Man, irrespective of colour, creed, or country, shares the same fundamental nature. His emotions, passions, and the unending urge to gratify desire are universal, as is his longing to create a peaceful and happy society. Across cultures, he aspires towards idealism, humanitarianism, moral virtue, and rationality. Yet within him coexist opposing forces: the pull of goodness and the temptation of evil, the urge to rise above animalistic instincts and the impulse to surrender to them.
It is this inner conflict that defines the complexity of the human condition. A great writer does not conceal these contradictions behind religion, dogma, moral certainty, or social convention; rather, he unmasks them with courage and honesty. Through a fearless exploration of desire, doubt, love, hate, jealousy, greed, lust, faith, and rebellion, great literature reveals what humanity often hesitates to acknowledge—that man is neither wholly noble nor wholly corrupt, but perpetually divided within himself.
All great writers such as Ghalib, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Thomas Hardy unveil these universal human struggles and complexities. Their works do not speak merely to a particular nation or a specific historical moment; instead, they address the shared inner life of mankind. By exposing the tensions between desire and restraint, faith and doubt, reason and passion, they remind us that the deepest truths of human existence are universal, timeless, and enduring.
Ghalib’s greatness does not rest solely on his mastery of language or the sensual brilliance of his metaphors, but on his uncompromising exploration of the inner life of man. He enters the most private chambers of human consciousness—desire, doubt, contradiction, longing, and uncertainty—and gives them honest and realistic expression, even when such realism unsettles religious, moral, or philosophical certainties.
Ghalib beautifully captures the dilemma of human nature in the following verse:
Jāntā hūñ sawāb-e-ṭāʿat-o-zuhd Par ṭabīʿat udhar nahīñ ātī
(“I know the reward of obedience and piety, but my nature does not incline that way.”)
Here, Ghalib acknowledges religious truth at the level of intellect but confesses that the heart does not always submit to reason. Through this couplet, he suggests that human behaviour is often governed more by inclination and desire than by moral knowledge alone. It is a candid admission of the gap between what man knows and how he lives.
Thomas Hardy presents the same reality in Tess of the d’Urbervilles through the character of Angel Clare. Angel intellectually rejects rigid social morality and recognises Tess’s essential innocence; yet when confronted with her past, his emotional instincts and ingrained social conditioning overpower his ethical understanding. Despite knowing what is morally right, he fails to act accordingly. Hardy, like Ghalib, thus demonstrates that moral awareness does not necessarily control human conduct, and that inner conflict and inclination frequently prevail over reason and ideals.
In another famous couplet, Ghalib writes:
Hum ko maʿlūm hai jannat kī ḥaqīqat lekin Dil ke ḳhush rakhne ko yeh ḳhayāl achchā hai
(“We know the reality of Paradise, but to keep the heart content, this belief is comforting.”)
This verse does not reflect atheism. Rather, Ghalib explains why people believe in religion. He suggests that such beliefs offer emotional solace in the face of suffering, mortality, and existential uncertainty. Ghalib does not reject faith; instead, he questions its psychological and social function in human life. Later thinkers such as Marx and Freud would articulate similar ideas, describing religion as a human response to fear, alienation, suffering, and insecurity.
Human life, according to Ghalib, is bound to infinite desire (khwahish). This should not be dismissed merely as human weakness; rather, it is a defining condition of existence. The fulfilment of desire does not extinguish longing but often gives birth to further cravings. Ghalib expresses this truth in his most celebrated couplet:
Hazāroñ ḳhvāhishẽ aisī ki har ḳhvāhish pe dam nikle
Bahut nikle mere armān lekin phir bhī kam nikle
(“Thousands of desires, each one worth dying for; many of my wishes were fulfilled, yet they still seemed too few.”)
Here, Ghalib suggests that even satisfied desires leave an emptiness behind. Human existence, therefore, remains incomplete and perpetually unfinished. To be alive, for Ghalib, is to desire endlessly—often beyond reason and restraint. This understanding challenges simplistic moral binaries, for if desire is limitless, piety alone can never fully complete a human being.
Ghalib further implies that man should be allowed to live according to his inner wishes and inclinations, free from rigid moral compulsion imposed externally. He values authenticity of feeling over enforced restraint. This idea is reflected in the following couplet:
Go hath mein jumbish nahin, aankhon mein to dum hai
Rahne do abhi sagar-o-meena, mere aage
(“Though the hands can no longer move, the eyes still live;
let the wine and goblet remain before me.”)
In this verse, Ghalib expresses the persistence of desire and consciousness even in weakness and decline. This is not crude pleasure-seeking, but a refusal to surrender prematurely to death. The wine and goblet symbolise awareness, presence, and engagement with life. As long as consciousness exists, the world continues to matter. Ghalib thus affirms the human right to longing and enjoyment as long as life endures, challenging moral systems that suppress human feeling instead of understanding it. In this sense, his thought anticipates modernism, rejects extremism, and critiques rigid moral and religious dogmatism.
Ghalib also holds that human life is inherently flawed and burdened with imperfection, and that only death finally conceals these shortcomings. He suggests that the restless flame of desire can be extinguished only by death. This painful truth is expressed in the following verse:
Dhāñpā kafan ne dāġh-e-uyūb-e-barahnagī
Main varna har libās meñ nañg-e-vajūd thā
(“The shroud concealed the flaws and shame of my naked existence; otherwise, in every garment, my very being was a disgrace.”)
If Pakistan aspires to become a modern, stable, and democratic state, it must embrace the spirit of Ghalib’s thought, which promotes rationalism, moderation, tolerance, and self-awareness. The country’s challenges—religious extremism, intolerance, political hypocrisy, and deep class divisions—cannot be resolved through dogma or coercion, but through understanding, compassion, and intellectual honesty. Ghalib’s message does not weaken faith or morality; rather, it strengthens them by grounding them in empathy instead of fear. In this sense, following Ghalib is not merely a literary exercise, but a vital intellectual step towards national maturity and progress.