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Rhamon a boy of Kashmir, 1939

From ‘Our summer in the vale of Kashmir’ (1915) by Frederick Ward Denys. Below you can see the impact that these images from Kashmir had in shaping the western imagining of this land.

A page from a children’s book set in Kashmir and written around 1939.

 ‘Rhamon  a boy of Kashmir by Heluiz Washburne,  pictured by Roger Duvoisin‘ (1939).

The book tells the story of a little Kashmiri boat boy who is deputed by the King to visit the city on a special mission. There is houseboats, floating gardens, a mela, a trip to the big city alone, adventure, all the ingredients that would trigger the imagination of a young child. Most of the illustrations in the book are based on some old photograph of Kashmir, and in some cases (like the case of stealing of floating gardens) based on an old travelogue.

This is from a time when you could tell children wonderful stories about Kashmir – a far-off exotic land of simple, beautiful people, with a nice king – without you having to worry that they would one day grow-up and probably think that the world is actually a very messy place to be.

Yes, definitely it is a book meant for children

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Update: Below is an alternative view of the first image of “Living Human Welcome” published in National Geographic, Vol 40, 1921. We can see here that unlike the first image the word “welcome” is not mirrored, it actually spells right. Also, if one goes by the caption, the event was held to welcome the British viceroy (should be Minto and his wife) into Kashmir and not the Maharaja as claimed in the book ‘Our summer in the vale of Kashmir’ (1915) by Frederick Ward Denys.

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Group of Kashmiri Pandits, 1909

Came across it in ‘Modern India’ by William Eleroy Curtis (1909). Photographer: Unknown. In the book the group is not identified as Kashmiri pandits but the fact is obvious from their dress.

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Update: Photographer was Jadu Kissen. Another (bigger) version of the same image. Came across it in ‘Le Tour du Monde; À travers la Perse Orientale Journal des voyages et des voyageurs; 2e Sem.’ (1905) which carried Kashmir travelogue by F. Michel.

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Of Kings, Persian Princes, Kashmiri Damsels and European Art

A drawing from 1860s by Austrian artist Moritz von Schwind (1804-1871). Found it in ‘Schwind des Meisters Werke’ (1906) by Otto Albert Weigmann. The drawing is based on the story of “The Magic Horse” that appears in The Arabian Nights/Thousand and one nights. The scene depicts a Prince of Persia rescuing a Princess of Bengal from a King of Kashmir.

The are a couple of variations of the story (as it reached west) but mostly goes something like this: An Indian arrives in Shiraz with a magical mechanical flying horse. The price of Shiraz takes it for a test ride without knowing the landing instruction. He somehow lands in Bengal and brings back a princess with her. The Indian steals the princess and flies away to Kashmir. The king of Kashmir rescues the princess from the Indian by killing him but wants to marry the princess much against her wish. Princess loves prince of Shiraz. Meanwhile, the prince of Shiraz arrives in Kashmir with a plan to take back the princess. His plan works and he flies away on magic horse with the princess.

What is interesting about Schwind’s this particular painting is that in an earlier version of it the reaction of King of Kashmir was muted, he was an amazed spectator. But in the later painting, the one we see here, the Kings and his courtiers are gesticulating in helpless anger. Schwind took the text, in which no mention is made of reaction of King of Kashmir and added a layer of emotion over it.

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‘Aakho Sherer-e-Sheerazo‘ (You have come from city of Shiraz) remains a popular Kashmiri song at weddings. It’s about women singing about an ideal bridegroom who arrives from Shiraz. Probably not related to the tale but an interesting fact.

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Hemjuneh, Princess of Kashmir, be-spelled and held prisoner behind a trap door.

From ‘Tales of the Persian Genii’ (1917) by Francis Jenkins Olcott. Illustration by Hungarian illustrator Willy Pogany(1882 – 1955).

The story is told by Mahoud, a jeweller of Delhi, who tries to free her from a merchant of Fez who serves an an evil Enchantress, but is turned into a red toad. Her story is something like this:

A King of Kashmir wants to marry her daughter to the prince of Georgia but the girl does not want to get married at all. Then one day an enchantress in the form of an old woman hands her a handkerchief having a sketch of a handsome man. Enchanted, the princess resolves to marry that man. She seeks that old woman’s help and is flown away to Fez only to realized that the Enchantress has brought her there on request of a local merchant who had heard her beauty. She is now stuck in a foreign land with a bunch of evil types. Luckily for her a good genie, a servant of Soloman, arrives who tries to help her. This genie first admonishes the princess for leaving home of her parents on her own will driven by words of some stranger. He then puts a spell on her to protect her. The spell works in a strange way. If the merchant of Fez looks at the princess, she shall fall asleep till the next full moon. She shall sleep behind a trapdoor that the merchant can only find on the night of full moon and can only be opened by a friend of his. It is in this scenario that the jeweller of Delhi opened the trapdoor for the merchant of Fez but then tried to help the princess.

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Kids chanting “Samamber has a lover in Iran” in front of  would-be husband of Samamber, daughter of Qazi of Kashmir. Haider Beg of Persia, a silent admirer of Samamber pays them to do it.

Illustration by Hilda Roberts for “Persian tales written down for the first time in the original Kermani and Bakhtiari, and tr. by D. L. R. Lorimer and E. O. Lorimer. (1919). The story is a Bakhtiari tale presented in the book. In this a story a woman from Kashmir goes to a place in Persia to collect herbs once every year. A man sees her and falls in love with her. The woman does’t like it, challenges him, almost kills the guy and goes back to Kashmir where her father arranges her marriage. The man from Persia arrives in Kashmir and tries to win her even as she is about to be married. After some twists, the woman falls for the Persian man and  goes away with him, gets married. Later still in the story, the man asks his wife to leave him and marry his best friend as his best friend has fallen in love with her (a scenario on Hindi cinema was to make countless flicks). She agrees. But at last moment truth is revealed, she is re-married to her original husband and everything turns out fine.

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Princess Farruchnas daughter of Togrul bey, who ruled over Kashmir. Doesn;t want to get married but later falls for Persian prince Farruchshad. From ‘Gulistan: Tales of Ancient Persia’ (1977) by Gotlinde Thylmann Von Keyserlingk, Karl Thylmann. The story is identified by Richard Burton as “Farrukh-Shad, Farrukh-Ruz, and Farrukh-Naz”.

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Saqi

Moti Lal Saqi (1936-1999)
a screen grab from an old docu on Kashmir made in 1980s.

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I would go home to my village, 
This city has stolen my rest…
My head on a stone in the willow-grove,
I’d sleep and sleep till end of day.
The shade of chinar in these mine eyes,
I’d drain the spring and cool myself …
~ Saqi writing in Jammu.
Tr. by Neerja Mattoo-0-

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Kashmiris by Bourne & Shepherd, 1908

Photo by Bourne & Shepherd. Samuel Bourne, a prolific British photographer who first visited Kashmir in 1864. The photograph is probably from around that time.

From ‘The world’s peoples; a popular account of their bodily & mental characters, beliefs, traditions, political and social institutions’ by A.H. Keane (1908).
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Maps, 1891

From ‘The Earth and Its Inhabitants, Asia, Volume 3’ (1891) by Elisée Reclus. [The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants ([1876-94]) V8]

Map of Srinagar. Names of some of the place are hard to identify with present Srinagar. Suggestion and corrections are welcome.[Update: some input from Yaseen Tuman on Facebook page of the blog:
road from Saidakadal bridge to Ashaibagh is no where
Amdakadal is exactly where Sadrebal is today
Sodarbal has to be corrected with Naushahar
]

Map of Jammu

Some other

Zoji La Pass [Based on a photograph by Samuel Bourne, 1864]

Srinagar Bridge

Map of Kashmir

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First Rambo in Kashmir, 1947

Life Magazine. 16 Feb, 1948.

An american construction company employed a 25 year old ex-G.I. from Brooklyn named Russell K. Haight Jr. who during World War 2 had been a non-combatant in France fighting for Canadian Army. After a fall from a cliff, he decided to head back home.But a chance encounter with officials operating the war in Kashmir took him to the Poonch front in southwestern Kashmir where he took part in fighting for two months. At that time all he knew was that Kashmir had a Dogra king and he didn’t like that.

With his american no-fuss attitude he was soon promoted to brigradier general in the tribal army, a rank he later claimed was given to him as a joke by British army officers. On the front he learnt to handle the maundering and looting tribals by playing upon their vanities and tribal rivalries.

But his big american dream of action-adventure did not last long. He got into a fight with Pathans over some machine guns recovered from a downed Indian Air Force place. He killed the guys and became a fugitive. After arriving back in America via Karachi, in an interview with  Robert Turnball for New York Times*,
he created a few ripples by claiming that the fighting in Kashmir was managed by Pakistan Army, that the land proclaimed as Azad Kashmir was managed by a puppet of Pakistan. That there had been assasination attempts on his life for criticizing the way the war was being handled. And yet he remained sympathetic to the “cause”.

After the news spread, a communist paper in India claimed him to be an american spy and proof of American meddling in internal affairs of other countries.Around the same time an american author from New York named Nicol Smith (Golden doorway to Tibet, 1949) claimed there was some pro-Russia activity happening in Leh, that the Yarkhandi traders in Leh may be Russian agents. He claimed that there was a chance that the king of Leh may seek help from Russia and seek a separate way out. The old great game just kept going on with old and new players.

In 1967, Russell K. Haight retired from U.S. army as a sergeant-major after a long career of fighting in Korea, Germany, Bolivia and Vietnam.

After he passed away in 2006, there was small news item in an Indian paper on the american man who fought for the other side.

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*The Limits of influence: America’s Role in Kashmir by Howard B. Schaffer (2009)

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Untitled Post

[…] the system of the colonial rule that indulges in inhuman exploitation by imposing an artificial peace in the society:

Ghoom rahi sabhyata danavi, shanti-shanti karti bhootal mein,
Poochhey koi, bhigo rahi wah kyon apne vishdant garal mein.
Tank rahi hon sooyi charm, par shant rahen ham, tanik na dolen;
Yehi shanti, gardan katthi hon, par hum apni jeebh na kholen.
Bolein kuchh mat kshudhit, rotiyan shwan chin khayen yadi kar se,
Yehi shanti, jab we aayen, hum nikal jaayen chupke nij ghar se
Choos rahe hon danuj rakth, par hon mat dalit prabudh kumari!
Ho na kahin pratikaar paap ka, shanti ya ki yeh yudhh kumari.

(The monster civilization moves, urging peace on the earth,
Let’s ask, why does it soak its teeth in poison.
You sew up our skin, but desire peace and no resistance from us
This is the peace, where necks are severed, but expects us to be tongue-tied.
The hungry should remain voiceless, even if the falcon snatches food from their hands
This is the peace, where when they invade, we should quietly leave our homes
The monsters may be sucking their blood, but don’t want the oppressed to be conscious
They do not want injustice to be resisted; for you, O maiden, either this peace or war.)

~ from ‘Ramdhari Singh Dinkar: Makers of Indian Literature’, Sahitya Akademi.

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