— from the ghazal beginning “lagta nahin hai dil mera ujde dayaar mein”, Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775–1862)
About this quote
देवनागरी
लगता नहीं है दिल मेरा उजड़े दयार में
किस की बनी है आलम-ए-नापायदार में
اردو
لگتا نہیں ہے دل مرا اجڑے دیار میں
کس کی بنی ہے عالم ناپائیدار میں
English
My heart will not settle in this ruined land — but then, whose affairs have ever gone well in a world that does not last?
What it means
Zafar was the last Mughal emperor, deposed after 1857 and exiled to Rangoon, where he died. Read against that, the “ruined land” is not a metaphor. One caution worth stating: this ghazal is traditionally attributed to Zafar and is published under his name on Urdu Wikisource, but its authorship has been questioned by scholars, with Muztar Khairabadi sometimes proposed instead. The attribution is the standard one, not a settled one.
What it teaches you
Watch what the second line does to the first: the complaint starts as personal — my heart, this ruined place — and then stops being personal by asking whose affairs have ever gone well. That move is the usable part. When a house, a city or a working life has emptied out, the couplet does not advise repair and does not blame your luck; it reclassifies the loss as ordinary for a world built not to last, which is what makes it bearable enough to say out loud. And when you quote it, say attributed to Zafar rather than asserting the authorship as settled.
अर्थ और सीख
उजड़े हुए शहर में दिल नहीं लगता — और इस नापायदार दुनिया में किसी की कब बनी है? ग़ौरतलब: यह ग़ज़ल आम तौर पर ज़फ़र से मंसूब है, मगर कुछ अहल-ए-इल्म इसे मुज़्तर ख़ैराबादी का कलाम बताते हैं।
शेर की ताक़त दूसरे मिसरे में है, जो निजी शिकायत को दुनिया की नश्वरता का आम सच बना देता है — उजड़ी जगह में दिल न लगे तो इसे अपनी बदक़िस्मती नहीं, इस आलम की फ़ितरत समझें। और इसे उद्धृत करते समय कहें कि यह ज़फ़र से ‘मंसूब’ है, तयशुदा नहीं।
Where it comes from
Verified against the collected work of Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775–1862) on Urdu Wikisource, in the poem beginning لگتا نہیں ہے دل مرا اجڑے دیار میں (source). Devanagari transliteration and English rendering are our own.
