apne iradon ka hai
abhi to napi hai
hai
“The real flight of life is still to come; the test of your resolve is still to come. So far you have measured out only a fistful of earth — ahead of you, the whole sky is still to come.”
अपने इरादों का है
तो नापी है
आसमान है
The verse in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
A short, plain-spoken verse of forward motion. Its strength is the closing image: whatever you have covered so far is 'a fistful of earth' set against an open sky — not a belittling of the past, but a refusal to let it harden into a ceiling.
On a day when what you have done feels like all there is, this verse answers: it is a fistful of ground, and the sky is the part you have not yet flown. Resolve is tested ahead of you, not behind.
The heart of this site stays with Iqbal: explore his couplets → Or browse the whole Other Voices shelf →