GHALIB'S STONE ,MAJNOON'S HEAD : AN UPANISHADIC READING OF GHALIB 'S PAUSE

Ghalib's Stone, Majnoon's Head: An Upanishadic Reading of Ghalib's Pause

                                          

(The Uploaded Picture : Majnu seeking his future from a parrot astrologer dreaming Laila. A watercolour by A R Chugtai)

"Maine majnoon pe ladakpan mein Assad 

sang uthaaya to sar yaad aaya"  

"In my youth, when I, Ghalib, picked up a stone to strike Majnoon the mad lover, I was immediately reminded of the vulnerability of my own head."  

Assad was the early takhallus of Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, Ghalib. Majnoon is the archetype who forsook reason for love. Sar is head, life, intellect, and in Vedanta the seat of awareness.

In youth the Bhagavad Gita's warning is sharpest. Rajas drives us to correct, to order, to punish what breaks convention. The Gita names Kama, Krodha and Lobha as the three gates to ruin, and the stone in Ghalib's hand holds all three: desire for a tidy world, anger at Majnoon's transgression, and the ego's claim to judge. The Gita also traces the fall in the second chapter. From attachment comes anger, from anger delusion, from delusion loss of memory, and from loss of memory the ruin of discrimination. That is the exact moment before "Sar yaad aaya" . Yoga Vasishtha deepens this. Vasishtha tells Rama that the world is Sankalpa, a thought construction. To call Majnoon mad and to reach for a stone is to harden a mental projection. Yoga Vasishtha teaches that when Bhavana, firm conception, ceases, bondage ceases. The stone exists only while Ghalib believes in the split between sane and mad, order and chaos. The Katha Upanishad's chariot is running without a charioteer. The impulse is not sin. It is Avidya, mistaking the social role for the Self.

Then comes the interruption. Sar yaad aaya. In that instant, Adi Shankara's Vivekachudamani becomes lived experience. "Brahma satyam jagan mithya, jivo brahmaiva naparah". Brahman is real, the world is appearance, the individual is none other than Brahman. To remember the head is to remember that the witness in me and the witness in Majnoon are not two. This is Shankara's method of Adhyaropa and Apavada. First difference is projected, then it is negated. Ghalib projects Majnoon as other and lifts the stone. Remembrance negates the projection and the hand stays. The Gita says it plainly in the sixth chapter. The Yogi sees the Self in all beings and all beings in the Self. Yoga Vasishtha calls this Tatva- jnana. When the same consciousness illumines both, violence is no longer possible. For the wise there is no other, therefore there can be no conflict. Three things arrive together. Anitya, the body is not permanent. Karma, as the Gita says, we bind ourselves by agency. And Ekata, 'tat tvam asi', that thou art. At many places, Ghalib's poetry  flows from this pause. Dil hi to hai na sang o khisht is the refusal of a stone heart. Hazaron khwahishen aisi is Yoga Vasishtha's account of Vasana meeting mortality. The couplet is a small Moksha. First the movement to judge, then the remembrance of the Self, then the hand that lowers. Do not preempt a wrong against another without knowing their predicament. In the act of striking ,we forget our own head, our mortality and our shared Self.

( Avtar Mota )

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