Mirza Ghalib wrote this sher in 1847. I first wrote about it in March 2024. I’m reposting it now, because I think it reads differently in 2026 than it did even two years ago.
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For when you feel that things are out of control.
arz hai:
rau meN hai raKhsh-e-umr kahaaN dekhiye thame
ne haath baag par hai na paa hai rikaab meN
(Pronunciation Note: Kh represents the Urdu letter (خ). It is a fricative, throaty sound, as in Khud (self) or chiiKh (scream). It is similar to the sound in “loch” in Scottish English.)
This sher is by Ghalib (b. 1797).
Following is a rough translation.
in motion is the horse of life let’s see where it stops
hands are not on the reins nor are feet in stirrups
Life is speeding by like an uncontrolled horse. I can’t get my hands on the reins, nor my feet in the stirrups. I am barely hanging on. How did I get on this horse anyway, and when did it start moving so fast? Where will it stop? Where will it take me? When it stops, will I be able to regain control, or does it mean the end of the ride? By its nature, a wild horse will run wild, so perhaps the best I can hope for is to stay in the saddle and not get tossed off. Or can I find another way to steer it?
Even a non-equestrian like me can appreciate the simile.
In his book tafhiim-e-Ghalib, the scholar S.R. Faruqi says about this sher: ” ‘kahaaN’ ke lafz ne is sher ko zamaan se nikaal kar makaan meN Daal diya hai” – the word ‘kahaaN’ has taken this sher out of time and put it into space. Because kahaaN means “where”, not “when”.
That is an interesting point. Usually, we think about our life as time passing away. Instead, we can imagine riding an uncontrolled horse called life which is racing through time. Without the reins, we can’t control its speed or direction. Without our feet in the stirrups, we are off-balance and unstable. Such is our journey through space-time.
The sher sparks many existential queries. As you ride your own unbridled raKhsh-e-umr, dear reader, it might be fun to ponder them.
When I first wrote this in 2024, those questions felt personal – about one life, and a private reckoning with time (or space) running away from you. Rereading it now, I don’t picture a single rider anymore. I picture all of us on the same horse: society, perhaps humanity itself. None of us mounted this horse alone, and none of us can simply dismount alone.
And the horse seems considerably less tame than the one I was imagining two years ago.
What we’re building in AI labs today adds a new dimension to Ghalib’s metaphor. We are deliberately building a horse that rapidly becomes stronger, faster, and more capable. That is the particular danger of the runaway horse this time: it may soon be too powerful for any hands to grasp the reins at all. What happens when that threshold is crossed? Where will the horse take us?