ya tuli khanjar remains the most popular Kashmiri song and it has remained so for more than 25 years. No Kashmiri Mehndi raat or as it is called in Kashmiri: Maenzraath, is complete without a performance of this song. Maenzraath, of course is the best and for some the only occasion when one gets to enjoy a performance of Kashmiri Music.
Check out the video of: ya tuli khanjar teh maaray, nata saani shabba rozay
This one is sung by singer Abdur Rasheed Hafiz, the best living proponent of Chhakri and Rof style of Kashmiri Music. At the beginning of the song, names of Hasan and Hussain are invoked; but, when the song is sung by pundits or even among a gathering og Pandits, this stanza is omitted.
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I couldn’t resist making an mp3 out of it. Download the song ya tuli khanjar (3 mb)
Enjoy.
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And now to quote the clichéd term music knows no boundaries .
She has made millions stay glued to music, and made them stay back with Aaj Jaane Ki Zidd Naa Karo.
Pakistani Ghazal singer Farida Khanum often referred as “Malika-e-Ghazal” (Queen of Ghazal) too has a Kashmiri origin. Her mother was a Kashmiri, and Gulgam village in Kupwara is claimed to be her ancestral village.
Looking around, I found one more connection. Her elder sister Mukhtar Begum (1911 – 1982), a great singer in her own right, was married to renowned Urdu drama writer, Agha Hashar Kashmiri of Yahudi Ki Ladki fame. Agha Mohammad Shah Banarsi was born in Banaras in 1879 to a family of Kashmiri Shawl sellers. Conscious of his Kashmiri ancestry, he opted for the name Agha Hashar Kashmiri and started writing dramas at a young age of 17. He shifted to Bombay and joined a theatre company. He was to script many films like Pooran Bhagat, Chandidas, Aurat Ka Pyar.
The popular Kashmiri song Bumbro Bumbro, a song so popular that grandmothers often sing it to the delight of their grand children, is from the first Kashmiri Opera ever performed and written, Bombur ta Yemberzal (Bumblebee and Narcissus).
Kashmiri poet Nadim, having seen a performance of White Haired Girl (Bai Mao Nu) in China, was inspired to write one along a similar style in Kashmiri language. White Haired Girl, first performed in 1945, told the story of trials and tribulations in life of a young peasant girl living in an exploitative society. White Haired Girl with its communist revolutionary theme was one of the eight plays permitted during the Cultural Revolution in China that lasted 1966 to 1976. Marshal Bulganin and Khrushchev, during the 1955 visit to Kashmir, saw the second production of Bombur ta Yambarzal. In 1971, the Soviet government conferred Nadim with the Soviet Land Nehru Award, an award given by Soviet Union to selected Indian artist in recognition of their outstanding work.
The cultural movement in Kashmir during that era starting 1930s and ending mid 1970s, like many other places in the world, was lead by many left leaning artists. Bombur ta Yemberzal first produced and performed in 1953, just as its Chinese inspiration, told the story a peasant girl and her tribulations. Based on a folk saying according to which although Bumblebee and Narcissus aspire to be together, they can never be together in their lives. First performed at famed Nedous Hotel and SP College Hall, both places of deep significance in the cultural scene of Kashmir, the play was a great success. The play had characters with names like Bombur, Yambarzal, Gullala, Maswal, Gilatoor, Agarwal, Tekabatani, Irkyoam, Wav and Harud. All these names had symbolic meaning with some of them like Bombur, Yambarzal, Wav and Harud being Kashmiri words for Bumblebee, flower Narcissus, Strong winds and Autumn respectively. Written at a time when Kashmir was going through a tumultuous phase that saw among many other events: 1953 arrest of Sheikh Abdullah and formation of Bakshi Government,* the Opera hoped for a better future as can be fathomed from its optimistic ending and was in someways a play on these events, Yambarzal and Bombur do get to meet at last.
The success of Bombur ta Yemberzal owned as much to Mohan Lal Aima, director and composer of music for the Opera. He took the tunes of already existing popular Kashmiri songs and by varying their rhythm, managed to create an original musical experience. For the song Bombro Bombro, its traditional Chakri tune was tweaked with a faster tempo to create a memorable song, a song that generation of Kashmiris were to sing.
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Recommended read:
One of the best articles, a first hand account written by Moti Lal Kemmu, about the Opera can be read at Kashmir Herald
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Footnote:
Another Kashmiri who has been awared Soviet Land Nehru Award: Prof. Saif-ud-Din Soz ( ex- Union Minister of Water Resources, ex- Union Minister of environment & Forests ) for his translation of Mikhail Il’in’s 1,00,000 Whys – a Trip Round the Room (1929) from Russian to Kashmiri.
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*BachhaNagma gained currency during the time of Bakshi Government as it was extensively used for sending out political messages.
Recently, I came across two Kashmiri songs sung by Indian Melody queen Asha Bhosle.
The songs are:
Lalas wantai chhu sawaal
Ha ashkI tchhooro, rashkI kerthas
The diction is almost flawless, one can hardly fathom that the song is being song by a non-Kashmiri and her voice sounds just as melodious in Kashmiri language.
You can listen to the songs here [Song Link]
(Audio quality isn’t the best. Still, it is worth listening)
After hearing these two songs, I decided to look around for other Kashmiri song (and songs with some Kashmiri Lyrics) sung by non-Kashmiri artists.
Here, is what I found:
The first one was the easiest as it is a song by one of my favorite Indian Bands – Indian Ocean, the sound of contemporary India. Amit Kilam, percussionist of the Band is a Kashmiri Pandit.
The particular song is Kaun from their best-selling album Kandisa. The wording are not altogether in Kashmiri, instead the song has a Kashmiri refrain to it. The song has sufi flavor and the rhythm (not particularly Kashmiri) to match it. Indira Kilam, mother of Amit Kilam wrote the Kashmiri lyrics for Kaun.
The song starts with the Kashmiri words:
Kein dhafna, gil mashrao, dayotsi dayotsi, meli bahaar
Samplings of the songs by the Band are available at their site. Although Kaun isn’t available at the site, looking up the album at a local music store would be a great idea as their music is magically ethereal.
The next song is by Bangladeshi Melody queen Runa Laila. Runa Laila was a big name in the Indian Subcontinent for much of the 70s the 80s. That she had sung a Kashmiri song came as a surprise to me.
The song is Kati chukh nundbanay and the lyrics are by Mahjoor, the dearest of Kashmiri poets. Recorded in the mid-70s, the song proved to huge hit in Kashmir and probably one of the reasons why my grandmother is a big fan of Runa laila.
Besides these artists, I have also heard Ila Arun singing in Kashmiri. Ila Arun, a folk-pop artist who was quite popular in the 80s and the early 90s although in the 90s she was known more for her bawdy movie songs with folkish touch of hoarseness. DD Kashir, launched in the year 2000 with much fanfare in Srinagar. As part of its launch celebration many artists from India like singer Lucky Ali (son of yesterday star comedian Mehmood) and Ila Arun were invited for a stage performance to be telecasted live on the newly launch Channel. Lucky Ali sang his song Maut (later used in the film Kaante) – it sounded too eerie for the simple reason that it was being telecasted from Kashmir. However, it was Ila Arun, who surprised the audience by singing a Kashmiri song.
For the next song, I looked at the obvious place to look for – Bollywood. For all it’s fascination with Kashmir, there aren’t many Kashmiri songs to be found in Bollywood.
There is a song Urzu Urzu Durkut from Yahaan (2005). Urzu Durkut is a Kashmiri blessing meaning ‘good health (ur zu) and strong knees (dur kut) ’. Although, the film won critical acclaim for its portrayal of Kashmir problem, I still had problems appreciating this seemingly sincere attempt.
The next movie is the most famous of all, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Mission Kashmir (2000). It was the upbeat music by musical trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, that introduced Kashmiri lyrics to rest of the Indians.
The songs were:
Bumbro Bumbro
Rind Posh Maal
Both these songs were based on two of the most popular Kashmiri compositions.
The original Rind Posh Maal was a love poem by a late 18th century Kashmiri poet, Rasul Mir. The popularity of the poem is obvious from the fact that the Kashmiri are still singing it. The original poem had the memorable lines.
Raza hen-zi-ya-ni naaz kyah anzni gardan
Ya illa-hi chesma bad-a nishi rachh-tan
Ga-tsi kam kyah cha-ni baar-ga-hi lo-lo
Rinda poshamal gindi-ney dra-yi lo-lo
How graceful the swan neck of henziyani looks,
Guard her from evil eyes, O Lord,
Thy bounty, she won’t lessen,
Lo, the dearest is going on an outing of fun and frolic
Henzi: an archaic Kashmiri word for woman.
The original composition Bumbro Bumbro is from the first Kashmiri Opera ever written, Bombur ta Yemberzal (Bumblebee and Narcissus). The original song still reverberates in the valley.
And we can watch a thousand faces
Made active by one lie.
-W.H. Auden’s “In Time of War”
I was eight out playing near the gate. I heard the sound.
No matter what people tell you, the sound of distant gunfire is not frightening.
I walked out of the wooden gate and looked around. I saw the spot where my cathad died a few months ago. Run over by a truck. The body wasn’t mangled. It seemed asleep in the middle of the road, a red trickle oozing out of its one ear. For cats death is just a trick. I was just a kid, I thought, had I taken it to a hospital maybe it would have lived. But, there are no hospitals for cats that block the national highway. I think the municipal people dumped it someplace wet. It didn’t even like water. But, it was dead, so I guess it didn’t matter. Toto died.
Unlike any other day, this day I did not sit down to write numbers of passing cars.
Instead, I went back in and dug out my buried sin. The pocketknife, I had stolen from my grandfather’s shaving kit. I dug it out from the empty plot in the maze of concrete plinth. My uncle was going to add another room to his new marital house. I dug out the knife and marveled at its smooth-black-asbestos grip. I put it back in its grave and loitered around some more, maybe to think up one more crazy game. By the time I got back to the house, the news was doing the rounds. I heard: Just around the corner Army had shot some local rogue right in the butt. People asked me, ‘where was you?’ and I replied, “ Outside”. They asked me if I did see anything, I don’t know why, but I lied. They put the words. What could I say. I replied, “ Yes, I saw it all. Two shots straight, aimed at his ass. The guy fell down; they picked him up and put him into a waiting van. I think he lived.” Guess that’s how a lie is born. I must have recited these lines a thousand times. I recited the lines on demand to cousins, uncles and their wives. And I watched a thousand faces made active by this one lie.
After all these years, the lie has died its silent death. But, I still dread the line, “Do you remember the cat that died?”
A Kashmiri wedding is always set off by a night of celebration – a night of singing and dancing, called Maenzraath or The Night of the Henna. The bride side and the groom side have their own separate Maenzraath ceremonies with relatives coming in for this nightly affair. The relatives dip their beak in lavish but pure vegetarian fest. The fest is vegetarian in case of Pandits as this day unlike any other day is holy of the holiest. The only fest non-vegetarian fest possible in a Kashmiri Pandit wedding is the ‘reception‘ dinner held on a convenient date following round-round round we go around the fire kund ― Saat pheras performed on the day of the Lagan.
After the fest, when everyone has had his say about the softness of paneer, wooliness of nadru, freshness of hakh, crispness of nadurchurma, mushiness of auluvchurma and unquestioned greatness of daal; the person about to get married is given a ceremonial bath by the aunts. Water is poured ― filtering through a chunni held by giggling children of the house – onto the embarrassed would be mahrin/mahraz seated below squatting on a choo’yk – a low wooden stool. The badi bua ― eldest sister of the man whose son or daughter is getting married, gets the honor of washing the feet of the bride/groom. On this night, and the few nights that follow, the would-be-bride is the mahrin or the Queen and the would-be-groom is the mahraz or the King. After the wedding, the bride for the first few years is mahrin and then just zanaan or woman. The groom is just roon or husband for the rest of his life.
Then start the henna ceremony starts with aplomb. Maenz is the Kashmiri word for Henna or Mehandi, the green leaves of which are made into a paste with tea water and daubed onto the palms of the would be bride or the budding groom. All those present lay down on mattress laid on the floor with a hugh laif or wool stuffed chaadars thrown on top of people to keep them warm, they all sit close to each other forming groups of their own near and dear ones, and still discussing the quality of aulavs or potatoes used in the fest. Men folks and women folks form separate groups. Some men especially brothers of the man and woman whose child is getting married can be found roaming around, trailing the vaza ―the koshur chef, bidding farewells to relatives who won’t be staying over night, and making the arrangements for the functions that would follow in the coming days and nights of the marriage. Older men sit down too, while still discussing the quantity of aulavs used in the fest. Young children run around and just be themselves, jumping on the hugh laifs,crushing the big toes of the old folks and laughing on hearing the teeth less Kashmiri curses shot at them from toothless mouths.
All these people get their hands painted by the persistent joyous aunts ― the mamis, the massis and the buas. The bowl of henna moves around, passing from one person to another, each person gets his hands daubed with a lump of henna; Its then that the real celebration starts. Singing and the dancing that continue into the wee hours of the morning with only kahwaand sheer chai breaks in between.
Tumbaknaris are handed over to the ladies and the women thump the sonorous-thick-yellow colored animal hide of this drum with both hands to the rhyming beats of the song. In West Asia: it is known as tumbari or tumbal and in Iran: Tunbak or Tumbakh. Women hold the brown-long earthen vent of the drum under their thigh or else keep it over the thigh griping its neck in their thick arms, it all depends on comfort and drumming style. Thalis or metal dishes taken out of the kitchen and women beat them with spoons. Pair of Khos or the copper cups, usually meant to drink sheer chai or the salt tea, are used as cymbals. And, so sits the troupe of singing ladies in a corner and they sing old songs in chorus.
The old ladies start Wanvun or the traditional chorus song. The ceremony is set off by a type of wanvun whose long trailing wordings urge all the ladies present to start singing as it is the wedding of a child brought up on invested love of mother, father, grandparents, uncles and aunts. This particular type of singing is called Henzae, an ancient form of singing in Kashmir that goes centuries back. Henzae a derivative of the Prakrit word ‘hanje’, roughly translates to ‘O lady!’. It sounds quite unique with its strange vocal syllabi of long trailing words.
Vuchhmay na zaatakas, prutshmay na kraanis kooree laanis namaskaar.
(I didn’t get your horoscope examined, nor did I inquire about your family ties; daughter dear, let us bow to destiny.)
So sing the old ladies.
This home band sings until the professionals move in.
The professional performers brought in for the celebration start the night with prayers. For Kashmiri Pandits, the singing typically starts with the rendition of a hymn to Lord Ganesh ― Om Shree Ganeshaya Namha. For Kashmiri Muslims, the singing starts with Bismellah ― Bismellah kaerith hyamoy vanivonuy. At a Kashmiri Pandit wedding, if the professionals brought in are all Muslims, then instead the ladies start the prayer singing, everyone else joining in and the musicians follow them on their instruments. In Kashmir, it wasn’t odd if you found the Muslim musicians singing along.
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I recall the first and the last Maenzraath ceremony that I ever attended in Kashmir. It was the late ’80s and I must have been eight.
This was going to the grandest Maenzraath of all that I have ever seen. It was the Maenzraath of my father’s youngest cousin brother. By Kashmiri standards, the family was “well off”, naturally, they had hired the best in the business for Maenzraath celebration. Gul Akhtar was coming. Normally, at Maenzraath the kind of musicians usually hired is bachkots or the boy band. A male dancer called bacha accompanies these musicians, he dresses up as a woman or tries to by wearing multi-colored-long-flowing frock and painted red cheeks. He takes turn dancing with everyone, everyone interested/uninterested in dancing. Men and women, dancing in jest. It’s called Bach’nagma.
But, not this time. This time, professional musicians had been hired.
After dinner, everyone moved to the huge hall on the highest floor of the big house. There was buzz in the air. Gul Akhtar is coming. Everyone found a wall to support the back; the hall filled in, everyone chirping. A space left in a corner for the musicians and the center of the hall left for Gul Akhtar. After the feet washing and the henna ceremony, and after the old ladies had sung their chorus songs and prayers, the musicians made an entry carrying their instruments. The harmonium, the Wasul/Tabla, the Setar/Sehtar or Sitar, the Nott― an earthen pot used as bass drum, the Gaagar or a brass pot beaten by the musician using his metal ringed fingers, and Saaz-i-Kashmir ― a variant of the Iranian Kamancha. It is played with a bow, it has three prominent strings, two of them made of silk. The silk strings made of fish skin and not just silk. Either side of the instrument having seven metal strings, the strings on the right side made of steel and the strings on the left side made of brass; quite an instrument and not many people remain who can talk to this complex instrument.
These musicians knew the language of these instruments. They occupied their corner of the room and began setting up the instruments. It was then that she entered. She must have been in her mid- thirties at the time, her skills honed each passing year, and now at the peak of her profession. She was not a waifish thin women, in fact with her painted red cheeks, she looked hale and hearty, a typical Kashmiri women. She was dressed in a traditional Kashmiri embroidered pink dress of thick clothing, her head covered in a headgear decorated with silver ornaments. Around, her ankles, she put on gungroos, heavy gungroos of maniacal sound. It’s difficult to forget a women who has gungroos tied around her feet. After friendly banter with some of the people present and meeting the grooms father, she staked claim to the center of the hall, striking the floor with quick musical movement of her feet, gungroos vibrating in controlled frenzy . I thought she was testing the strength of the wooden floor, testing if it could bear her heavy art. Then suddenly, on some unseen signal, the singing and the dancing started. She was singing in a high tone that needed no electric amplifiers, she was enacting the meaning and play of the words from the song, and with the rising notes, moving her feet and arms to the notes of music. Everyone looked awed by the performance that she was putting on. The hall filled up with music and the walls started to get warm. These were songs about marriage, about dreams of marriage, songs about henna and songs of love. Song for brothers, sisters, father, mother, uncles and aunts. Song for the lover and also song for the lover who could not be, songs of love unfulfilled, songs of Habba Khatoon and Arnimal. The songs that had Sufi meanings. The women folk present, sang along, giggling at some verse, at times they felt visible touched by some phrase bemoaning the fate of women, and at times they were shocked at some verbal jaunt of the song and the life given to the word by Gul Akhtar poised and decorous physical flaunt.
The men folk were excited. There were requests for songs, one after the other.
A song about dagger, heart and an unrequited love. This song sung
With men, this remains the most popular of the songs.
My father recounts that the eldest of his cousin brother got up to dance with Gul Akhtar and tried to hold her hand but she snubbed him down. A snubbing, that my father still gleefully remembers and my dear uncle would certainly like to forget, but I am sure he has not.
Gul Akhtar owned the night. The floor began to thunder. I really thought that the wooden beams bearing the house and the mud walls supporting the high rising house would collapse onto themselves. But, they held on, just vibrating to the mood of the song.
I put my head on grandmother’s thigh and wrapped my small arms around her, later, threw off the laif that was covering my legs, this winter night had turned sweetly warm; and I slept. With the falling and rising shrill metallic note of the chakkri, a loud thump of tumbaknaar, with the change of the beats of a song or a thali beaten out of turn, I would open my eyes and find the lady still dancing. The wooden floor was alive and still being played upon by her feet. And, I would go back to sleeping knowing that the house wouldn’t fall while Gul Akhtar danced. I slept.
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When my family migrated out of Kashmir, intermediately, we kept hearing news snippets about her. Hearsays. Some said that the militants had killed her; her body chopped up into pieces and buried some place unknown. Some said that she was alive but the new powers in Kashmir had forced her to stop performing, killed her art. Finally, some years ago, someone confirmed that she was alive and well. After a brief hiatus, she was singing again. She had only got older. I don’t think she dances any more, certainly not at marriage ceremonies, her age not permitting. Yet, the bird continues to sing her tunes.
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Photographs of Gul Akhtar courtesy of Funkar International, a beautiful initiative to revive the music of Kashmir. A big thanks!
Like some supremely beautiful woman, whose beauty is almost impersonal and above human desire, such was Kashmir in all its feminine beauty of river and valley and lake and graceful trees. And then another aspect of this magic beauty would come into view, a masculine one, of hard mountains and precipices, and snow-capped peaks and glaciers, and cruel and fierce torrents rushing to the valleys below. It had a hundred faces and innumerable aspects, ever- changing, sometime smiling, sometime sad and full of sorrow…I watched this spectacle and sometimes the sheer loveliness of it was overpowering and I felt faint…it seemed to me dreamlike and unreal, like the hopes and desires that fill us and so seldom find fulfillment. It was like the face of the beloved that one sees in a dream and that fades away on waking.
Words of a man smitten, words falling head over heels, these are words of Jawaharlal Nehru. Tariq Ali quotes these lines in his book The Clash of Fundamentalism: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity. In a chapter dedicated to Kashmir titled, The Story of Kashmir, Tariq Ali tells us:
Sheikh Abdullah promised liberation from Dogra rule and pledges land reform; Nehru perched the virtues of unremitting struggle against the empire and insisted that social reform could come only after the departure of the british; Ghaffar Khan spoke of the need for mass struggle and urged Kashmiris to throw fear to the wind: ‘You who live in the valley must learn to scale the highest peaks.’
In the last week of May 1940, Nehru along with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan paid a visit to Kashmir on an invitation of Sheikh Abdullah. This was when Nehru talked of Kashmir as a beloved. While Nehru was talking about Kashmir as a “beloved”, there were certain developments in the political scene of Kashmir that were to sow the seeds of a lasting turmoil.
In Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, on May 30, 1940 Nehru made an appeal to Kashmiri pandits advising them to support Sheikh Abdullah’s party National Conference (NC) in its struggle to assume power. Only recently, some pandit leaders had resigned from National Conference alleging an “oppressive communal atmosphere”. In April 1940, on Id Miladun Nabi day, Sheikh Abdullah made a very religious speech that made the pandit members of the party suspicious of the party’s secular nature. Prominent Kashmir pandit leaders of the party made strong protests, these inculed Pt. Jia Lal Kilam, Pt. Tarachand Bulbul who was popularly known as Kashyap Bandhu and Prernnath Bazaz, one of Sheikh’s closest allies, and a man whose standing is still very dicey even among the preset generation of Kashmiri pandits. The affair took a dramatic turn when Kashyap Bandhu and Jai Lal Kilam resigned from National Conference. But, Rushid Taseer writing in Twarikh-e-Hurriyat Kashmir (pages 90-99 vol II) gives an another reason for their resignation. According to the author, Pt. Nehru’s “beloved” trip was the real reason of discord. On 29th May 1940, Kashyap Bandhu objected to Nehru’s visit and asked Sheikh Sahib with whose permission he had invited Pt. Nehru. This little tiff led Kilam and Bandhu to resign from National Conference. They were to later rejoin the party’s working committee on June 1943.
This “beloved trip”, an enthusiastic crowd welcomed, these were Sheikh Abdullah’s followers; as also there were hostile demonstrations by certain people opposed to this alliance between Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah, their numbers yet minuscule.
Who were these protesters?
In 1931, Muslim Conference was formed in Srinagar, Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah, who had recently returned to Srinagar after doing his Masters in Chemistry, left his Government job as a teacher and became its first President. The party formed in response to Maharaja’s oppressive rule, among other things was having agendas like land reforms and removal of heavy taxation. This party, a representative of majority Muslim community of Kashmir, also had Hindu members like Pt. Prem Nath Bazaz and Kashap Bandhu and the lone Sikh leader, Sardar Budh Singh*, as its member. The national demands of self-rule were passed unanimously on 27th Aug. 1938. These minority leaders were among the signatories to the demand of self-government. Most of the Pandit community remained indifferent to these developments if not yet opening dismissive. It is pertinent to note here that initially the Pandits were even hostile to the social and cultural changes suggested by Kashyap Bandhu within the Pandit community. +
The party jumped into a more culturally inclusive politics in early 1938 after Sheikh Abdullah’s chance meeting with Pandit Nehru at Lahore railway station when the latter was on his way to North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Nehru was on his way to meet the Punjab President of the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) Mina Iftikharuddin and incidentally, Sheikh Abdullah and Bakhshi Ghulam Muhammad were the personal guests of Mina Iftikharuddin at that time. They accompanied Mina to meet Nehru at the railway station. The two Kashmiri’s, Abdullah and Nehru, formed an instant bond andNehru asked Abdullah to accompany him to the NWFP. The Sheikh agreed while G. M. Bakhshi got off at Shahadra station. In NWFP, they met Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan where Abdullah invited both Nehru and Ghaffar Khan for a visit to Kashmir.
The outcome of this chance meeting was: In March 11, 1939, Sheikh in his address to the standing committee of the state’s Peoples Conference, declared his support of the Indian National Congress. On the 26th March, the Kashmiri delegation lead by the Sheikh met Gandhi in Delhi. On his return to Srinagar, for the first time the flag of Indian National Congress was hoisted at the roof of the headquarters of Muslim Conference at Mujahid Manzil Srinagar. Many of the Muslim Conference members were mystified by the decision that was ratified by the party’s General Council on April 26, 1939. Some Muslim Conference leaders including Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas, a man with considerable clout over the party, opposed this move. Later, these very people and their supporters were to voice their dissent during Nehru’s visit. They were the protesters who couldn’t understand why religion was being kept out of the agenda.
This decision also widened the rift between Jinnah and Abdullah; the rift that was etched out during Jinnah’s visit to the Valley in May 1944. There was war of words between Mr. Jinnah who called the leaders of NC as ‘a gang of goondas‘ and Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah who retorted by saying “If Mr. Jinnah does not give up his habit of interfering in our politics, it will be difficult for him to go back in an honourable manner.” The long visit that lasted two months and a week was quite eventful, in one incident at a public meeting in Baramulla’s Masjid Lawns, the crowd almost heckled Jinnah when he got up on dais to speak. People rose up, unfolding banners with slogans: ‘Hindu Muslim Sikh Itihad – Zindabad‘ and ‘Qaid-e-Azam Sheri Kashmir, Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah – Zindabad‘. The event further rattled wary Jinnah. It is interesting to note that Alastair Lamb in his book Kashmir Disputed Legacy (Page 97) sums up this long visit of Jinnah writing:
” M.A. Jinnah, unlike Jawaharlal Nehru was extremely reluctant at this period of time to involve himself directly (or the Muslim League which he headed) in the internal affairs of the Princely State; such action would in his eyes have been constitutionally improper.
Instead it seems more likely that Jinnah found himself struggling against the Kashmiri leadership of the time, its private resolve and Congress influence on it. His talk about “Muslims have one platform, one Kalima and one God… All Muslims must come under one flag” found no appreciation.
Lines were going to be drawn and the process had started.
Earlier in April 1, 1939, Jinnah, in his reply to an address presented by Kashmiri students at the Aligarh Muslim University, declaimed:
“I can say with certainty that he [Sheikh Abdullah] is in the wrong. Having got himself ensnared by the Congress, which is thoroughly a Hindu organisation, he has put the ship of his community in a whirlpool. I understand that he is doing this out of ignorance and some misunderstanding. But I am fully satisfied that he will soon realise his mistake and will return to the right path, and will come to know that those whom he is considering his friends and at whose beck and call he is acting, are not his true friends but his enemies.”
Yet, in his 1936 private visit to Kashmir, Jinnah in his liberal avatar, had almost ceremoniously advised harmony between Hindus and Muslims.
Another significant visitor to Kashmir in the year 1944 was V.D.Savarkar, the man behind Hindutva ideology. It is equally interesting to note that Pandit S.N.Fotedar, the President of Yuvak Sabha told Savarkar that Hindu Fundamentalism was as alien a culture to Kashmir as Muslim Fundamentalism was. Much later in 1953, a point man of Hindutva, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, was to loose his life in Kashmir.
In the changed political scenario post Quit India Movement of 1945, Nehru along with Azad and Gaffar Khan, all recently released from prison, paid a visit to Kashmir and was given a rousing reception by NC, the reception included a splendid river procession. There were threats of disruption issued by the MC, and disruptions there were. This time the voice of dissent was stronger than ever, and on his arrival in Srinagar, the people took to streets in large numbers shouting slogans like “Go back Nehru”. The Kashmiri society started to segregate along religious lines.
On 7th August 1945, Nehru advised Kashmiri Pandits (reported in the Hindu of 10 August) “[…] to join it (NC) in much larger numbers and thereby influence its decisions.” Nehru was counting on Sheikh and he expected a broad support for him and did all he could to make it possible.
In May 1946, “Quit Kashmir” movement started against the Dogra rule. The movement had the support of the Indian Congress leadership. On May 15, 1946, the Dogra rulers arrested Sheikh Abdullah and other Kashmiri leaders. Nehru came to Kashmir as defense counsel for the Sheikh. The race to win over Kashmir was about to start.
M.K. Gandhi paid a short visit to Kashmir in early August of 1947 at the insistence of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, the same man who in 1964 was to become party to another dramatic episode in the history of Kashmir conflict: His arrest and detainment under the Defence of India Rules despite the support of the majority of MLA’s in the State Assembly, another Indian blunder in Kashmir. During this visit that lasted from 1st to 4th August, Gandhi tried unsuccessfully to influence the Maharaja and set up a credible constitutional government and to free Sheikh, who was in the prison at that time. Stanley Wolpert , the man who started his career with the imaginative book Nine hours to Rama, writes in Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi that Gandhi was persuaded to visit Kashmir by Lord Mountbatten. Before leaving for Kashmir, Gandhi announced: “I am not going to suggest to Maharaja to accede to India and not to Pakistan, the real sovereign of the State are the people of the State. If the ruler is not a servant of the people then he is not the ruler.” True to his nature and principles, Gandhi’s stated position on the subject of Kashmir was “ The people of Kashmir should be asked whether they want to join Pakistan or India. let them do as they want. The ruler is nothing. The people are everything.” Stanley Wolpert quotes these lines in his book, suspicious minds would notice the omission of third option, the word “independence” in Gandhi’s speech. Jag Mohan Malhotra, the man who was the governor of Kashmir at the start of the present Kashmir turmoil, in his mammoth book My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir writes:
Gandhi’s visit to Kashmir in July-August 1947, his meeting with the Maharajha on August 1, dismissal of R.C. Kak from the office of Prime Minister on August 10, release of Sheikh Abdullah on September 29, after tendering an ‘unqualified apology’ in his letter of September 26, strengthening of the road link between Pathankot and Jammu, and the scheme to construct a boat bridge over the river, all would seem to suggest that the ground was being prepared for accession of the State to India; at leasr, the possibility was not being ruled out.
Gandhi’s brief Kashmir visit is clouded in unverifiable accounts, not much literature is available on the subject. One of these different account states:
Mahatma Gandhi was humiliated publicly and the secular mission frustrated by the gang of three–the Maharaja, RC Kak and Swami Sant Dev–the dirty Troika. The gang of three harmed the whole of India, particularly the KPs.
The windows of his car were shattered in Baramullah, where an angry crowd protested his visit.
One thing is clear, the Kashmir situation was starting spiraling out of control. The lines of alliance got blurry and the cold waters of Jhelum got muddier.
Much later, the fabled friendship between Nehru and Sheikh was to turn sour over the issue of autonomy of Kashmir and the things came to a head in 1953 when he was dismissed as Prime Minister by the Nehru government and jailed for eleven years, accused of corruption and separatism. This was the nadir.
In February 1948, in a private conversation with the retiring Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan, General Sir Frank Messervy, Nehru was to utter the ironic words:
Kashmir turned out to be Calais of more than just him, and many of them didn’t even have a heart.
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*Credit goes to Sardar Budh Singh, unfurled banner of revolt against the then moribund system perpetuating forced labour (begaar), unscientific land revenue and land relations and set a new agenda for wholesale reforms. In fact, it was he only who conveyed his radical views regarding the politico-economic set-up prevalent in the state to Sheikh Abdullah who till then was wallowing in the quagmire of communal politics shaped by the shawl-barons, Jagirdars and beard-flaunting Molvis Source
-0- +Among other things, Kashayap Bandhu advised women folk to get rid of their pheren, the long woolen robe that is still synonymous with kashmiri way of life, as it was making them lethargic and according to him it was a stumbling block in the progress of Kashmiri women.
His attempts at change found favor among some progressive poets and they coined slogans and songs to support this movement of Kashyap Bandhu. One among these poets, Dina Nath, a Government School teacher writing under his pen name ‘Dilgir’ (not be confused with the more famous kashmiri Poet Dina Nath Nadim who in 1971, was awarded the Nehru prize by the Russian government.) wrote the famous line:
Travee Pheran lo lo Zooj, Pooch tye Narivaar Yim chhi shikasaek sardaar mali baerthaey gardan Travee Pheran lo lo
Oh! Give up the Pheran, dear Give up Zooj, Pooch and Narivaar for there are the harbinger of squalor Now is your neck covered with muck Give up the Pheran, O dear!
Kashyap Bandhu’s attempt at reform was met with responses like:
taaraachand bulbulo trawoo israar aes na baa traawoy z’ahtih naerwaar
TaraChand, O! Stop chattering like a Bulbul, leave the doggedness, for we will never leave, our gown precious worn around the collar, narivaar
Pheran is here referred with the name narivaar. In Kashmiri language narivaar is a clothing that covers the arms and shoulders. Besides Narivaar, a pheran comprises of two more sets of clothing, a Zooj and a Pooch. This clothing does have a tendency to attract dust. Bandhu and his bunch of close associates started a door-to-door movement and community meets. Disdainful, some pandits critical of his thoughts began to call him Kash Bandooq, a rifle filled with sawdust.
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Watch video of Nehru visit to Kashmir in 1948 here
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About the image: Nehru at Dachigam Sanctuary
Nehru getting out of a car for a rally in Kashmir
“Kashmir Hamara Hai” historical speech of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in presence of Pandit Nehru in Lal Chowk.
The first important speech of Pandit Nehru in Lal Chowk. “India will never let down kashmir” and the Indian army will fight on till the last raiden is driven out. Source of last two images
Last rain of winter, tonight it will snow. Morning, my piss will drill holes yellow in pristine snow.
Put kangri out of bed, many houses it has burnt.
Don’t put your feet on it, weak eyes you get.
No bath in morning, no bath for weeks.
Pray the pipe bursts, like it always does. Get your head out of pheran!
Want to choke on coal fumes or on your own fart! Better than choking on your fish – smelly, dried!
Hmm…Two weeks, still no light, no TV.
Son go to sleep, don’t you know it’s snowing in Kashir.
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Winter, 2017
last winter II
you been collecting snow for centuries
we believe
you can carve wood, you can carve stone
you can carve meat, you can carve bread
on a good day you can even carve a dream
with eyes wide shut
yet, this art of carving snow
on a good winter’s day
eludes
you and your sheen mohniv
its grubby charcoal nose and
two squinty eyes
From Pole to Pole: A book for young people
By Sven Hedin Sven Anders Hedin (February 19, 1865 – November 26, 1952) was a Swedish explorer, geographer and geopolitician. His achievements include the production of the first detailed maps of vast parts of Pamir, the Taklamakan Desert, Tibet, the ancient Silk Road, and the Himalayas. He seems to have been the first discoverer to realise that the Himalayas are a single mountain range. The book From Pole to Pole has Seven’s account of his travels all around the world.
This extract from the book is about his visit to Kashmir and Ladak in around 1906
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Kashmir and Ladak
When I arrived at Rawalpindi the first thing I did was to order a tonga for the drive of 180 miles to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. A tonga is a two-wheeled tilted cart drawn by two horses, which are changed every half hour, for as long as the pair are on the way they go at full speed. The road was excellent, and we left the hot suffocating steam of India below us as we ascended along the bank of the Jhelum River. Sometimes we dashed at headlong speed over stretches of open road bathed in sunlight; sometimes through dark cool tunnels where the driver blew a sonorous signal with his brass horn; and then again through rustling woods of pine-trees.
PLATE VIII. SRINAGAR AND THE JHELUM RIVER.
Srinagar is a beautiful city, intersected as it is by the rippling Jhelum River and winding canals (Plate VIII.). The houses on their banks rise up directly from the water, and long, narrow, graceful boats pass to and fro, propelled at a swift pace by broad-bladed oars in the hands of active and muscular white-clad Kashmiris.
Kashmir is one of the native states of our Indian Empire, and its inhabitants number about three millions. Many of them are artistic and dexterous craftsmen, who make fine boxes and caskets inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl, and ebony; beautifully chased weapons; tankards, bowls, and vases of beaten silver with panthers and elephants on the sides, chasing one another through the jungle. The saddlery and leather work of all kinds cannot be surpassed, but most famous of all the manufactures are the soft, dainty Kashmir shawls, so fine that they can be drawn through a finger ring.
Round about the Kashmir valley stand the ridges and snow-clad heights of the Himalayas, and among them lie innumerable valleys. Up one of these valleys toiled our caravan of thirty-six mules and a hundred horses, and after a journey of some 250 miles to the eastward we arrived again[Pg 88] at the banks of the Indus and crossed it by a swaying bridge of wood. Two days later the poplars of Leh stood in front of us.
This little town is nearly 11,500 feet above sea-level. It contains an open bazaar street, and a mound above the town is crowned by the old royal castle. Leh, as well as the whole of the district of Ladak, is subject to the Maharaja of Kashmir, but the people are mostly of Tibetan race and their religion is Lamaism.[Pg 89]
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Aazaadee
O bulbul, let the freedom urge possess your soul !
Bid good bye to your cage, step out,
Gather your flowers and enjoy their bloom !
Speak out bold and clear. Your voice
Need not falter with fear
As when you sang within your cage.
In bondage, they served you ample food.
Now gather in the fields what grain you can,
And see how sweet is food in freedom !
Though unfreedom made you stammer,
Your call enchanted the birds of the air,
For it was born of love.
You can’t remain with folded wings !
Plume them, fly and see the world.
See flowers now with eyes of freedom.
You don’t know the latest about the garden !
Forget about the past; sing new songs now
Mabjoor, throw away this belt of bondage !
From now, you are free as a bird.
Your heart commands, your voice obeys !
Ghulam Ahmad Mahjoor (d. 1952) the most beloved poet of Kashmir was born in 1888 ( but some give the date as 1885 ) at village Metragam, Pulawama. Born Ghulam Ahmad, he took the pen name of ‘Mahjoor’ and became popular in Kashmir by this very name. At the height of his renown, he was called “the Wordsworth of Kashmiri poetry” by great Rabindranath Tagore.
After passing the middle school examination from Nusrat-ul-Islam School, Srinagar, he went to Punjab where he came in contact with urdu poets like Bismil Amritsari and Moulana Shibi Nomani. He returned to Srinagar in 1908 and started writing in Persian and then in Urdu. However, it was in Kashmiri language that his poetry truly excelled. He is widely revered in Kashmir for being the person who solely revived the Kashmiri languages from the regress of lost literary circles and brought it to the seeking common masses. It was largely due to the success of Mahjoor with Kashmiri language that his contemporaries also gave up writing in Urdu and Persian, and started writing in Kashmiri.
Mahjoor worked as a Patwari (Pathva:r’) in Kashmir. A Patwari is the offical responsible for keeping record of land, maps and land dealings. The post of Patwari was held in high esteem as in those days in far-flung areas, Patwari was the sole representative of the administration. This job required him to work closely with poor landless peasants and was to condition his sensibilities and help him understand the cause of the sufferings of the poor and destitute folks of his land.
Mahjoor had his first Kashmiri poem ‘Vanta hay vesy‘ published in 1918. In his earlier days, Mahjoor used to write only love poems (mastering at this, as his love songs or lyrics are still sung and remain very popular) but these songs were not the love songs of the rich or of tavern, songs like ‘Vanta hay vesy‘ were love songs of simple folk like – in this particular case – a country
lass. These love songs had the melody of the earlier lol lyrics of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but their rhythm and singing quality seems inspired by the popular Hindustani geet and song of early decades that came to Kashmir through the Punjab.
The turbulent Kashmir of 1931 did not leave him untouched and the poet in him was now stirring with patriotic fervor.
Mahjoor is also treated as a revolutionary poet. His entire poetry is divided into three parts: kala:m-i-Mahjoor, paya:m-i-Mahjoor, and sala:m-i-Mahjoor. He was a patriotic poet and was moved by the suffering of the people under the alien rule. He awakened the common masses towards the need of protecting their homeland from invaders and alien rulers. He sang about beauty and charm of the valley. Mahjoor has made a significant contribution to genres of gazal and nazm. He retrieved the language itself from the old Personalized styles of poetry and brought it close to the speech of its native speakers.
Mahjoor was a nationalist at heart, and this can be fathomed from some of his poems. Because of his vocation as a Patwari, Mahjoor understood the feudal system well enough to know how rich landlords were exploiting the poor landless people. He wanted a new identity for them, an identity that he combined with Kashmiri nationalism. It was for these people that Mahjoor became a voice in turbulent times, a voice clear and loud. It was for the Freedom of these dejected people that Mahjoor wrote poems, poems that became songs etched in the Kashmiri minds.
An another Freedom Song
Aazaadee
Let us all offer thanksgiving,
For Freedom has come to us;
It’s after ages that she has beamed
Her radiance on us.
In western climes Freedom comes
With a shower of light and grace,
But dry, sterile thunder is all
She has for our own soil.
Poverty and starvation,
Repression and lawlessness, –
It’s with these happy blessings
That she has come to us.
Freedom, being of heavenly birth,
Can’t move from door to door;
You’ll find her camping in the homes
Of a chosen few alone.
She says she will not tolerate
Any wealth in private hands;
That’s why they are wringing capital
Out of the hands of everyone.
There’s mourning in every house
But in sequestered bowers
Our rulers, like bridegrooms,
Are in Alliance win Freedom.
Nabir Sheikh knows what Freedom means,
For his wife was whisked away.
He went on complaining until
She bore Freedom in a new home !
They searched her armpits seven times
To see if she was hiding rice;
In a basket covered with a shawl
The peasant’s wife brought Freedom home.
There’s restlessness in every heart,
But no one dare speak out –
Afraid that with their free expression
Freedom may be annoyed.
Unlike many other famous poets of Kashmir, Mahjoor was not a mystic and yet his words now sound prophetic:
If thou wouldst rouse this habitat of roses,
Leave toying with kettle-drums.
Let there be thunder-storm and tempest, aye an earthquake.
These lines are from his famous poem Arise O Gardener. In this particular poem, the poet urges his countrymen, whom he compares to Gardeners looking after the beautiful garden Kashmir, to attain freedom through thunderstorm, tempest and earthquake. The state force arrested Mahjoor for writing these lines, but was soon releases. These lines became so popular that the National Conference adopted it as a national anthem. It is ironic to note here that to a Garden all of the three – thunderstorm, tempest and earthquake, are actually quite damning.
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The translation to the poems is from the book:
The Best of Mahjoor
(Selections from Mahjoor’s Kashmiri Poems)
J&K Academy of Art, Culture and Language, Srinagar, 1989
Translated by: Triloki Nath Raina
History of Srinagar, 1846-1947: A Study in Socio-cultural Change (1975) written by Mohammad Ishaq Khan, provided some great information about the poet.
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Much later, under the government of Sheikh Abdullah, poet Mahjoor was arrested.
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In 1972 a bilingual film named Shayar-e-Kashmir Mahjoor was released with the Hindi version starring Balraj Sahani. The famous “left leaning” Hindi film actor Balraj Sahani, one of the pioneers of IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association), already knew Mahjoor and held him in great esteem. Bhisham Sahni, the younger brother of Balraj Sahani, most famous for his novel and television screenplay Tamas, writes in Balraj, My Brother (1981) that many years before the making of the movie, Balraj Sahani having heard the renown of Mahjoor, went to him in a remote village in the interior of Kashmir. Mahjoor at that time was still working as a revenue official.
History of Srinagar, 1846-1947: A Study in Socio-cultural Change (1975) by Mohammad Ishaq Khan , quotes Balraj Sahani on Mahjoor:
“ His songs and his poems are the cherished property of very man, woman and child, living between Baramulla and Pir Panchal. If Mahjoor writes a poem today it will be on the lips of the populace within a fortnight. Children on their way to school, girls thrashing rice, boatman plying the paddle, laborers bending in their ceaseless toil, all will be singing it.”
The author gives the source as The Vishwa-Bharati Quarterly, November, 1938, vol iv, part III, new series, pp. 213-221)
These musicians knew the language of these instruments. They occupied their corner of the room and began setting up the instruments. It was then that she entered. She must have been in her mid- thirties at the time, her skills honed each passing year, and now at the peak of her profession. She was not a waifish thin women, in fact with her painted red cheeks, she looked hale and hearty, a typical Kashmiri women. She was dressed in a traditional Kashmiri embroidered pink dress of thick clothing, her head covered in a headgear decorated with silver ornaments. Around, her ankles, she put on 
In the last week of May 1940, Nehru along with 
