Gandholi

Punjabi word ‘gandholi’ means an unbecoming ’seedpod’, and can easily expand to include ‘weed’ as undesirable vegetation. Poet Shah Madhulal Hussain (1539-1599) uses it to say this about himself:

‘BaghaN de vich phul ajaib, tooN ve ek gandholi‘
‘Awesome flowers in gardens, you are a seedpod too’

This reminds me of an Urdu couplet by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869) who became a protege of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar to support himself.
Ghalib says:
‘bana hai Shah ka musahib phhiray hai itrata
wagarna shehr maiN Ghalib ki abroo kia hai‘
‘walks with pride/arrogance as a protege of the emperor
else what value/honor Ghalib has in the city’

The Emperor, imprisoned in Rangoon by the British, wrote a poem that made him immortal as a Poet. This is the last couplet of that heart-wrenching ghazal where the poet mourns the inaccessibility of his favored burial grounds in Delhi.

‘Kitna hai bad-naseeb Zafar, dafan ke liye
do gaz zameen mil na saki, ku e yaar main‘
‘how unfortunate you are Zafar, for burial
two yards of land could not be had, in the lane of the beloved’

Bahadur Shah Zafar passed away in prison November 1862; and, this is his death anniversary month.

However, Ghalib shared more with Bahadur Shah Zafar than poetry. Both lived on pension as the Shah himself was a pensioner of East India Company.

Regarding death, Madhulal Hussain is intriguing in his Kafi Aithay rehna nahiN, koi baat chalan de ker wo ‘Here not going to stay, say something about leaving wo’
Kahay Hussain hyati loReiN, murn theiN aggay mur wo
‘Hussain says if you need your life, die before your death wo’