dii mire bhaa))ii ko ;haq ne az sar-e nau
zindagii
miirzaa yuusuf hai ;Gaalib yuusuf-e ;saanii mujhe
1) God gave my brother a life {entirely anew / starting
over}
2) Mirza Yusuf is,
Ghalib, a second Joseph
to me
Mirza Yusuf was Mirza Sahib's older brother, who in his youth had gone mad. He has written this closing-verse in appreciation of his companionship. The meaning is that from his finding a second life, a second Joseph has been given. (285)
The Lord gave health to my brother Yusuf Mirza, or saved him from a disaster; as if a second Yusuf was given to me.
[Or:] The way Hazrat Yusuf's brothers had pushed him into a well, his emerging from the well was equal to becoming alive a second time-- of the same kind is my Yusuf's attaining of health. (401)
Mirza Yusuf Ali Khan was Ghalib's brother. For thirty years he remained insane. Ghalib loved him very much. It seems that he had become healthy. By way of love, ths joy of this has been expressed in this verse. (490)
This ghazal was composed, according to Raza, in 1826-- which is said to be the year in which Mirza Yusuf, Ghalib's beloved older (and only) brother, went mad. (On Ghalib's life in this period see Russell and Islam, p. 44.) So it occurred to me that this verse might refer to Mirza Yusuf's madness. I developed a whole theory to this effect, invoking what Ghalib wrote in Dastanbu (trans. by Khwajah Ahmad Faruqi, p.54) when Mirza Yusuf died of a fever in 1857:
This kindly but unfortunate man spent sixty years of his life in happiness and sorrow; for thirty years he was sane and for thirty years he was mad. During the days of his sanity he restrained his anger and during the days of his madness he gave pain to no one. This was his custom. He died on the 29th of Safar, 1274 AH.Someone asked me, the afflicted, the date of the death of Mirza Yusuf, who lived his life a stranger to his own self. I answered this question by sighing, and said [the chronogram] 'diregh diwana'.
This account suggests that the year in which Mirza Yusuf went mad was a hinge in his life, a time when he had a life-- one of madness-- given to him 'anew' [az sar-e nau]. From then on, he 'lived his life a stranger to his own self'-- another phrase that resonates with this verse, in which his 'new life' seems so sharply cut off from his old one. Moreover, the literal meaning of az sar-e nau is something like 'from a new head'-- how sadly appropriate for someone who has gone mad! He was thus 'a second Joseph' not just in belovedness, but almost literally, since he had lost his old personality.
So much for free-wheeling creativity! This interpretation, which was never unproblematical (the tone of the verse seems to jar with it), is in fact impossible. Here as so often, S. R. Faruqi's analysis of the situation (Sept. 2006) has been invaluable:
The first thing to note is that Raza has erred in dating this ghazal to 1826. It first appears in the Sherani manuscript (1826), so the ghazal need not be dated to 1826 itself: it could be from any date between 1821 and 1826. More important, not all the verses are in the Sherani manuscript. Some, including this one, were added much later, perhaps in April 1828, in Calcutta.
As regards Mirza Yusuf's illness, the exact date is not known, but he fell ill around 1825-26, maybe in early 1826, and Ghalib seems to have left Delhi shortly thereafter. Mirza Yusuf's illness was nothing else but his mental derangement. He was incontinent, went naked, and didn't recognize his wife, daughter, or mother. He was reportedly 28 years old at the time. Since he was 2 (lunar) years younger than Ghalib, having been born in 1214 (=1799/1800), his madness could have started in 1214 = 28 = 1826/7. Treatment didn't have any effect. Finally he was put under the care of an elephant driver who was also an ((aamil (white magician of a sort). This treatment lasted five months, if not more.
While Ghalib was in Calcutta in April 1828, he received a letter written by Mirza Yusuf himself-- a letter that apparently bore almost no trace of madness. Ghalib writes that Mirza Yusuf seemed to be two-thirds cured. Naturally, he was extremely happy. In this letter he wrote that his brother's recovery was dearer to him than his father's rising up from the dead would have been. (Source: naamah'haa-e faarsii-e ;Gaalib , urduu tarjamah , trans. by Partav Ruhela, Karachi, Idarah-e Yadgar-e Ghalib, 1999, pp. 84-85.) It is clear that the verse refers to the recovery of Yusuf as reported by Yusuf himself in 1828.
Nazm:
Yusuf's life took place a second time, as if a second Yusuf was given. (227)