Mirza Ghalib was born in Kala Mahal, Agra^[5] into a family descended from Aibak Turks who moved to Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan) after the downfall of the Seljuk kings. His paternal grandfather, Mirza Qoqan Baig Khan, was aSaljuq Turk who had immigrated to India fromSamarkand during the reign of Ahmad Shah (1748–54).^{[citation needed]} He worked at Lahore,Delhi and Jaipur, was awarded the subdistrict ofPahasu (Bulandshahr, UP) and finally settled inAgra, UP, India. He had four sons and three daughters. Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan and Mirza Nasrullah Baig Khan were two of his sons.^{[citation needed]}

Mirza Abdullah Baig Khan (Ghalib's father) married Izzat-ut-Nisa Begum, an ethnicKashmiri,^[6] and then lived at the house of his father-in-law. He was employed first by theNawab of Lucknow and then the Nizam of Hyderabad, Deccan. He died in a battle in 1803 in Alwar and was buried at Rajgarh (Alwar, Rajasthan).^[7] Then Ghalib was a little over 5 years of age. He was raised first by his Uncle Mirza Nasrullah Baig Khan.

At the age of thirteen, Ghalib married Umrao Begum, daughter of Nawab Ilahi Bakhsh (brother of the Nawab of Ferozepur Jhirka).^{[citation needed]}He soon moved to Delhi, along with his younger brother, Mirza Yousuf Khan, who had developedschizophrenia at a young age and later died inDelhi during the chaos of 1857.^[7]

In accordance with upper class Muslim tradition, he had an arranged marriage at the age of 13, but none of his seven children survived beyond infancy. After his marriage he settled in Delhi. In one of his letters he describes his marriage as the second imprisonment after the initial confinement that was life itself. The idea that life is one continuous painful struggle which can end only when life itself ends, is a recurring theme in his poetry. One of his couplets puts it in a nutshell:^[8]

قید حیات و بند غم ، اصل میں دونوں ایک ہیں

موت سے پہلے آدمی غم سے نجات پائے کیوں؟

Translation in Hindi

क़ैद-ए -हयात बंद-ए -ग़म , अस्ल में दोनों एक हैं

मौत से पहले आदमी ग़म से निजात पाए क्यूँ?

Translation in English

The prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same

Before the onset of death, how can man expect to be free of grief?

At the age of thirty he had seven children, none of whom survived (this pain has found its echo in some of Ghalib's ghazals). There are conflicting reports regarding his relationship with his wife. She was considered to be pious, conservative and God-fearing.^[9]

Ghalib was proud of his reputation as a rake. He was once imprisoned for gambling and subsequently relished the affair with pride. In the Mughal court circles, he even acquired a reputation as a "ladies' man".^[10]:41 Once, when someone praised the poetry of the pious Sheikh Sahbai in his presence, Ghalib immediately retorted:

“

How can Sahbai be a poet? He has never tasted wine, nor has he ever gambled; he has not been beaten with slippers by lovers, nor has he ever seen the inside of a jail."[10]:41

”

He died in Delhi on 15 February 1869. The house where he lived in Gali Qasim Jaan, Ballimaran,Chandni Chowk, in Old Delhi known as the Ghalib ki Haveli has now been turned into 'Ghalib Memorial' and houses a permanent Ghalib exhibition.