God and Shairi
An incident in Ghalib’s life that I heard recently:
A friend, who used to hate Ghalib’s sad gazals, once asks Ghalib: “do you believe in god”. He quite simply says “yes”. The friend feels victorious and quickly fires his “victorious” question: “Then, how come he doesn’t listen to your prayers. You write so many sad gazals.” To which Ghalib smiles and replies:
“Allah shairi nahi samajhatein honge”.