mere wale mujhe ke
jo mein ki
ro ke ke
“The tale of my longing — she told it again and again, and wept; those who set out to test me, tested me, and wept. When I narrated to the gathering the lived story of my night of grief, some wept and then smiled, some smiled and then wept.”
मेरे आज़माने वाले मुझे आज़मा के रोए
जो सुनाई में की
रो के मुस्कुराए मुस्कुरा के रोए
The verse in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
The couplet turns grief into something almost contagious — the beloved retells the poet's tale of longing until she herself weeps, and even the testers are undone by what they came to scrutinize. The second verse catches the strange double motion of deep sorrow: in the gathering, some weep then smile, some smile then weep, as if grief and its release cannot be told apart.
When you share a real wound honestly, watch how it moves even the people who came to judge you — pain told plainly has a reach that argument never does.
The heart of this site stays with Iqbal: explore his couplets → Or browse the whole Other Voices shelf →