The heart’s strange ability to miss and mourn

Human emotions rarely follow simple rules. We can miss someone who has hurt us. We can remember a relationship with affection even when it ended badly. A familiar song can bring a smile and tears at the same time.

Parveen Shakir understood these contradictions with unusual sensitivity.

In one of her beautiful couplets, she writes:

Kuchh to hawa bhi sard thi kuchh tha tera khayal bhi
Dil ko khushi ke saath saath hota raha malal bhi.

The cold wind and the memory of someone special come together. The heart experiences happiness, but sadness accompanies it.

There is nothing dramatic about the scene. No grand declaration of love, no extraordinary event. Just a passing moment and a memory.

Yet that is what makes the thought so real.

We often believe that love should make us happy. When it brings pain, we begin to question whether the feeling was genuine. But human relationships are rarely so clear.

A person may have shared wonderful years with someone before the relationship ended. Does the ending make all those years meaningless?

Certainly not.

Similarly, missing someone does not always mean we want that person back in our lives. Sometimes we miss the memories, the comfort or even the people we once were.

Shakir’s poetry gives such complicated feelings a voice.

It also becomes interesting when read from a woman’s point of view. For generations, women were often expected to remain silent about their desires, disappointment and emotional struggles. They were praised for sacrifice and patience, sometimes at the cost of their own happiness.

Shakir’s wider body of work challenges such expectations by placing a woman’s feelings and choices at the centre of poetry.

Her words also remind us that emotional strength does not mean the absence of sadness.

We often tell people to forget the past and move on. The advice may be well intended, but healing does not happen on command.

Some memories remain with us. Over time, they may stop hurting as much, but that does not mean they disappear.

Perhaps maturity lies in accepting that happiness and sadness can exist together.

A person can be grateful for what happened and still regret how it ended.

The heart is not always a place of clear answers. Sometimes its deepest truth lies in the feelings it cannot separate.