Agha Shahid Ali was one of the finest poets the world has known. A Kashmiri by origin, many of his poems are set in the backdrop of Kashmir. Although settled in the United States of America, his poems vividly describe the Kashmiri uprising and the then scenario.
He was a hero for many, one who had given voice to Kashmiri sentiments. His poetry has been praised worldwide. A few extracts from some of his poems I have mentioned in this post.
I find 'The wolf's post script to Little Red Riding Hood' very amusing and worth sharing:
First, grant me my sense of history:
I did it for posterity,
for kindergarten teachers
and a clear moral:
Little girls shouldn't wander off
in search of strange flowers,
and they mustn't speak to strangers.
And then grant me my generous sense of plot:
Couldn't I have gobbled her up
right there in the jungle?
Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?
As if I, a forest-dweller,
didn't know of the cottage
under the three oak trees
and the old woman lived there
all alone?
As if I couldn't have swallowed her years before?
And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,
now my only reputation.
But I was no child-molester
though you'll agree she was pretty.
And the huntsman:
Was I sleeping while he snipped
my thick black fur
and filled me with garbage and stones?
I ran with that weight and fell down,
simply so children could laugh
at the noise of the stones
cutting through my belly,
at the garbage spilling out
with a perfect sense of timing,
just when the tale
should have come to an end.
By Kashmiris he is known and still remembered for the heart wrenching lines he wrote for his homeland. His death was immense loss to Kashmiris. Their only voice was lost. Agha Shahid Ali had breached an opening for the thoughts and agony of the Kashmiris.
Let me cry out in that void, say it as I can. I write on that void: Kashmir, Kaschmir, Cashmere, Qashmir, Cashmir, Cashmire, Kashmere, Cachemire, Cushmeer, Cachmiere, Casmir. Or Cauchemar in a sea of stories? Or: Kacmir, Kaschemir, Kasmere, Kachmire, Kasmir. Kerseymere?
The following is an excerpt from ‘Postcard from Kashmir’:
Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox,
my home a neat four by six inches......
......This is home. And this the closest
I'll ever be to home. When I return,
the colors won't be so brilliant,
the Jhelum's waters so clean,
so ultramarine. My love
so overexposed.
Although far away from home, Agha Shahid Ali writes about Kashmir in the most ardent manner. His separation from his motherland becomes the reason for his growing passion for Kashmir. It is no longer the place he knew but he recreates an image of his home. His familiarity with Kashmir is limited to the news he receives in his mailbox. A feeling of helplessness creeps in as he realises how far away from home he is.
Agha Shahid Ali beautifully expresses the two contrasting sides of Kashmir, heaven on one end, hell let loose on the other. The bloodied face of terror and torture is revealed in the backdrop of serene beauty. It is this ability of his that makes one vulnerable to the disturbing truth of this place, such that his poetry touches the hearts of the masses in the most tragic manner.
The following is an excerpt from ‘The Blessed Word’:
Shahid brings to life, the torment faced by the local Kashmiris, where they are asked to prove their identity, asked to prove that they are indeed who they claim to be, asked by men who came as visitors, and decided to settle down and dominate. He talks about thousands of those who disappeared and never returned as Kashmir continues to be under the surveillance of those who claimed to be the mightiest.
“Srinagar was under curfew. The identity pass may or may not have helped in the crackdown. Son after son- never to return from the night of torture-was taken away. “Srinagar hunches like a wild cat: lonely sentries, wretched in bunkers at the city’s bridges , far from their homes in the plains, licensed to kill.”
The following is an excerpt from ‘I see Kashmir from New Delhi at midnight’:
From Zero Bridge
a shadow chased by searchlights is running
away to find its body. On the edge
of the Cantonment, where Gupkar Road ends,
it shrinks almost into nothing, is
nothing by Interrogation gates
so it can slip, unseen, into the cells:
Drippings from a suspended burning tire
are falling on the back of a prisoner,
the naked boy screaming, “I know nothing.”
"Rizwan, it’s you, Rizwan, it’s you," I cry out
as he steps closer, the sleeves of his phiren torn.
"Each night put Kashmir in your dreams," he says,
then touches me, his hands crusted with snow,
whispers, “I have been cold a long, long time.”
"Don’t tell my father I have died," he says,
and I follow him through blood on the road
and hundreds of pairs of shoes the mourners
left behind, as they ran from the funeral,
victims of the firing. From windows we hear
grieving mothers, and snow begins to fall
on us, like ash. Black on edges of flames,
it cannot extinguish the neighborhoods,
the homes set ablaze by midnight soldiers,
Kashmir is burning:
Agha Shahid Ali talks about Rizwan, the victim, one among many who face the same end as him. The fear in which the Kashmiri youth lives is recreated as Shahid writes about one such young man being chased by the army as he begs for his life and repeatedly proclaims his innocence. These lines further talk about Moulvi Farooq’s funeral procession.
By that dazzling light
we see men removing statues from temples.
We beg them, “Who will protect us if you leave?
”
They don’t answer, they just disappear
on the road to the plains, clutching the gods.
I’ve tied a knot
with green thread at Shah Hamdan, to be
untied only when the atrocities
are stunned by your jewelled return, but no news
escapes the curfew, nothing of your shadow,
and I’m back,
five hundred miles, taking off
my ice, the mountains granite again as I see
men coming from those Abodes of Snow
with gods asleep like children in their arms.
The departure of the Kashmiri Pandits was a major loss. Shahid in a touching manner narrates the exodus of the Pandits, who were never able to return, who as much belonged to Kashmir as the local Muslims.
Some wounds time may heal, but how does one compensate for such loss? The loss was not of just those Pandits who left, but also of those Muslims who stayed back and continued to live, never being able to fill the void thus created. God knows, Kashmir never knew of religious distinction, how happily the two communities lived like one, until misfortune knocked on the doors of Kashmir.
Shahid died of brain tumour, at the age of 52, on December 8, 2001 at Massachusetts. He had wished to be carried to Kashmir, such that he could live his last days, and be laid to rest at home. Due to various reasons he changed his mind about being carried to Kashmir and was buried at Northampton.
Agha Shahid Ali continues to live in the hearts of those who admired his poetry and especially all those Kashmiris who respect and cherish him for the love he had for his motherland. Years later after his death, he is still remembered as the voice of Kashmir, resounding as loud and clear as ever. Even though not actually being among those who suffered as a result of the upsurge, his poems seem to be a first hand account of the unfortunate times that the valley experienced.
I will die, in autumn, in Kashmir,
and the shadowed routine of each vein
will almost be news, the blood censored,
for the Saffron Sun and the Times of Rain….
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