Google dedicates its doodle to Ghalib to mark his 220nd b'day

Google on Wednesday has dedicated its doodle to one of Urdu literature's most iconic poets, Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, most commonly as Ghalib, to mark his 220nd birth anniversary.

Born in Uttar Pradesh, during the reign of Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah, Ghalib (meaning conqueror) showed a gift for language at an early age and was educated in Persian, Urdu, and Arabic.

In a reference to that, the doodle sees Ghalib, with his pen and paper, knitting his imaginations, with a backdrop of buildings of Mughal architecture.

According to its blog, Google said, "His verse is characterized by a lingering sadness borne of a tumultuous and often tragic life - from being orphaned at an early age, to losing all of his seven children in their infancy, to the political upheaval that surrounded the fall of Mughal rule in India. He struggled financially, never holding a regular paying job but instead depending on patronage from royalty and more affluent friends."

"But despite these hardships, Ghalib navigated his circumstances with wit, intellect, and an all-encompassing love for life. His contributions to Urdu poetry and prose were not fully appreciated in his lifetime, but his legacy has come to be widely celebrated, most particularly for his mastery of the Urdu ghazal (amatory poem)," the blog post added.