Category: Uncategorized

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Chanama

Give me tea, O Saqi, and let there be no delay;
let me have it bitter, if milk and sugar are not at hand.
Had Jamshid taken a draught from this pot,
his slow-beating pulse would have run like deer.
Have you heard the boiling kettle of tea cry bagg bagg?
Verily you would say it was Mansur shouting ana al-haqq.
There is a reference in the Book of God
Bread to eat and tea to drink
~ lines from Chanama (“A Tea Poem”) of Mulla Hamidullah ‘Hamid’, (d.1848) Persian poet of Shahabad, Kashmir.
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Tota Kaul’s Ragamala

First sarg (sa) has been taken from the cry of peacock; second, rekhya (re) taken from the cry of skylark (Papiha), third, gandhar (ga) from the sound of goat; fourth, madhyam (ma) has been copied from the voice of heron (Kulang); fifth, pancham (pa) from the melody of nightingale (Kokil), sixth, dhyot (dha) from the neighing of horse; and seventh nishad (ni) has been taken from elephant’s trumpet.
~ Pandit Raja Ram Kaul ‘Tota’, Ragamala
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SearchKashmir on your Wall #1


Every once in a while, someone would email me asking for an old photograph of Kashmir, a piece of SearchKashmir, so that they can put it on their wall, on their ‘Kashmir wall’. I would gladly oblige.

A couple of months back, a reader, Bhawna asked for a bunch of old photographs for a wall in her ‘Kashmir room’. I helped her with the photographs, but this time I asked for something back. I asked her to send me the images of her wall once it was done. I wanted to see what people are doing with these images. What it means to them.

Here’s Bhawna’s Kashmir wall:

I am thankful to Bhawna for sharing these images and her wall!

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If you have a piece of SearchKashmir on your wall, do share your wall.

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Superman complex

Doctor, what do you call this condition…this particular complex displayed by the Kashmiri Pandits?
I call this ‘Superman’ complex. An average Kashmiri Pandit walks this earth like the man of steel from Krypton. The explanation is simple. Since 1990, they think they are Supermen. Think about it. A planet gets destroyed, someone from it survives and finds shelter on a new planet where he can’t truly be himself even if the new planet has made him more powerful. He has taken upon himself to fix and protect his adopted planet, lest it ends up like his home planet. And he does it more zealously than the actual inhabitants. He is often misunderstood, almost despised and certainly envied. He gets weak in the knees anytime he comes close to a lost fragment from his old planet, his Kryptonite, the other ‘K’s. Often his villains are from his old planet while allies are from the adopted planet. His powers increase as he gets closer to Delhi, Delhi being the proverbial sun. And goes for meditation to Jammu, his Fortress of Solitude, to talk to dead ancestors. So you see, Pandits are essentially living out the Superman fantasy.
Thank you Doctor Saheb for the gyaan. Tohi chev mahaan. Namaskaar.
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Untitled Post

“It is here today that a struggle is being fought,
not in the battlefield but in the minds.”
~ Nehru
That winter, out of mind,
two parts of his brain declared war on each other.
Third one sat unperturbed in a corner thinking,
‘Let it all be over. I shall wait. Imagine, I am not even here.’
City was hit by palsy.
Shivers, they say, lasted two decades.
A decade later, many empty skulls with broken windows
were sold cheap in flea markets of his brain.
Many a birds made nest in them even as
many a birds had flown away to foreign lands. Or, to paradise.
Two decades later, they asked him,
‘Son, what do you see in your sleep?’
In delirium, he replied,
‘I see the demon of civilisation dance.
I see two elephants,
each with memories running back hundred years,
lock their tusks in violent embrace.
I see Mihirakula laugh.
I hear the elephants shriek as they fall off the tea table.
I see many a skulls trample under their feet.
I see they all are now prints on your kaleen.
And I see a third elephant too in the room,
in a corner silently knitting yarn
to keep war war-m for a winter lasting
another hundred year.’
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Untitled Post

bonn’e gal’mit Shaster hund daryaav
heyrr’e kre’hinis asmaanas na gasaan graav
manz kani girdas pyeth bihith
Lall’e Ded wadaan, ‘Magar, Battan gov na khaak’
Mansur Hallaj chakaan naar, ‘Hum kya chahte, azaadi’

Below, a river of molten Iron
Above, an indifferent black sky
In the middle
afloat on a loaf of bread
Lal Ded cries, ‘But, what about Kashmiri Pandits?’
Masoor Hallaj again breathes fire, ‘ What we want, Freedom!’

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Untitled Post



Is your city dead and decaying?
Does it smell of rotten flesh?
Are its trees of plastic?
Gardens…well maintained wastelands?
Do you still worry, ‘Waters are poisoned!’?
Wonder, ‘Where have the great lakes gone?’
Where is Maar?
Where is Kul?
Are you now allergic to spring flowers too?
Are your boots still muddied when it rains?
Is snow a recurrent disease?
Is Sri a pain to the eyes, for you can see
what has become of this city
Just tell me:
Are you from Srinagar too?
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Untitled Post



From my throne high up on 
Parbat
every morning
Down below
I see him make his way to the temple, 
the mosque, the shop, the job…
Every morning
I hurl down a pebble at his head
Every morning
my head hurts


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