— Divan-e-Ghalib, from the ghazal "dard minnat-kash-e-dawa na hua"
About this quote
देवनागरी:
दर्द मिन्नत-कश-ए-दवा न हुआ
मैं न अच्छा हुआ बुरा न हुआ
English: My pain never stooped to beg the medicine — I did not recover, and that is not a bad thing.
Meaning: Ghalib refuses to owe his healing to a cure: better to keep the pain with dignity than lose it as a debtor. A couplet about the strange pride we take in our own wounds.
अर्थ: दर्द ने दवा का एहसान नहीं लिया — मैं ठीक नहीं हुआ, और यही अच्छा हुआ। अपने ज़ख़्मों से भी स्वाभिमान — यही ग़ालिब हैं।
An authentic couplet from the Divan-e-Ghalib, the collected Urdu ghazals of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797–1869), from the ghazal beginning “dard minnat-kash-e-dawa na hua”. Transliteration and English rendering are our own.
