Ghalib remembered by India's Kathmandu mission

Remembering eminent Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib on his 218th birth anniversary, the 29th edition of poetry event "Poemandu" was organised by the Indian embassy here in collaboration with the B.P. Koirala India-Nepal Foundation.

The event, held at the Nepal Bharat Library in the Nepal Airlines building on Sunday, started with paying tributes to Ghalib for his contribution to Urdu poetry, an embassy statement said on Monday.

Speaking about Ghalib's works, Sanath Kumar Basti said Ghalib started composing poetry at the age of 11.

Before Ghalib, the ghazal was primarily an expression of anguished love but Ghalib expressed philosophy, travails and mysteries of life and wrote ghazals on many other subjects, vastly expanding the scope of the ghazal, Basti said.

Manoj Neupane, Tripura Poudel, Abdul Momin, Momila Joshi, Gopal Ask, Imtiaz Wafa, Gyanuwakar Poudel, Krishna Jung Rana, and Shekhar Giri were mong the eminent poets who recited their compositions and ghazals in Hindi and Nepali in this edition of 'Poemandu'.

On the occasion, Abhay Kumar, secretary of the B.P. Koirala India-Nepal Foundation, shared his experiences about organising and participating in literary events in Kathmandu.

According to Kumar, Ghalib was not considered the best poet of his time, and, in fact, Zauq was the poet laureate of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, but time has judged Ghalib to be the best.

He recited his own poem on Ghalib and Laxmi Prasad Devkota.

He also shared that he would soon be leaving Kathmandu for Brasilia where he has been posted as India's deputy chief of mission. He said 'Poemandu' has brought the literary community of Nepal on a single platform and hoped that it would continue in the coming months.

On the occasion of Ghalib's Jayanti, a book titled "Dhupchhaya", written by Krishna Jung Ran, was also released.