Rabisankar Bal > Quotes

“Anyone can write history. All it needs is memory. But to write a story you must have the power to dream.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell

“These letters, and then words, and then sentences, that are written on your manuscript are all answers to questions. Writing is nothing but a long journey of confronting questions. Accomplishment will bring you peace, but will not make a writer of you.”
― Rabisankar Bal, A Mirrored Life: The Rumi Novel

“Their lives are like measuring tapes, and they want to trim the lives of other people to same measurements”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“history is not an event or a story, history is an obligation, which you are compelled to bear during your human existence.”
― Rabisankar Bal, A Mirrored Life: The Rumi Novel

“If you have to die like a worm, die that way, complaining will not fetch you anything extra.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“Why does time erase me thus, O Lord?
I’m no redundant letter on the page of the world”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell

“Has anyone ever been able to prevent the dead from talking to one another?”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell

“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.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“The seed of death sprouts within the desire for union.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“Kafka’s short story ‘Judgement’.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell

“Karbala is what happens when this life becomes an expanse of death. That is the destiny of the writer of stories, janab.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell

“I’m not the flowering of a song, nor the flow of melody
I am the echo of the shattering sound of my defeat”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell

“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.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell

“At the end of the day, soldiers can fight wars and raze cities, but they can never usher in freedom”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“Misery vanishes when you get used to misery
I suffered so much that it became easy”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“सआदत हसन मंटो!’ —क़िस्से उन्हें ढूँढ़ते फिरते थे।”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“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.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“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.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“भला गर्दिश फ़लक की चैन देती है किसे, इंशा
ग़नीमत है के हमसूरत यहाँ दो चार बैठे हैं।”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“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.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“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.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell

“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.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“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.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“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।”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“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?”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell

“But unless our surroundings are well maintained, we cannot be beautiful inside.”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama

“Words are flowers, if you can't see their colours or smell them, they're nothing but dead letters.”
― Rabisankar Bal

“मुझे लोगों को भूलभुलैया में घुमा कर मारने में बहुत अच्छा लगता है।”
― Rabisankar Bal, Dozakhnama