— Divan-e-Ghalib, from the ghazal "dil hi to hai na sang-o-khisht"
About this quote
देवनागरी
दिल ही तो है न संग-ओ-ख़िश्त दर्द से भर न आए क्यों
रोएँगे हम हज़ार बार कोई हमें सताए क्यों
English
It is a heart, after all, not stone and brick — why should it not fill with pain? I will weep a thousand times; why should anyone torment me?
What it means
A defence of tears: the heart is made of flesh, not masonry, and feeling pain is its right. Ghalib claims the freedom to weep without shame — a radical tenderness in any century.
The force of the couplet sits in sang-o-khisht — stone and brick, building materials, not natural rock. The heart is being measured against a wall, something assembled to keep weather out, and found to be the wrong substance for the job. Notice too that both lines end in kyun, and that the second question is aimed outward: the first line defends the weeping, the second withdraws the defence and asks why there is anything to weep about. Read as self-pity it goes soft; read as two rhetorical questions in a row it is closer to a cross-examination of whoever caused the pain.
What it teaches you
When something wounds you, notice which question you are asking. Most people interrogate themselves — why am I so thin-skinned, why can’t I let this go — and never ask the second line’s question, which is why the thing was done at all. Stop justifying the reaction and put the burden back where the cause is. Practically: the next time you are told not to take something to heart, you owe no explanation for the hurt; ask instead what the other person intended to accomplish.
अर्थ और सीख
दिल है, पत्थर-ईंट नहीं — दर्द से भरेगा ही, और रोना उसका हक़ है। आँसुओं की ऐसी बेख़ौफ़ वकालत ग़ालिब ही कर सकते हैं।
जब चोट लगे तो ख़ुद से यह न पूछें कि मैं इतना कमज़ोर क्यों हूँ — यह पूछें कि यह सब मेरे साथ किया क्यों जा रहा है। आँसू की सफ़ाई देना छोड़िए और सवाल का रुख़ बाहर की ओर मोड़िए।
Where it comes from
An authentic couplet from the Divan-e-Ghalib, the collected Urdu ghazals of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797–1869), from the ghazal beginning “dil hi to hai na sang-o-khisht”. Transliteration and English rendering are our own.
