Many years ago, the late poet, critic and broadcaster Qamar Jameel scribed his poetry collection Chahaar Khwaab [Four Dreams] for me and wrote: `Khwaab mein jo kuchh dekh raha hoon, uss ka dikhana mushkil hai/ Aaeney mein phool khila hai, haath lagana mushkil hai [What I see in my dream is hard to show to others/ A flower blossoms in the mirror which is hard to touch].` This couplet immediately came to my mind when I picked up Ghalib: Flowers in a Mirror, A Critical Commentary by Mehr Afshan Farooqi, published by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Random House, India.

There is another association between Jameel and Farooqi`s illustrious father Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (in English, they choose to spell the surnames differently).

Jameel, himself a modernist and somewhat critical of my proclivities singularly tilted towards social-realism in those days, encouraged me to read Faruqi`s works in both Urdu and English and introduced me to the Urdu literary magazine Shabkhoon [Night Ambush] that Faruqi edited and published for many years from Allahabad, India. Faruqi and I established contact through email before I had the privilege to meet him in person a few times in Delhi, Lahore and Karachi. Later, it was an honour for me to be published in Shabkhoon.

Besides Faruqi`s other works that fall under the categories of literary theory and criticism, language history, translations, his original fiction and poetry, one exceptional work he produced is Sher-i-Shor Angez [The Uproar Creating Verse], a detailed critical and explanatory account of Mir Taqi Mir`s poetry in multiple volumes that came out between 1991 and 1993.

Although I remember seeing Tafheem-i-Ghalib [Understanding Ghalib] by Faruqi, published in 1989, his work on Mir is exhaustive. Even those who disagree with some of Faruqi`s assertions on Mir`s work, fully acknowledge the depth and pertinence it offers to serious readers of literature and criticism.

Faruqi was fully capable of producing a similar work on Mirza Ghalib but he chose to pass on the baton to his daughter, Mehr Afshan Farooqi. Farooqi, under the grand tutelage of her father, turned towards literature and literary criticism, becoming an outstanding scholar and academic.

Currently, she is a professor of Urdu and South Asianliteratures at the University of Virginia in the US. She has authored, anthologised and edited a number of books.

One of her seminal works is Ghalib: A Wilderness at My Doorstep, A Critical Biography, published in 2021. The book I mentioned at the beginning, Ghalib: Flowers in a Mirror, A Critical Commentary, came out in 2024.

Translating creative prose is no mean feat but translating poetry with all its nuances and cultural references in a language which has little linguistic affinity with the original language is even more difficult. When it comes to translating an innovative and playful master poet like Ghalib, it is a daunting task. Farooqi meets that challenge and introduces her readers to 30 chosen ghazals with shers [couplets] that Ghalib had not included in any version of his Divan.

It is not simply a translation but each and every sher is accompanied by a critical appreciation and assessment.

Meticulous references from earlier scholarly or explanatory works on the poet are also provided, wherever Farooqi deemed those suitable.

In her equally erudite and informative introduction, Farooqi has given a brief history of the process of compiling different versions of Ghalib`s Divan as well other compilations and criticisms. The book begins with a piece titled `A Personal Preface` where Farooqi says: `I selected thirty ghazals. I have situated them in the timeframe they were composed, followed by the additions or subtractions and other editorial finessing that Ghalib carried out.` There are longer commentaries in the book as well, but let me quote an example of the fifth sher from the 10th ghazal translated and commented upon in the book, which was composed in or before 1816 and not included by Ghalib in his Divan.

`Nigah-i-deeda-i-naqsh-i-gadam hai jada-i-raah/ Guzashtagaan asar-i-intizar rakhtay hain.` Farooqi translates: `The journey`s path is dotted with eye-like footprints;/ Past travellers have created the effect of waiting.` After annotating some key vocabulary used in the sher, she writes: `Footprints are imagined as eyes. Ghalib has drawn on the idiom raste par nazrein bichchana, to lay down eyes in waiting. But here the eye-like footprints are of those who have gone yet left an imprint. The verse reminds me of H.W. Longfellow`s poem`Psalm of Life`: `And departing leave behind us/ Footprints in the sands of time. ` Look at the beauty of this sher: `Haisavaad-i-chashmi-qurbani mein yak alam muqeem/ Hasrat-i-fursat jahaan deti hai hairat ko rivaaj.` Farooqi translates: `There is a world captured in the eye of the slaughtered one, The longing for leisure in life produces wonder and astonishment.` Indian poet and art critic Ranjit Hoskote`s endorsement of the book sums up its literary and critical merit when he says that Farooqi invites us to consider the early verses that the great Mughal poet chose to edit out of his Urdu divan. He continues, `Farooqi reveals a cerebral young poet at work, shuttling between Farsi and Urdu, a gifted apprentice who already shows signs of the consummate, idiosyncratic maestro he would become.

Before this book, Farooqi had already established herself as a leading Ghalib scholar of our times. With the arrival of this work, she confirms her stature yet again.

The writer is a poet and essayist. His latest collections of verse are Hairaa`n Sar-i-Bazaar and No Fortunes to Tell