Chiragh-e-Dair by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1868) is a long poem in Persian on the Indian holy town, Benares. In the 6th episode of Cine Ink podcast ‘My Book’, Maaz Bin Bilal discusses Ghalib’s deep-rooted respect for Hindus and ‘Temple Lamp’, English translation of Chiragh-e-Dair, with Saif Mahmood. Temple Lamp has been published by Penguin Classics.

Maaz Bin Bilal is a poet, translator, and academic. His first collection, Ghazalnama: Poems from Delhi, Belfast, and Urdu (2019), was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar. His translation of Fikr Taunsvi’s Partition diary, The Sixth River (2019), was also critically noted. Maaz was awarded the Charles Wallace Trust fellowship in writing and translation in Wales (2018–19) and the Akademie Schloss Solitude fellowship in writing at Stuttgart (2022–23). He holds a PhD on the politics of friendship in E. M. Forster’s work from Queen’s University Belfast.

Dr Saif Mahmood is a bestselling author (Beloved Delhi: A Mughal City and Her Greatest Poets, published by Speaking Tiger), literary critic, translator and an Advocate of the Supreme Court of India. He splits his work between New Delhi and London.

Produced by broadcasters, Achala Sharma and Pervaiz Alam, My Book podcast covers a wide range of genres and is a part of the London-based, Cine Ink, Private Limited, UK, a well known hub of podcasts in Hindi and Urdu, available on all major podcast networks, including www.cineink.com