jo bik nahin raha tha use daan kar diya
puri ghazal ka lutf utha hi nahin sake
matle ne is qadar hamein hairan kar diya
“I made the bargaining for life easy — whatever would not sell, I simply gave away as charity. We could not enjoy the whole ghazal at all — the opening couplet had so utterly astonished us.”
जो बिक नहीं रहा था उसे दान कर दिया
पूरी ग़ज़ल का लुत्फ़ उठा ही नहीं सके
मतले ने इस क़दर हमें हैरान कर दिया
The verse in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
The poet treats life as a marketplace and finds an oddly cheerful solution: whatever the world will not buy from him, he donates as charity, turning failure into grace. The second verse is the wittier turn, where the opening couplet of a ghazal is so astonishing that the listener never gets to enjoy the rest, undone by the very thing meant to draw them in.
When something of yours finds no buyer, give it freely — what the market rejects can still be offered as a gift.
The heart of this site stays with Iqbal: explore his couplets → Or browse the whole Other Voices shelf →