saal do saal to poochha hi nahin jaa sakta
“A plain, direct question of love to some girl — that is something you simply cannot bring yourself to ask for a year or two.”
साल दो साल तो पूछा ही नहीं जा सकता
The verse in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
The comedy of the tongue-tied lover, observed exactly. The question is the simplest in the world and the hardest to say, and the couplet measures the delay not in minutes but in years. The wry 'a year or two' is the whole joke — and the whole truth — about how long courage takes to catch up with feeling.
The simplest honest question is often the one we postpone the longest. Notice what you have been not-asking for a year, and consider that the delay is fear, not timing.
The heart of this site stays with Iqbal: explore his couplets → Or browse the whole Other Voices shelf →