The Economics of Pain: A Conceptual Metaphor Analysis of Self-Commercialization in Ghalib’s Poetry

Abstract

Mirza Ghalib’s canonical legacy rests almost exclusively on his Sufi mysticism and existential philosophy. Yet, the profound imprint of his lifelong financial precarity on his poetic framework remains critically under-examined. This study addresses this glaring lacuna in Urdu literary criticism by demonstrating how market rationality and mercantile metaphors fundamentally organize Ghalib’s ontology. Drawing on Lakoff and Johnson’s Cognitive Metaphor Theory, we conduct a qualitative content analysis of purposively selected verses from the Diwan-e-Ghalib, tracking specific economic lexical markers such as qarz (debt), sauda (trade/bargain), and daam (price). The analysis reveals that Ghalib constructs a "Transactional Self." Through deliberate cognitive mapping, he conceptualizes human existence not as a manifestation of divine grace, but as a perpetual state of indebtedness, while simultaneously reframing love as a system of transactional reciprocity. Ultimately, this research recasts Ghalib as an economic realist who effectively secularized the classical ghazal tradition. By displacing spiritual agency with financial anxiety, he provides a critical, historically grounded lens to examine the materialism of the self during India's transition into colonial modernity.