Come Sunday, around the month’s end, Mirza Ghalib will be descending on the premises of the French Gujarati Society in Paris to render his gems in French.  Even in the Queen's language, he has been known to handsomely companion Shakespeare, Dickens and Wilde in literary London, sometimes mystifying scholars of Britain. Further east, he has taken Russian language in his stride and makes regular appearances at the Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Center to fans in Moscow.

But what is this Persian and Urdu poet of India doing in France, UK and Russia? Well, crossing language barriers, he has serenaded his way into the hearts of millions, not only in these but several other countries around the world. Yes, Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1796-1869) has gone global.

Poochte hain woh ki Ghalib kaun hai,

Koi batlao ki ham batlayen kya!

(They ask me as to who is Ghalib. Will someone tell me what to say?)

“The Bard of Urdu needs no introduction now as his verses, imbued with philosophy and a verve for life, have transcended most of Europe, America and Russia,” says Aqueel Ahmed of the Ghalib Academy, Delhi. “Today, he breathes not only in Persian and Urdu, but also in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Awadhi, Bengali and Malayalam, English, French, German, Russian, Italian and Japanese,” he said. “Ghalib would probably have been a satisfied man today, not the longing soul who wrote ‘My bosom is the grave of a million yearnings unfulfilled, that lie buried within my breast like unknown dead in unknown graves’,” stated Ahmad, summing up.

Although the Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Center in Moscow, the Russian Ghalib Caucus, and the Irani Culture Ministry regularly organize seminars and “Ghalib evenings”, the Paris Gujarati Society has made Ghalib a regular feature of its monthly get-togethers. "His verses are not only popular among expatriate Indians in France but among local literature buffs too. Our month-end Ghalib get-together is invariably a hit," said Pinakin Desai, Vice President of the Paris Gujarati Society.

Syed Sultan Zafar, a British citizen and a Ghalib enthusiast stated, "London specializes in hiding its best for the connoisseur. The real London lies behind its more visible landmarks, one that the coach-and-guide tourists seldom get to explore. And it’s here that Ghalib can be found. This hidden London is much about literary nostalgia, and exults in a romantic and philosophical Ghalib of a by-gone era. Indeed, Mirza comes up in most of the literary discussions of this London.”

"I have been amazed to see how popular Ghalib is in vernacular India,” said Gopal Kutha of Secunderabad, who has translated more than 250 verses of Ghalib into Telugu. "A simpler Ghalib is much in demand among Tamilians." While the Ghalib Academy has brought out  a number of books and translations of Ghalib, the Bengal Sahitya Academy is working on some of his verses in Bengali.

            Hain aur bhi duniya mein sukhanwar bahut achhe,

        Kahtein hain Ghalib ka hai andaz-e-bayan aur!

(Many an excellent poet is there in the world, yet they say that Ghalib’s expression is different)

"As a rule every couplet of an Urdu ghazal contains a complete idea. But Ghalib brought a world of meaning to each word and often went too far to be intelligible. That’s why translators have always feared him," says S. A. Ali, former director of the Indian Institute of Language Studies and a Ghalib scholar. But much of Ghalib's voluminous Persian poetry, even his small Urdu Diwan, is yet to be translated. The Ghalib Academy has embarked on the colossal task of collecting all rare books and manuscripts on Ghalib and plans to microfilm 500,000 pages from various collections in Germany, France, Vatican City, England and Ireland. Efforts are on to bring together material on Ghalib from 30 libraries in India and 14 abroad, including the Institute of Oriental Studies, Leningrad, the British Museum, London and the Bibliotheque Nationale Collection in Paris.