Crossing of Boundaries: A
Spatial Reading of Transgression in Mirza Ghalib’s Delhi
Niveda Sebastian
ABSTRACT
Delhi has been a city of continual historical and
spatial transgression and Mirza Ghalib, one of its most ardent
poets, has captured this often-tumultuous metamorphosis in his
writings comprised of Ghazals, Letters, and Diary entries. The study
focusses on Ghalib’s vast oeuvre of letters to map the transgression
of boundaries. The theory of Geocriticism, proposed by Bertrand
Westphal, has been utilized to understand the concept of
transgression in Ghalib’s writings. Delhi in the 1800’s was a site
of hegemonic control, and the confusion and poignancy experienced by
the inhabitants of the city is minutely captured in the writings of
Mirza Ghalib. The transformations undergone by the city, as power
got transferred from the hands of the Mughals to the Britishers, are
evaluated in the current study.
Keywords: Transgression, Geocriticism, Ghalib, Metamorphosis,
Hegemony
