se , teri kya hai
“Raise your selfhood so high that, before issuing every decree of destiny, God Himself asks you: tell me, what is your wish?”
बंदे से पूछे, तेरी क्या है
The couplet in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
خدا بندے سے خود پوچھے بتا تیری رضا کیا ہے
The couplet as Iqbal wrote it, in Urdu (Nastaliq).
This is Iqbal's entire philosophy compressed into two lines. Khudi — selfhood — is not arrogance; it is the disciplined cultivation of an inner self so fully realised that destiny itself must pause and consult it. Iqbal's radical claim is that you are not a passive recipient of fate; a developed self becomes a partner in writing it.
Before you ask 'what are my chances?', Iqbal asks the harder question — have you become someone whose wish is worth asking? The work is never to predict the outcome, but to grow into a self the outcome must reckon with.
Tu shaheen hai, basera kar paharon ki chattanon mein
Tu agar mera nahin banta na ban, apna to ban
Ye khaki apni fitrat mein na noori hai na naari hai