There is much to be learned from the great poets of our olden times. Mirza Ghalib, a spectacle of the early 19th century, and Hafiz Sherazi, a 14th-century Persian poet whose work is often regarded as the pinnacle of Persian literature, both offer us profound lessons through their intellectual and emotional acuity, which we must turn to from time to time.

Safina jab ke kinare pe aa laga Ghalib

Khuda se kya sitam o joure nakhuda kahiye

When the ship has at last reached the shore, Ghalib,

what grievance can remain against God or the ship's master?

The couplet holds that quiet wisdom which comes only when complaint has exhausted itself before the whims of fate. The voyage has spent its fury, the winds have lost their sting, and the traveller, humbled but not broken, stands at peace with what once appeared as merciless adversity. There is a........

© The Express Tribune