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Wine of Passion
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Wine of Passion is a translation of the famous love poems of Asia's most widely read and admired poet, Ghalib. What Shakespeare is to English, Ghalib is to Urdu, the language widely spoken in the Indian Subcontinent. Ghalib wrote these poems about two hundred years ago, and even today, this poetry full of divine love, mysticism, melancholy, philosophy, and wit continues to delight and enlighten millions around the world. With Wine of Passion, the English reader now has the privilege of imbibing this perfectly-aged poetry. Ghalib's work is widely analyzed in doctoral theses worldwide in many languages, and thousands of articles and hundreds of books have been written comparing his works to those of Shelley, Pope, Hafiz, Rumi, Sa'adi, and Khayyam. Ghalib's claim to mastery in writing love poetry stems from his ability to use the vastness of the Urdu and Persian languages-every verse of Ghalib is wrapped in a shroud of myriad colors of meaning, inviting many explanations, often contradictory. Ghalibs was a mystic, a poet-philosopher, a Sufi expressionist, a humorist, an optimist, and above all, a poet with a tender heart. Poetry translations across languages as diverse as Urdu and English are difficult to write, and in many instances, impossible, since it requires conveying the meaning of a thought and a scene created through the elements of language, of cultural, social, and religious nuances, and of rare culture-specific idioms. Despite all of these limitations, there is enough in common between classic English love poetry and the genre of poetry practiced by Ghalib-ghazals (literally, talking to women)-something every reader of love poetry can relate to. Once you begin to imbibe the unique themes, the unusual elements of style, and the melancholic mood of the ghazal, it will be difficult to put this book down. So, open the pages and smell the subtle notes of this vintage Wine of Passion.
