Na tha kuch toh Khuda tha, kuch na hota toh Khuda hota

When nothing was, then God would be; if nothing were, God still would be. This state of being drowned me here; had I not been, what would there be?

So numb with grief, what should I dread if from my shoulders falls my head? Were it not severed, it would be laid gently, grieving, on my knee.

It’s ages now since Ghalib died, yet in his words, we still can see His constant query, “If ’twere thus, then tell me, what would there be?”