This is among Nida Fazli's best-known couplets and a quiet argument about the nature of devotion. The first line concedes a practical fact — the mosque is far — and the second offers a nearer form of worship: comforting a crying child.

It is not an attack on ritual. The word 'chalo yun kar lein' (let us do it this way) is casual, almost cheerful, as if proposing a different route to the same place. The couplet implies that kindness to the nearest vulnerable person is itself an act of prayer.

Its power lies in tone. There is no sermon, no accusation of hypocrisy; only an invitation to a task that can be completed in the next five minutes.