jo nahin raha tha use kar diya
ka hi nahin sake
ne is hamein 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 कर दिया
का उठा ही नहीं सके
मतले ने इस हमें 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 →