E-Paper
Kashmir: Notes of love and loss in the time of siege
Poets and activists bring attention to the common people of Kashmir in words and visuals
She steps out to shout as though her voice will somehow reach home: “Are you able to buy food during curfew in Kashmir?” Then she feels guilty for she is sure that at home, they’ve stripped the last green from the leaves and so she straightens her face and strolls back in. Asiya Zahoor, a poet and linguist from Baramula who studied in the Oxford University, scribbles a poem thus of concern and despondence for she knows no cry will reach home.
Manjiri Indurkar, a poet and writer from Jabalpur, puts her words together saying ‘This poem is not for Kashmir’: “I wanted to write a poem for Kashmir but I can’t. It is not my land. It is not my home, and it will never be. I wanted to send love cooked in the spices that Aai makes every year. So they know it is from their friendly neighbour but I can’t, not when I have taken away all their plates, their spoons, their kitchens, their living room. Their children and their playgrounds, their youth, and their arms and legs; Home is neither here, nor there, for Kashmir.”
Such are the outpourings that are coming from Indians living in different parts of the country and abroad on social media as against the rude posters, caricatures and videos that are being circulated in the name of pseudo nationalism by faithful of different political parties. However, what saddens the heart of the those who read these words of love and loss is the pain that underlines the valley once celebrated as heaven on earth.
No visitor will ever quote the Amir Khusro couplet as once an emperor did on seeing the beautiful valley of Kashmir: Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast, Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast (If there is a paradise on earth, It is this, it is this, it is this!) No Bollywood film will ever be able to sing a celebratory song in the voice of Mohammad Rafi: ‘Yeh waadi-e-Kashmir hain jannat ka nazara’ because the lyrics and music will only strike a false note in the given circumstance and also the long history of this conflict zone.
When words fail, there are those who turn to images and the recent siege in Kashmir has provoked the invocation of the famous painting of the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch ‘The Scream’ on social media by Sudip K Das from Pondicherry with these words inscribed on it: “Murder of the constitution today!” Gurpreet Singh, a non-resident Indian, invokes the image of a Kashmiri girl in a poster for a convention calling out for a pluralist India in Surrey with the words: “Stand With Kashmir”.
A poet once said that one does not write poetry in sad times but there are those who are circulating poems that others have written on such conflict in the past. Radical Hindi poet Manglalesh Dabral’s poem ‘A Manifesto for Murders’ is doing the rounds and poet Nabina Das writes from Hyderabad laments, “I have a new job. I’m no longer a poet. I have a new pen. And I no longer know how to rhyme. They call me an obit-writer.”
The late Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Kashmiri’s ‘Postcard from Kashmir’ is being quoted over and again: “Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox, my home a neat four by six inches is being quoted over and again.” Also being quoted is the couplet of Mir Taqi Mir (1723 to 1821): “Ibtedaae ishq hai rota hai kya, Aage aage dekhiye hota hai kya! (Why do you bemoan when it is only the beginning of love, Wait and see what happens when you move on ahead).” The last is in satire which often becomes the survival shield of people in sorrowful times.
