This is perhaps Ahmad Faraz's most famous and most quoted romantic couplet, and it represents the classical Urdu romantic tradition at its most self-aware and psychologically complex. The speaker, knowing that the beloved will only bring pain, invites them anyway — explicitly framing the invitation in terms of the pain itself.

The phrase 'Ranjish hi sahi' — 'even if it is only resentment/bitterness' — is devastating in its honesty. The speaker does not pretend to expect warmth or reciprocation. They know the reunion will be difficult, possibly hostile. And yet — 'dil hi dukhane ke liye aa' — come, even just to hurt my heart. The pain of the beloved's presence is preferable to the pain of their absence.

In the second line, the paradox deepens: 'aa phir se mujhe chhod ke jaane ke liye aa' — come, even just to leave me again. The speaker is inviting the beloved to re-enact the original abandonment. This is not masochism but something more psychologically true: the need to re-experience the real, however painful, over the unreality of the beloved's permanent absence. Ahmad Faraz gave this complex emotional state its perfect form.