Othello and غالب: A soliloquy

For a paper on Shakespere I recreated Othello's last speech using Ghalib's poetry. The deviation from the plot here is that he kills himself without knowing the truth about Desdemona and Cassio; in his sorrow, he wants her back. At the end,  it is still unclear if he thinks Desdemona innocent or not. Along with verses in Urdu, I have also put in parts of the text from Othello. These parts are in English and Italicized; the changes in voice in these are in regular font. Its quite fun.

I am a moor; I was always the Moor.

My story bears no audience, yet I still narrate it once more to lament over how I was tricked. Happiness is a mirage; a distant dream in the hot desert of sorrows. Just when you think you’ve reached the green, oasis of joy, the blistering heat snatches it away from you. Such is life. Such are the times. How can one love and live, at the same time?

Bas ki dushwar hai har kaam ka aasaan hona,

Aadmi ko bhi mayasar nahi insaan hona

(Although it's difficult for every task to be easy,

Even for a man, it's not easy to become humane)

My tale is one of deception and how this wicked, treacherous world makes it so hard for man to be human. I loved; I loved and I lost. I lost because of treachery; no I lost because of my own jealousy. Or was it treachery? My mind deceived me; tricked me the bastard. Could she ever do what they say? They said she cheated her father of twenty years. Could she cast aside our sacred vows that easily?

Jee dhondhta hai phir wohi fursat ke, raat din;

Bethien rahien tasavur-janan kiye hue

(My soul still seeks those nights and days of leisure,

When we would idle away, picturing the beloved in our head)

Desdemona and I used to lie on grassy slopes, looking up at the sky while I enticed her with my tales of travels far away. I could see her cringe at every mention of an adversity and see her fair, lovely face light up at the mention of conquests. I could guide her eyes to go from wide, smiling surprise to misty empathy in seconds. She lived vicariously through me. I was the Marco Polo and she my Kublai and for her I painted the invisible cities; their people, their mysteries; their stories. For me, I took delight in changing contours of her beautiful face and knowing I was in charge of her emotions, even if it were for just those few hours.

Manzar ek bulandi par aur hum bana sakte

Arsh se idhar hoga kaas ki makaan apna

(We would have been able to make a viewing-site on an excellent height;

If only our house were on this side of the sky)

It seems so long ago that the night breeze rushed past our faces as I caressed her lovely hair and told her of my dreams for us; for us to go beyond this world and soar the skies with happiness. We were to settle in Cyprus, you know; move to the beautiful city of Cyprus and have a new home. She wanted to see the marvels of the East I had I’d so often told her about; the painters with their paraphernalia, the Chinese traders with their reams of silk, the buzz of this port city where the East and West came together.

Tere wade par jiye hum toh ye jaan jhooth jana,

Ki khushi se mar na jaate, agar itbaar hota

(If we lived on your promise, then know this-- we knew [it to be] false,

For would we not have died of happiness, if we had had trust (in it)?)

When she told me she wanted to marry me, did I not bring forth crowds to cheer at our wedding? Did I not do all but part the Red Sea for that vow of fidelity from you?

Did I not once tell you that if it were now to die, 'Twere now to be most happy? Why then did that damned handkerchief make its way into someone else’s bed?

Why then could you not promise me serenity? This tinkering seed of doubt that Iago has sown in my head is still not uprooted. I can feel it grow its parasitic tentacles deep into me. I know it shall be the death of me. You were too good to be true.

Mohabbat mein nahi hai farq jeene aur marne ka,

Usi ko dekh kar jeete hain kis kaafir pe dam nikle

(In love, there's no difference of living and dying

Having seen only her, we live-that infidel over whom we breathe our last)

Now, I sit here; the dagger in my hand raised to my chest over the body of my beloved. The wife I choked to death with my own hands. Reality goes by you at unfathomable speed sometimes. How could I let this happen? My Desdemona; my beautiful Desdemona. I was misled. Will my tears wake her up?

That whiter skin of hers than snow now lay lifeless before me, and my beloved, there is no way I can again thy former light restore. It wasn’t Iago; it was me who did this to her. Tis true that her love left me in a trance; morning and night would go just looking for the beloved. Oh, you beautiful, my lady fair of face.

Was I wrong to love this Venetian; this kaafir of mine? They didn’t want me, I was the treacherous moor who had entered into their city and now stolen their girl from amidst them. In their eyes, I was the other. Truth be told, I still do not know if she was faithless or I. At the end, which one of us emerges the infidel?

Zikr us pari wash ka aur phir bayan apna

Ban gaya rakeeb aakhir tha raazdaan apna

(The mention of that Fairy-faced one; and then-- my description

He who was my confidant, became my rival; finally)

I be damned, I should have never professed of my love to her so publicly. Oh who wouldn’t be jealous; who wouldn’t want her. That must have been it. He wanted her. I described her beauty; her fair skin, her rosy lips, her dark eyes. It was me. I let her slip through my hands. That is the cause and that is the reason; Cassio and Iago, both wanted her. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.

Dard e dil likhunkab tak jaon un ko dikhlaon,

Unglian figaar apni khaama khooncha apna

(How long would I write the pain of the heart? I might go and show to her

My wounded fingers, my blood-dripping reed-pen)

I cannot but write about us; this epic of ours breaks my heart as I pen it down. Do you not see the blood flow down my hands; trickle down the paper leaving beads? But our tale needs to be told. A tale of how I, like the base Judean, threw a pearl away richer than all my tribe.

Qaid-e-hayat o ranj o gham Asal mein dono ek hain,

maut se pehle aadmi gham se najaat payen kyun

(The prison of life, and the bondage of grief-- in essence both are one,

Before death, why would a person find release from grief?)

I killed my own wife for her infidelity. I killed my own wife on the pretext of what a possible adversary told me. From here on, I will either live life knowing I killed my unfaithful wife, or my one true love; neither of which will justify the agony this act brings with it. This life is not meant to be lived happy. I loved and I lost. I think it is time I free myself from these miserable shackles of human existence.

Hue mar ke hum jo ruswa hue kyun na gark e darya,

Na kahin janazah uthta na kahin mazaar hota

(If disgrace after death was to be my fate, I should have met my end by drowning,

It would have spared me a funeral and no headstone would have marked my grave)

But Alas! Even the decision of death seems to have taken its revenge on me. Fate, you tricky bastard; I see the sly game you played there. Oh how I wish I escape the misery of a funeral. I wish to have plunged into the rivers and drowned. With a strong wave, I’d have been forgotten. No processions to glorify me; no whispers to malign. But they must know that, I loved not wisely, but too well. Not easily jealous, but being wrought, perplexed in the extreme.

But Oh, my soul’s joy! I once told you that if after every tempest come such calms, may the winds blow till they have wakened death. I crave the tempest and the calm after now, let me come to you and let us now be together.

Come, Desdemona, Once more, we’ll meet at Cyprus

Naqsh Faryaadi

Aur bhi dukh hain zamane mein mohabbat ke siwa

Rahatein aur bhi hain wasl ki raahat ke siwa. ~Faiz Ahmed Faiz

(Other pains exist than those that love brings, Other joys than those of lovers’ union.)

Urdu poetry is reminiscent of a childhood not so long ago. I grew up, conditioned to hate the sappy tales of romance it brought along, ridicule the concept of the shaa’ir surrendering his being to the mehboob (beloved) and literally snort at the idea of wallowing in the misery of heartbreak. It is amazing how much has changed. What then seemed like an obligatory study of a dying script is something I connect to and identify with as a culture I should have felt for a little more while I had the chance. Even after ten years of studying the language, I still could not read a paragraph as fluently as I would have had it been in English. I couldn’t skim through the lines to know what it was about; I had to make an effort to join the alphabets in my head minding the ‘zer-zabar-pesh’ and create sounds. Rediscovering Urdu through poetry is mystical. The imagery, the articulation and frankly, just the fancy words give the language a feel so dreamy that you go into a thoughtful pseudo trance just by reciting a shair inside your head.

Hazaron Khwahishen aisi ki har Khwahish pe dam nikle Bohot nikle mere arman lekin phir bhi kam nikle. ~Ghalib

(The thousands of longings are such that over every longing I would die. Many of my wishes/regrets 'emerged'-- but still, few did.)

Does the couplet above not make you think of every tiny unfulfilled wish you ever had? Or how you ignored to revel in the happiness of those that did come true?

Nahin tera nasheman ,qasr-e-sultani ki gumbad par, Tu shaheen Hai, basera kar, pahadon ki chattanon par. ~Iqbal

(You don’t have to make your nest on the dome of Queen’s palace, Oh Eagle, you are royal, choose to reside on the peaks of mountains.)

Or this. Does it not inspire you to break through shackles of mediocrity telling you how you are destined for grandeur and things more majestic?

Jee dhondhta hai phir wohi fursat ke, raat din bethien rahien tasavur-janan kiye hue. ~ Ghalib

(My soul still seek those nights and days of leisure, When we would idle away, picturing the beloved in our head)

This of course, strikes a different chord with each of us. Nostalgia is always all around. We find different things to reminisce about. Memories are always beautiful. Our mind always finds ways of preserving the best of even the worst times. It could be the memory of a happy childhood symbolised by a picture of you running across the playground; the resounding laughter that plays in the back of your head, reminding you of people you’ve not heard of since long or even the first time you fell in love, simplistically and beautifully. Whatever the memory be, this shair does not go without taking you down memory lane, on a wholly personal journey which never fails to wrinkle your face with a smile.

Phir ji meñ hai kih dar pah kisi ke pare raheñ sar zer-bar-e minnat-e darbañ kiye huʾe. ~Ghalib

(Again it's in our inner-self that we would remain lying at someone's door having placed our head under a burden/obligation of the kindness/favour of the doorkeeper)

Urdu poets believed in love; self-consuming, destructive love ending in surrender of self to the beloved. Let the love possess your being, give yourself up entirely. As a concept, it may be terrifying but this poetry glorifies it. In most cases the love was unrequited, it came with misery but it was the sweet sorrow of a love that consumes all senses.

Nikalna khuld se adam ka sunte aʾe haiñ lekin bahut be-abru ho kar tire kuche se ham nikle. ~Ghalib

(We have often heard of the ousting of Adam from heaven, but the dishonour with which I was ousted from your haven was worse)

Recite anything a few times. It makes you want to fall hopelessly in love. It even makes you want to love and not be loved back, just to taste rejection; to add the missing dash of drama in your life; to love like never before.

Sham-e-firaq aab na pooch, aai aur aa ke Tul gai dil tha ke phir bhehal gaya, jaaN thee ke phir sanbhal gai. ~Faiz Ahmed Faiz

(Ask no more (about) the night of separation; it came, and passed. The heart got diverted again; life found its feet again)

Only then will you be able to appreciate the pleasures of love and the poetic bitter pangs of separation.

Dair nahiñ haram nahiñ dar nahiñ astañ nahiñ baithe haiñ rah-guzar pah ham ghair hameñ uthaʾe kyuñ. ~Ghalib

(Not a temple/church, not the Ka’bah/ a holy place, not a door, not a doorsill--we've sat down by the roadway-- why would the stranger(ghair) cause us to get up [and leave]?)

And of course, the irreverence towards the beloved; the constant urge to irk them just so you get their attention. Every shaa’ir has a different style, and different themes. They have underlying meanings, subtexts and undertones. My teachers tried to convince us, despite the constant imagery of the mehboob’s rosy lips, that the poet was talking about being in love with God. Mehboob-e-haqiqi, as they call it. I am not qualified enough to comment or state my opinion on any of it, but my interpretations lead me to believe that these poets, like Ancient Greeks, revered passion. Thus the ultimate quest in every man’s life was the transcend above it all and transform from being a lover to a true deewana.