tumhaare sher usi baankpan mein laut aae
“Ameer Imam, tell me — what is this wonder? Your couplets have come home in the very same swagger as before.”
तुम्हारे शेर उसी बाँकपन में लौट आए
The verse in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
The maqta, where by long convention the poet writes his own name into the verse. Here he turns it into quiet astonishment at his own craft: the couplets he thought were spent have returned, and returned with all their old jauntiness intact. It is the vocation catching sight of itself — the sher (the couplet) coming home to the shaa'ir (the poet).
Sometimes what you thought had left you — the knack, the voice, the nerve — comes back wearing its old confidence, as if it had only stepped out for a while. Don't mistake a fallow spell for a final one.
The heart of this site stays with Iqbal: explore his couplets → Or browse the whole Other Voices shelf →