Royalty has always loved being exalted and Zafar was no different. In 1850, he commissioned Mirza Ghalib to idolize the history of Mughal Empire in Persian poetry and conferred upon him the titles of “Dabir-ul-Mulk”(Intellectual of the Country) and “Najm-ud-Daulah” (Star of the Nation). Along with these Royal titles came an honorarium payable bi-annually. Ghalib, who was continuously in debt, would rather have a monthly remuneration. One day while in attendance in the Royal Court, Ghalib, who was aware of the Emperor’s soft corner for adulating poetry, beseeched him in a longish elegy to convert his bi-annual honorarium into a monthly one by convincing him that the hitherto practice of paying twice a year was a slur on Mughal generosity :
ae shehenshah-e-aasmaan aurang, ae jahaandaar-e-aaftaab aazaar
baar-e-naukar bhi ho gaya sadd-shukr, nisbatein ho gayiin mushakhkhas chaar
na kahoon aap se toh kis se kahoon, mudda-a-e-zaroori-ul-izhaar
kuchh khareeda nahin hai ab ke saal, kuchh banaaya nahin hai ab ke baar
raat ko aag aur din ko dhoop, bhaad mein jaaein aise lail-o-nahaar
meri tankhwaah jo muqarrar hai, uskey milney ka hai ajab hanjaar
rasm hai murdey ki chhe-maahi ek . . . aur chhe-maahi ho saal mein do baar
bas ke leta hoon har maheene qarz, aur rehti hai sood ki takraar
aap ka banda aur phiroon nanga ! aap ka naukar aur khaaoon udhaar !
meri tankhwaah kijiye maah-ba-maah, ta na ho mujh ko zindagi dushwaar
tum salaamat raho hazaar baras, har baras ke ho’n din pachaas hazaar
O Emperor ! Adorner of Throne, O the sovereign shining like sun
Thanks a lot now I am an employee too and four relationships are identified with you
Whom shall I tell if not you, what is necessary for me to say
Nothing have I bought this year, nothing have I acquired this time
Fire in the night, sun in the day, doomed be such days and nights
The salary that has been fixed for me, there is a strange way of its payment
Like the dead are counted once in six months, even this six-monthly practice is followed twice a year
I have to take loan every month, and repeatedly have to pay interest
Your servant and go about naked ! Your employee and living on loans !
Make my salary payable month by month, so that life is not difficult for me
May you live for a thousand years, and fifty thousand days each year bears
Within minutes an order was passed converting Mirza’s bi-annual honorarium into a monthly one.
( translation is not mine but from the net. I posted it on my Facebook in 2013 and can’t find the link today)
