GHALIB, MIRZA ASADULLAH KHAN

born Dec. 27, 1797, Agra, India died Feb. 15, 1869, Delhi the preeminent Indian poet of his time writing in Persian, equally renowned for poems, letters, and prose pieces in Urdu. Born into an aristocratic family, Ghalib passed his youth in luxury. Subsequently, he was granted a small pension by the British government but had to struggle against penury and hardships. Recognition finally came in 1850, when he was appointed poet laureate to the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II. Ghalib's best poems were written in three forms: ghazel (love lyric), masnavi (moralistic or mystical parable), and qasida (panegyric). His critics accused him of writing in an obscure and ornamental style of Persian incomprehensible to the common man. His verses affirm God's omnipotence while questioning the misery of the phenomenal world.