aap ko jeene ke andaaz nahin aayenge
“The fear of death torments you at every hour — and so you will never learn the art of living.”
आप को जीने के अंदाज़ नहीं आएँगे
The verse in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
A single, clean aphorism with a hard logical hinge. The person ruled by the fear of dying never actually lives, because the fear eats the very hours that living was supposed to happen in. The couplet does not console — it diagnoses, and leaves the listener to notice how much of their own life is being spent rehearsing its end.
If the fear of losing your life is filling your days, it has already taken the thing you were trying to protect. The art of living begins where that fear is set down.
The heart of this site stays with Iqbal: explore his couplets → Or browse the whole Other Voices shelf →