— from the ghazal beginning “hai justuju ke khoob se hai khoob-tar kahan”, Altaf Hussain Hali (1837–1914)
About this quote
देवनागरी
है जुस्तुजू कि ख़ूब से है ख़ूब-तर कहाँ
अब ठहरती है देखिए जा कर नज़र कहाँ
اردو
ہے جستجو کہ خوب سے ہے خوب تر کہاں
اب ٹھہرتی ہے دیکھیے جا کر نظر کہاں
English
The search is on for what lies beyond the fine — for the finer still. Now let us see where the eye finally comes to rest.
What it means
Hali was Ghalib’s pupil and the first serious critic of Urdu poetry, and the couplet reads like both poet and critic: restless improvement as a condition rather than a virtue. The open question in the second line is the point — he does not say the search ends well.
What it teaches you
Read the second line as the real content: it is a question, and Hali leaves it unanswered. The couplet is worth keeping beside any habit of constant upgrading — the better job, the better draft, the better phone — and the test it offers is simple: can you name the condition under which your eye would come to rest? If you cannot, then what you are calling improvement is a state you are living in rather than a road you are travelling, and each khoob-tar you reach will be demoted the moment you reach it. Notice, too, that Hali the critic includes himself; the restlessness he describes is the working temperament of someone whose job is to find the flaw, which is useful in a manuscript and expensive in a life.
अर्थ और सीख
ख़ूब से ख़ूब-तर की तलाश जारी है — देखें नज़र आख़िर कहाँ जाकर ठहरती है। हाली ग़ालिब के शागिर्द थे; यह बेचैनी उनके यहाँ ख़ूबी भी है और मसअला भी।
लगातार ‘और बेहतर’ की तलाश से पहले यह तय करें कि नज़र कहाँ जाकर ठहरेगी। जिस बेहतरी की कोई मंज़िल तय न हो, वह सुधार नहीं, बेचैनी की आदत बन जाती है।
Where it comes from
Verified against the collected work of Altaf Hussain Hali (1837–1914) on Urdu Wikisource, in the poem beginning ہے جستجو کہ خوب سے ہے خوب تر کہاں (source). Devanagari transliteration and English rendering are our own.
