Dozakhnama Quotes

Anyone can write history. All it needs is memory. But to write a story you must have the power to dream.

Their lives are like measuring tapes, and they want to trim the lives of other people to same measurements

If you have to die like a worm, die that way, complaining will not fetch you anything extra.

Why does time erase me thus, O Lord? I’m no redundant letter on the page of the world

And by then I had understood that any ghazal that could not pierce your heart completely and instantly, like an arrow, had no value as a work of art.

Kafka’s short story ‘Judgement’.

There are two Ghalibs,’ you said once, ‘one of them is a Seljuq Turk, who consorts with badshahs, and the other is homeless and humiliated, weighed down by debt.

सआदत हसन मंटो!’ —क़िस्से उन्हें ढूँढ़ते फिरते थे।

Karbala is what happens when this life becomes an expanse of death. That is the destiny of the writer of stories, janab.

Has anyone ever been able to prevent the dead from talking to one another?

I’m not the flowering of a song, nor the flow of melody I am the echo of the shattering sound of my defeat

Misery vanishes when you get used to misery I suffered so much that it became easy

The seed of death sprouts within the desire for union.

भला गर्दिश फ़लक की चैन देती है किसे, इंशा ग़नीमत है के हमसूरत यहाँ दो चार बैठे हैं।

I wrote about my love, my ishq, on bloodstained paper day after day, Manto bhai, my hand became numb, but still I wrote. I knew my ghazals would provide comfort to many people one day.

But unless our surroundings are well maintained, we cannot be beautiful inside.

পাগলকে কে না ভয় পায় বলো? গজল লিখতে - লিখতে তুমি একদিন বুঝতে পারবে,শব্দের জান-কে ছুঁতে হলে ভেতর থেকে একেবারে ফকির হয়ে যেতে হবে। কেউ তোমার পাশে থাকবে না আরিফ। প্রিয়জনরা তোমার মুখে থুতু ছিটোবে। আর সেদিন তুমি বুঝতে পারবে, গুফতগু শব্দটার অর্থ। কাকে বলে আশিকের সঙ্গে প্রেমালাপ। কতো সূর্যোদয় ও সূর্যাস্ত ওই শব্দের ভেতর লুকিয়ে আছে।

मुझे लोगों को भूलभुलैया में घुमा कर मारने में बहुत अच्छा लगता है।

Dilli, which was the chosen city of this world, Which the finest people on earth made their home, Has now been ravaged by time and left in ruins This devastated city is where I come from You’re laughing, Manto bhai?

But you must indulge your Manto bhai. Memories, my brothers, so many memories, they just drag me back to the past as I talk. I cannot resist them. If I could have, I wouldn’t have had to die like a stray dog in Pakistan.

the king of the Gods. ‘Remember,’ he told Rohit, ‘he who cannot leave his home and go out on the road will never find happiness. A prolonged existence within human society turns even good men into sinners. That is why I say, make the road your home; discover your life through travel. The voyager’s feet are like flowers, his soul blooms every day and gives birth to a bounty of fruits. The weariness of the road purges all his sins all the way down to the roots.

This life of ours—the act of being born—what is it but ishq? This is worldly love, ishq-e-majazi. And the closer we approach death, the path of divine love, ishq-e-haqiqi, opens up before us. You have to keep ishq-e-haqiqi only for the Lord. You no longer have Begum Falak Ara before you, nor Munirabai, nor Manto bhai’s Begu or Ismat, there’s only he, Alhamdulillah. But how many of us can actually tread that path? Maula Rumi did. Each of us is a moth, whirling around in the trap set by ishq-e-majazi. Have you noticed the irony, Manto bhai? Ishq-e-majazi is worldly love, it’s like loving a picture or a symbol; and ishq-e-haqiqi, which is only directed at Allah, is true love. What does this mean? We are all shadow puppets, spinning about in a symbolic forest of love.

This life of ours—the act of being born—what is it but ishq? This is worldly love, ishq-e-majazi. And the closer we approach death, the path of divine love, ishq-e-haqiqi, opens up before us. You have to keep ishq-e-haqiqi only for the Lord. You no longer have Begum Falak Ara before you, nor Munirabai, nor Manto bhai’s Begu or Ismat, there’s only he, Alhamdulillah. But how many of us can actually tread that path? Maula Rumi did. Each of us is a moth, whirling around in the trap set by ishq-e-majazi. Have you noticed the irony, Manto bhai? Ishq-e-majazi is worldly love, it’s like loving a picture or a symbol; and ishq-e-haqiqi, which is only directed at Allah, is true love. What does this mean? We are all shadow puppets, spinning about in a symbolic forest of love.

Who will explain, tell me, that the thinnest thread separates the insane from the sane? Some people can smother their dreams, others cannot; the one who cannot goes mad, while the other one behaves like a normal person, but what he has been hiding might well come out one day, for he has no control over it. That is why I used to think all human beings are on the road to madness, although no one can predict just when the djinn will possess them.

At the end of the day, soldiers can fight wars and raze cities, but they can never usher in freedom