Week 9 Analysis: Ghalib's Now go and live in a place

Close Reading of Ghalib's poem, "Now go and live in a place" (591)
Although this poem is a short one and only has a total of 6 lines. Lines 1-4 stand out to me because of the harsh comments he makes. He says,

"Now go and live in a place where no one lives-
and no one who fathoms your verse, no one who shares your speech.

Build yourself a house, as if without a wall or gate-
no neighbor to keep you company, no watchman to keep you safe."

We don't know who exactly Ghalib is talking to or about, but it sounds like he doesn't want this person to have a good and sharing life. He wants this person to suffer alone and isolate themselves from the world and isolate themselves from any human contact. In my opinion, I think the poem was meant to be about himself to escape his problems. Because of Ghalib's terrible events that happened in his life, he was severed from human contact. If Ghalib were able to isolate himself from the world, he wouldn't have to worry about his wife's unfaithfulness and/or mourning his nephew's passing. On the fourth line of the poem about "no watchman to keep you safe," I think he meant he was wishing for death, which is coincidentally the same wish he wished for in the last line of his poem "It was essential." In that poem he says, "It's my destiny to continue to wish for death for a few more days" (598). These lines about death convey a sad feeling and Ghalib has his readers wonder who is he speaking to in these poems since he is expressing sincere hatred for someone. If he were to be talking about himself in "Now go and live in a place," then I think this poem was a result of Ghalib's problems.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 8, 2018 at 6:33 PM

    Your analysis was very interesting to read! I liked reading your thoughts and views and interpretation of the poems. I can definitely agree with you on your take about the poem obviously saying that they don't want that person to have a good and sharing life with anyone. I thought it was interesting how you said that "no watchman to keep you safe" was wishing for death - that hadn't occurred to me until you wrote it.

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  2. UnknownApril 29, 2018 at 11:02 PM

    I really appreciate you post because you gave me a new way of looking at this section of Ghalib's poem because you introduced the theme of death and that made it more clear than just from reading it from only the book had me confused but I used some of his poems as well just the "Couplets" one instead but your evidence was amazing and great to back up your points in your post just a great job overall.

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