— The Persian Mystics: Jalalu'd-din Rumi (tr. F. Hadland Davis, 1907), "Where Love Is"
About this quote
हिन्दी में
तेरे साथ, मेरे प्रिय, नरक भी स्वर्ग होता। तेरे साथ क़ैदख़ाना भी गुलशन होता।
What it means
The two nouns are chosen to leave no exception: hell is the worst place imaginable and a prison is the worst place actually available. The claim is that the quality of a place is not a property of the place at all but a function of who is in it — and by picking these two extremes Rumi closes off the obvious objection that some conditions must be too bad for company to redeem.
Worth keeping for the half that readers skip. If presence turns a prison into a rose-garden, then absence turns a rose-garden into a prison; the equation runs both ways, and anyone who has been comfortable and miserable at once knows it. The line is usually quoted as a compliment to a beloved. It is at least as much a statement about what a well-appointed life is worth without one.
What it teaches you
Next time you are unhappy somewhere, check the room before you check the address. People spend a great deal changing the place — the city, the house, the job — when the variable this line points to is who is in it. The practical version is unglamorous: repairing an absence is usually cheaper than upgrading a setting, and it is very easy to upgrade the setting and stay exactly as unhappy.
अर्थ और सीख
रूमी ने जान-बूझकर सबसे बुरी दो जगहें चुनी हैं — नरक और क़ैदख़ाना — ताकि यह छूट न बचे कि कुछ हालात इतने बुरे हैं कि साथ भी उन्हें नहीं बदल सकता। दावा यह है कि जगह की अच्छाई जगह में नहीं, साथ में है। और इसका उल्टा भी उतना ही सच है: जिसके बिना गुलशन भी क़ैद है — इसलिए दुखी होने पर पहले पता नहीं, यह देखें कि कमरे में कौन है।
Where it comes from
From the Masnavi story ‘Where Love Is’ (The Persian Mystics, 1907): a traveller is asked which of all cities is most delightful, and answers that the city where his beloved dwells — be it the eye of a needle or the bottom of a well — is paradise. In Rumi’s telling, human love is always also a figure for the soul’s love of God.
