jahan se nahin
“Always keep a distance when meeting the great and powerful — where a river meets the ocean, the river ceases to be a river.”
जहाँ समुंदर से मिला नहीं रहता
The verse in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
The couplet reads as worldly counsel, then opens into something larger with the river meeting the ocean. The image is generous and cruel at once — the river is not destroyed, only dissolved, its name and shape lost in something vaster. Proximity to power, Badr suggests, costs you your own outline.
When you move close to powerful people, guard the distance that keeps you yourself — admiration can quietly erase the very identity that made you worth knowing.
The heart of this site stays with Iqbal: explore his couplets → Or browse the whole Other Voices shelf →