Ibid., 13: 2-4
8. Ibid., 15:19
9. New Revised Standard Version, Genesis. 1.1-31.
10. Beasley, Rebecca. Theorists of Modernist Poetry: T. S. Eliot, T. E. Hulme, Ezra Pound. Routledge, 2007. p. 63 (See also pp. 65-78 for more on this idea).
11. Eliot, T. S. The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. 1920. Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1932. p. 125.
12. Kleon, Austin. "The Way We Talk About Influence is Backwards." Austin Kleon, https://austinkleon.com/2018/02/02/the-way-we-talk-about-influence-is-backwards/. Accessed 21 May 2020.
13. Kleon, Austin. "How to Find Your Voice." Austin Kleon. https://austinkleon.com/2015/12/10/how-to-find-your-voice/. Accessed 21 May 2020.