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AH, WHAT IF I HAD NOT BEEN!
When there was nothing there was God,
And when nothing was, God surely was,
It is being something that has brought me down,
Ah, my greatness, if I had not been!
When this head has become inert to pain,
Then, why grieve if it is beheaded,
If it had not been cut off from the neck ,
On its beloved lap it would have been.
Though years have passed since Ghalib died,
Yet I miss him a lot even today,
And that oft-quoted saying of his:
What if that instead of this had been!
