Delhiwale: A bucketful of Ghalib

A pink bucket stands on the museum floor

A pink bucket stands on the museum floor. Above it, Mirza Ghalib’s verse sings of vegetation growing on his house’s walls. Beside the verse, a huge painting shows the poet writing and smoking. See photo.

Delhiwale: A bucketful of Ghalib

This is Ghalib’s last haveli, in Gali Qasim Jan, in Old Delhi’s Ballimaran. The poet died here in 1869. Much of the mansion disappeared through subsequent alterations. Its remains briefly housed a coal godown before a portion became a museum.

Truth be told, this little place, the size of a badminton court, is among Delhi’s most eclectic museums. At first glance, it inspires no major expectations, seeming to contain only a handful of exhibits. Look around closely, and these exhibits vividly reveal the minutiae of Ghalib’s daily life and the themes of his poetry. Disarmingly unpretentious, the place feels like a shrine to a local mohalla writer, even though its subject is one of India’s greatest poets in Urdu and Persian.

One glass case holds an open book, its thick pages crowded with Urdu script. A label calls it an illustrative representation of Ghalib’s work. Another contains a chessboard. Stamps, pictures and documents occupy closely arranged frames. A poster headlined “Ghalib’s Hobbies” lists kite flying, chausar, pacheesi, chess and ganjifa.

Mounted beside doorways, within niches and high on walls, Ghalib’s verses appear in Urdu, Hindi and English, bordered by flowers and winding stems. Reading them requires stopping, turning, sometimes craning the neck and looking up.

One English rendering says:“It was your promise that kept me alive—though I knew it was all lies.For, had I trusted it as truth,in sheer joy I would’ve died!”

A few steps away, the fatalistic longing of the previous lines gives way to soft impatience of the following lines:“O preacher, all your words well-meantgive me no comfort of a friend.For me, my needs are only thosewho tend and heal my woes.”

The voice of these verses feels less remote than the topis and angrakhas in the portraits suggest, though the English translations can be a bit archaic, carrying something of the cadence of the King James Bible. Take this: “as thy soul needed thine body.” Even so, the feelings triggered by these verses are relatable to us 21st-century wale.

A chart lists Ghalib’s favourite dishes such as dal murabba, besan karhi phulkian, sohan halwa, and post-meal mishri. Nearby, a pedestal fan faces a display case. The poster that is warning against mosquitoes breeding in accumulated water is definitely not from Ghalib’s oeuvre. Same goes for the afforementioned pink balti. It is not an exhibit, it bears no explanatory label.