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lyrics, trs., notes: Harmukh Bar Tal

An interesting case of a popular Kashmiri love song. Harmukh Bar Tal, popular as a Bhajan among Pandit and the same song is popular as a love song among Kashmiri Muslims. Of course, as is often the case in Kashmir, it is so popular that no one remembers the original writer and the meaning of the lines is not give and assumed to be understood. I hope people realize something even as simple as giving translations along with the original lines along with a Youtube video  goes a long way in keeping a language alive. The are people doing it for Urdu and even Hindi online. But, Kashmiris would just sit and talk about ‘dying culture’.
Anyway, back to the song. There are a couple of versions of the song available (all with same tune).

First version is a Pandit one by Rajinder Kachroo. Second version is by Shameema Dev and third one is a more recent production (singer not give!) presented as a Hafiz Nagma. Based on who is singing, some words change. Praraey become Zaagaey, both meaning wait. Yee become Tee both meaning that. Posh (Flower), Golab (Rose), Shaeyri (Lavender) move around interchanging-ly. Two (completing) extra line coming in from Shameema Dev’s version. Personally, based on what I hear, I find Zaagaey, Tee, replacement of Posh with Shaeri (which in turn gets to compete with Golab) etc. really interesting.

Based on all the three versions, here’s what I could make of the love song. A transliteration (done in an hour, someone with more knowledge of the language could have done it in five):

Harmukh bar tal praraey (zaagaey) Madano
I will wait at the gates of Harmukh, for you my love


Yee Dapham tee (yee) laagyoo
What ever you ask, I will offer


Posh (shaeyri) dapham 
Ask for flower (Lavander)

Golab (shaeyri) laagaey Madano

I will offer Rose (Lavander), my love

Yee Dapham tee laagyoo
What ever you ask, I will offer


Phambas ti Naaras mil goom
My Yarn and Spindle, all entangled 
Cotton and Fire are now one

Valla tche path dil goom

Oh, God!, My heart is stuck on you

Be’no ye dooryer tchalay Madano
I can’t take this distance anymore

Ye dapham ti lagayo

What ever you ask, I will offer

Kabeel’e Drayas Pranaey
I left my old tribe, my people

Kya osum Deklanay
What was the push?

Be’no ye dooryer tchalay Madano*
I can’t take this distance anymore

Harmukh bar tal  praraey Madano
I will wait at the gates of Harmukh, for you my love

Yee Dapham tee laagyoo
What ever you ask, I will offer

Kongas karmay chamayee

In am tilling in saffron fields

Maenz ho lagith naman
Henna still fresh on my nails

Mushtakh goham kaman Madano
Yearning, for whom, my love

Yee Dapham tee laagyoo

What ever you ask, I will offer

Yaawan myaanay Thazro
My youth is at its zenith

T’chekor dejyo Nazro
Where are your eyes lost?

Kaaei we’tce hung Zazoor Madano**
It is wracked, blotched and decaying, my love

Yee Dapham tee laagyoo
What ever you ask, I will offer

The imagery that the song creates in a Pandit mind is that of Parvati at the foot of Harmukh singing out a love song to Shiva who is still mourning for Sati.

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** Found the meaning of ‘hung‘ in that beautiful line thanks to work of George Abraham Grierson Sahib.
* In Rasul Mir’s ‘Bal Marayo’ we find an identical line that goes like this: Butino Ye Doorer Choon Zaray, Bal Marayo

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Kashmiri Shawl in European Paintings

Marquise de Sorcy de Thelusson, Portrait in 1790 by Jacques Louis David

The portrait of Marquise de Sorcy de Thelusson by Jacques Louis David is considered the first appearance of Kashmiri Shawl on European canvas.

Madame Philibert Riviere by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1806
L’Imperatrice Josephine (1809) by Antoine -Jean Gros (Musee Massena)

The famous story of Kashmiri shawls arriving in Europe goes like this:

In around 1796, in the time of Abdulla Khan, an Afghan Governor of Kashmir, a blind man named Sayyid Yahyah came to Kashmir from Bhagdad, and left with a orange Shawl as a gift from the governor. The Sayyid then went to Egypt, and gave it to the Khedive (Ruler) there. When Napoleon arrived in Egypt, Khedive gave the same shawl as present to him. In turn, Napoleon on reaching back France gave it to Josephine. It was Josephine who made it, a Shawl worn in the subcontinent by men, a rich fashion statement for women.

Will You go out with me, Fido?, by Alfred Stevens, 1859

Madame Louis Joachim Gaudibert by Claude Monet, 1868

Based on some of the names and a sequence given in ‘Flowers, Dragons and Pine Trees: Asian Textiles in the Spencer Museum of Art’  by Mary M. Dusenbur.

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Booyn G’off

Cave inside Chenar Tree. By a British Army Officer, around 1907.
[via: bonham]

In Abul Fazal’s Akbarnama there is an episode in which during a storm, Akbar and 34 of his men take shelter inside the hollowed trunk of an aged Chinar tree. In ‘Tuzk-i-Jehangiri’, returing to the same episode, Jehangir recounts that he too took shelter in a cave inside a Chinar tree that time, he along with five or seven of his horsemen and with their horses.

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The world is indeed getting smaller.

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Jamavar Shawl and Monet



A Guest post by Komal Kaul on discovering a bit of Kashmir in an art exhibit in Chicago.


I recently went to the Chicago Art Institute , where they had a special exhibit on Impressionism , Fashion and Mordern Art. One of the paintings ( actually a loaner from Met Museum of Art NY) was this:

Madame Louis Joachim Gaudibert, 1868
The lady in the paintings actually has a very intricately embroidered Koshur Jamavar Shawl. The artist is Claude Monet.
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Kashmir in His Majesty’s Secret Service


And while we are still on philims…a bit of trivia.

What are the odds that a Bond flick would have two Kashmir born actresses in it? A million dollar odds.

Zaheera (credited as Zara) in her debut film ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ (1969). She played the role of Indian ‘Angel of Death’ in this Bond flick.

Zara (21 at the time), was born in Kashmir and went to live in England when she was 12. And studied economics in London.

Joanna Lumley who played the English ‘Angel of Death’ in the film was born in Srinagar in 1946 to a British Indian Army officer.

Based on these facts, I declare ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ (1969) to be the official favouritest Bond flick of all Kashmiris.

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Previously: Peter Fleming in Kashmir, 1935. The younger brother of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond fame.

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Bilhana’s Love Story in Film

The Rafi song from Shabab (1954) [movie link], the initial line is from Zauq and rest of the lyrics are by Shakeel Badayuni.

Shabab (1954) was inspired by love story of 11th century Kashmiri poet Bilhana. The original story is available as: Bilhaniyam, play written by Narayana Shastri, then there is BilhaniyaKavya and the Bilhaniya-Charitra. And as Bilhaniyamu, a late-eighteenth-century Telugu reworking of a Sanskrit poem, deemed immoral in Victorian era. The episode is said to taken place in court of King Anhil Pattana of Gujarat, and may or may not have been biographical.

In the story, Bilhana is introduced as a blind man to a Princess he is supposed to teach. The princess is introduced to him as a leper. All this so that the handsome man does not seduce the Princess. But the ploy is exposed when Bilhana accidentally, in a moment of joy, describes in lucid details beauty of book. The veil of deception is lifted. The two naturally do end up falling in love. The King, of course, is not happy. So, ‘Off with the head’, he goes. While in prison, Bilhana composes 50 erotic verses that come to be known as Chaurapanchasika (the Fifty Stanzas of Chauras)[a vintage English edition]. There are multiple versions to the story. In the Southern version, the King is impressed by the verses, and the two get together. In the Kashmiri version, the poet awaits the judgement.

In the film version, to keep with the cinematic trends of the time, Bilhana meets a Devdas-ish end. And so does the heroine.

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Interestingly, there is South Indian film from 1948 called Bilhana inspired by the same story. 

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Biscoe’s Cure


When Tyndale  Biscoe started his school, among many problems he had to deal with while trying to correct the character of Kashmiris was a problem of particularly vicious nature. He found most of his students addicted to literature of the dirty kind. He found the problem to be of epidemic proportions. He needed a cure for the disease. The solution he came up had a typical stamp of ingenuity. He talked to Dr. Neve and asked him how much paper can a human body have before it causes any serious damage. After getting the scientific estimate he put his solution into play: Any boy caught with such dirty literature was made to eat it.

Did the Pandit boys, who were probably not even allowed to have Tomato,  wonder if paper is Satvik or Tamasic?

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An Ad from The Indian Express dated December 9, 1942
Grande Odalisque (1814) by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.
The painter added a couple of extra vertebrae, an anatomical inaccuracy,
to make the painting more alluring, more eastern, he made the back of the woman more serpentine.
‘Serpentine Head Gear’
Kashmiri Pandit Woman. 1939. [By Ram Chand Mehta]
A recently heard a Pandit priest claim that all Kashmiri women come from ‘Nagas’ or the Snake race. 

The snake woman or Lamia by J. Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling.
It accompanies the story of ‘The snake-woman and the king Ali Mardan’
in ‘Tales of the Punjab : told by the people’ (1917) by Flora Annie Webster Steel (1847-1929). Another version of the story can be found in ‘Folk-Tales of Kashmir’ by Rev. J. Hinton Knowles (Second Edition, 1893. Narrated by Makund Bayu of Srinagar), in which the snake woman claims to be Chinese and Ali Mardan Khan, actually the Mughal governor of Kashmir, builds Shalimar Garden for her. In Kashmiri the name for the snake is given as Shahmar.

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Kadru, is the mother of Nagas, and wife of Kashyap, the mythical creator of Kashmir. In, Adi Parva, we learn that Kadru cursed her offsprings for not doing her bidding. The curse with played out by King (Arjun’s great-grandson) Janamejaya’s famous Snake Sacrifice. The serpent race was saved by intervention by Astika, born of wedlock between Rishi Jaratkaru of Yayaver and Manasa, sister of Vasuki Naga.

[Near Jammu, Mansar Lake is the spot associated with Mansa Devi. One of the early description of the Lake can be found in Vigne’s travelogue from 1842]

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Ferdinand Stoliczka’s Memorial



Guest post by Man Mohan Munshi Ji 



Ferdinand Stoliczka ( Czech, 1838-1874) was a palaeontologist who worked in Indian Palaeontology, Geology and various aspects of Zoology including ornithology and herpetology. Stoliczka studied Geology and Palaeontology at Prague and Vienna graduated with a P.H.D. in 1861. He joined the Geological Survey of India under the British Govt. under Thomas Oldham. He along with W.Thomas Blandford documented the cretaceous fossils of South India. He studied the geology of Western Himalayas, Ladakh and Tibet. He also made two trips to Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He also worked in the Rann of Kutch from where he reported Hunting leopards and Stoliczka’s Bushchat. His third and last expedition to central Asia i.e. 2nd Missions to Yarkand with T.D. Forysth. They set out from Rawalpindi to Leh Shahidulla and finally reached Yarkand in December 1873 and began their return journey in March 1874 and after crossing the Karakorum, he suffered from severe headache from which he could not recover and died at Moorghi village in Ladakh on 16 th June 1874 probably due to acute mountain sickness pulmonary or cerebral oedema. The British Government of India erected a grand memorial as a mark of respect for the service he rendered to the 2nd Yardkand mission.

Memorial of Ferdinand Stoliczka at Leh

Officers of Geological survey of India paying their homage to Stoliczka in 1960s

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