Google today celebrated the last great poet of the Mughal era, Mirza Ghalib's 220th birth anniversary with a doodle. Everybody has heard his name at least once in their lifetime. A prominent Urdu and Persian-language poet during the Mughal era, Ghalib became famous for his Urdu ghazals. He is also one of the most discussed, analysed and translated Urdu poets whose poems and ghazals have been recited into many Indian and foreign languages.
During the last years of the Mughal Empire, Ghalib was also the poet tutor to the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s eldest son, Prince Fakhr-ud Din Mirza. In 1850, he was rewarded with the title of Dabir-ul-Mulk by Bahadur Shah Zafar. The emperor also appointed him as the royal historian of the Mughal court.
Born in Agra on 27 December 1797 as Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, who later used pen name ‘Ghalib’ (the conqueror), began composing poems from the age of 11. After getting married at the age of 13, he moved to Delhi and settled there with his wife (Umrao Begum) and brother (Mirza Yousuf Khan). His poems have a tone of grief and usually have a recurring theme that life is a continuous struggle that ends only with death.
Ghalib ki Haveli, Old Delhi, is the place where Ghalib spent the last six years of his life till he died on February 15, 1869. The place has now been turned into "Ghalib Memorial" that permanently houses Ghalib's exhibitions.
