ki ki
“Neither this world nor that one truly belongs to your free spirits — here there are restrictions on dying, there restrictions on living.”
मरने की जीने की
The couplet in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
یہاں مرنے کی پابندی وہاں جینے کی پابندی
The couplet as Iqbal wrote it, in Urdu (Nastaliq).
Iqbal protests a condition in which freedom is denied at both ends. A genuinely free spirit finds neither realm hospitable, because every realm hedges life and death with rules. It is a sharp lament for how rarely real liberty is permitted anywhere.
Freedom is constrained so routinely that we stop noticing the constraints. Iqbal's verse keeps the protest alive — refusing to accept that hemmed-in living is simply how things are. The free spirit should be uneasy with both cages.
Abhi ishq ke imtihan aur bhi hain
Tu shaheen hai, basera kar paharon ki chattanon mein
Dard-mandon se zaeefon se mohabbat karna