इश्क़ ने ‘ग़ालिब’ निकम्मा कर दिया
वरना हम भी आदमी थे काम के
Ishq ne ‘Ghalib’ nikamma kar diya
Warna hum bhi aadmi the kaam ke
TRANSLATION
Love has rendered Ghalib useless; otherwise, I too was once a capable man, good for something.
EXPLANATION
This couplet is one of Ghalib’s most charming and self-deprecating, and it has become a folk saying in its own right. The structure is a mock-lament: love is blamed for ruining a perfectly functional man. The word “nikamma” — useless, worthless, idle — is delivered with a comic sigh rather than real bitterness.
The humour lies in the gap between the grand subject (ishq, love, the loftiest theme in the ghazal tradition) and the mundane complaint (it made me good-for-nothing). Ghalib deflates the romantic ideal by treating love not as ennobling but as a kind of productivity disaster, as though he had once held a respectable job before love came along.
“Warna hum bhi aadmi the kaam ke” — otherwise I too was a man of use — carries a wonderful wistfulness. The phrase “hum bhi,” I too, implies that he watches other capable, productive people and remembers wistfully that he used to be one of them before love disqualified him from ordinary life.
Beneath the comedy is a genuine observation about obsessive love: it does in fact hollow out a person’s ability to function in the practical world. The lover becomes consumed, distracted, indifferent to ambition and reputation. Ghalib captures this real psychological truth but wraps it in a joke, which is exactly why it lands so well.
The couplet also fits Ghalib’s larger self-image as a man undone by his own passions — for love, for wine, for poetry itself. He turns his failures into a persona, the lovable wreck, and invites the reader to laugh with him rather than pity him. That blend of confession and comedy is a signature of his appeal.