‘Search for a Magic Carpet in Kashmir’ (1981) by Frances Hawker and Bruce Campbell was probably the last of its kind – a children’s book meant to introduce young ones in west to the exotic east, to Kashmir, all using some beautiful images and a simple story.
This one is weaved around photographs of two little girls Shukila and Hanifa, and send them on a quest for a Magic carpet of their grandfather’s stories.
The camera follows them as they walk around the city asking everyone about it. So, along the way we get glimpses of the city. But, the magical flying carpet remains untraced, or so it seems till…
“Hanifa drifted into deep sleep. She felt herself floating upwards. Suddenly the mountains and lakes of Kashmir seemed far below her. Was this a dream, or had she really found the magic carpet?”
“There is magic in names. Who of us has not felt the lure hidden in such words as Samarkand, Peshawar, Khartoum, Peking – the far-flung places of the earth, which call us in our hours of dreams? So I felt about Kashmir, that beautiful vale which lies in the lower Himalaya, north of the Indian Punjab”
~ ‘House-Boat Days in the Vale of Kashmir’ by Florence H. Morden (photographs by Herford Tynes Cowling), for National Geographic Magazine, October 1929.
Afternoon Tea on the Upper Deck of the “Melisande’
Usually some English friends, on leave from lower India, would drop in to chat with the Americans. Old Golry flies because it happened to be Decoration Day [Memorial day/first Monday of May]. Though the Kashmiri is a skillful boat builder, he did not invent the house boat. It was introduced into the country some 40 years ago.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was Kashmir. This was beginning with God and the duty of every faithful monk would be to repeat every day with chanting humility the one never-changing event whose incontrovertible truth can be asserted. But we see now through a glass darkly, and the truth, before it is revealed to all, face to face, we see in fragments (alas, how illegible) in the error of the world, so we must spell out its faithful signals even when they seem obscure to us and as if amalgamated with a will wholly bent on evil.
Hari Parbat is in Faridabad. Koh-e-Maran is in Balochistan and in Kashmir. Takht-e-Suleman is in Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Balochistan and now officially in Kashmir. And Adi Shankaracharya broke and re-built a temple in Srinagar of Gharwal, where they tell stories of a demon who died of head injury after getting hit by a divine rock.
To call everything by its true name and the trouble to be reminded that everything is a double.
Shankracharya and Takhht-e-Suleimani have both been used for a long time. But both names are essentially just names which people have given to it relatively recently. Name Shankracharya became a currency during Sikh/Dogra time. A name which Pandits, having recently regained ground, happily adopted. Thanks to work of Sir Stein, all kind of ancient places were getting reclaimed during this era. Takhht-e-Suleimani became a currency during Mughal/Afghan time. During Dogra time a inscription declaring the temple as ‘Takhht-e-Suleimani’ was destroyed by the soldiers. The inscription had come up during Mughal times probably when Noorjahan got the ancient stone stair case leading to the temple destroyed and had the stone used for her Pathar Masjid (which in turn provided stones for building Sher-Grahi palace by Afghans). By the time British arrived, re-naming war was already on, for the hill, both name were in currency. Based on which religious group you asked, a convenient name was provided. That’s how the dual name system gained currency. What about the one true name? The temple it is believed was originally known as Jyeshteswara and was first built by Jaloka, son of Asoka around 220 B.C. One of the old name of the hill was Sandhimana-paravata named after Sandhimana, minister of Jayendra (ruling from A.D. 341 to 360). In between, it is believed, Gopaditya (A.D. 238 to 253) repaired the old temple on the hill…giving the name ‘Gopadri’ to hill. Then there is a theory ( by James Ferguson countering the previous theory of A. Cunningham) that the temple we see now was commenced by a nameless Hindu during Jahangir’s time but remained incomplete when Aurangzeb arrived on the scene. This unfinished state gave it the ancient and misleading look. This assumption came from some Persian inscription on its staircase. But then there were other writing on the staircase too which read, other claims likes “the idol was made by Haji Hushti, a Sahukar, in the year 54 of the Samvat era”, while at the foot of the same pillar there was another scribble stating that “he who raised this temple was Khwaja Rukn, son of Mir Jan in the year___.”
Then there is theory that the spot was actually Buddhists and is still revered by them and called as ‘Pas-Pahar’. So it goes on…
“May 8 to 17 [1832, Kabul]- I had the pleasure of talking with Mr. Wolff, who came into my room, and told me to listen to the Bible, and be converted to Christianity, which is the best religion in the world. My answer pleased the reverend gentleman very much. He added the following most singular speech : – That in the city of Bokhara he had an interview with Jesus Christ, who informed him that the pleasant valley of Kashmir will be the New Jerusalem after a few years.”
~ Mohan Lal [Kashmiri/Zutshi] in ‘Travels in the Panjab, Afghanistan, Turkistan, to Balk, Bokhara, and Herat; and a visit to Great Britain and Germany’ (1846), about his meeting with Rev. Joseph Wolff.
A woman, her head covered, like she was on her way to a temple, praying aloud for the welfare of her family, like at a temple, walked past me and entered the chamber that is believed to house the grave of Akbar. The unconventionally plain walled chamber in fact houses the cenotaph of Akbar the Great. Sikandra. U.P. July. 2011.
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In 1892, just three weeks after his death, Lord Alfred Tennyson, considered one of the greatest British Poet, was posthumously published. The collection of poems ‘The Death of Oenone, Akbar’s Dream, and Other Poems’. Among these, ‘Akbar’s Dream’ is considered his last possible work. The poem was set as a conversation between Akbar and his trusted friend Abu Fazal. In the verses giving us visions of Akbar’s great dream for his empire, its subjects, his fear of his sons and their budding blood thirst, his prophecy of a possible death of his dreams, and a possible salvation through adoption by a bigger dream – in all of it we can read how Tennyson believed British Empire was the only true inheritor and propagator of Akbar’s dream. The work is an interesting mixup of British imperialistic dreams with their oriental longings.
If one forgets that it’s actually a British poem and has a subliminal meaning, an Indian can now easily adopt Akbar’s dream. Or perhaps already has. Isn’t modern India imagined and presented as a part of Akbar’s great dream? That’s not even remotely interesting. What is interesting is that this dream of Akbar presented by Tennyson actually starts with Kashmir.
AN INSCRIPTION BY ABUL FAZL FOR A TEMPLE IN KASHMIR
(Blochmann xxxii.)
O GOD in every temple I see people that see thee,
and in every language I hear spoken, people praise thee.
Polytheism and Islam feel after thee.
Each religion says, ‘Thou art one, without equal.’
If it be a mosque people murmur the holy prayer, and if it be a Christian Church, people ring the bell from love to Thee.
Sometimes I frequent the Christian cloister, and sometimes the mosque.
But it is thou whom I search from temple to temple.
Thy elect have no dealings with either heresy or orthodoxy; for neither of them stands behind the screen of thy truth.
Heresy to the heretic, and religion to the orthodox,
But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the perfume seller.
In 1872, Heidegger (Henry) Blochmann published the manuscript of ‘The Ain i Akbari’, and then in 1873 followed it with a translation.
In this book, about the origin of these lines, Blochmann writes:
“The ‘Durar ul Manshur’, a modern Tazkirah by Muhammad Askari Husaini of Bilgram, selects the following inscription written by Abul Fazal for a temple in Kashmir as a specimen both of Abul Fazal’s writing and his religious belief. It is certainly vey characteristic, and is easily recognised as Abul Fazal’s composition.”
The original with translation and his notes follows:
And so, that great experiment too started with Kashmir.
At SearchKashmir not only are some old dreams of ‘Earthly Paradise Kashmir’ catalogued, but not so strangely it is also helping re-create some old dreams. Here is someone’s visual interpretation of Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for Otto Lang’s ‘Search For Paradise’ (1957). The film was about two WW-II pilots, two Marco-Polos searching for paradise in East and of course visit Kashmir. It is about the adventures they have, there are high flying planes (new Jet planes meant new age of science ), fast flowing rivers (there was US presence in the region) and invincible mountains (Nanga Parbat was conquered only in 1953).
Heer Ranjha (aka Beauty of Punjab aka Hoore Punjab, 1929).
Starring Sulochana (aka Ruby Meyers) and D.Billimoria.
Kikali kalir di!
Hold hands and whirl around
My brother’s turban is brown
His wife’s veil is red
Which she just won’t shed
Heer comes from Kashmir
Ranjha is of Hindustan
~ A translation of Punjabi folk song ‘Kikali kalir di‘ by Nirupama Dutt (from ‘The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense’ (2007)) from version given in ‘Punjabi lok Git’, compiled by Devendra Satyarthi and Mohinder Singh Randhaw in around 1956 and published in 1961. Kikali would be Punjabi equivalent of Kashmiri Hikat.
The usage of Kashmir and Hindustan in the lines, rather than alluding to origins of the fabled lovers, is meant as a tease, to show the incomparability of two. A popular device used in wedding songs to show the unbalanced scale between bride (usually on the higher end) and groom (at the lower end).
I came across it while looking for Devendra Satyarthi’s travelogue on Kashmir from 1930s (which I did manage to track down! And will make available soon. Available Here). Legendary Punjabi folklorist Devendra Satyarthi was the first to introduce Mehjoor’s work to India.
Now, re-watch Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar (2011), which was a re-take on story of Heer-Ranjha, with a Kashmiri Heer and an Indian Ranjha.
As rising on its purple wing
The insect-queen of easter spring,
O’er emerald meadows of Kashmeer
Invites the young pursuer near,
And leads him on from flower to flower
A weary chase and wasted hour,
Then leaves him, as it soars on high,
With panting heart and tearful eye:
So Beauty lures the full-grown child
With hue as bright, and wing as wild;
A chase of idle hopes and fears,
Begun in folly, closed in tears.
If won, to equal illd betrayed,
Woe waits the insect the maid,
A life of pain, the loss of peace,
From infant’s play, or man’s caprice:
The lovely toy so fiercely sought,
Has lost its charm by being caught,
For every touch that wooed it’s stay
Has brush’d the brightest hues away
Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone,
‘Tis left to fly or fall alone.
With wounded wing, or bleeding breast,
Ah! where shall either victim rest?
Can this with faded pinion sir
From rose to tulip as before?
Or Beauty, blighted in an hour,
Find joy within her broken bower?
No: gayer insects fluttering by
Ne’eer droop the wing o’er those that die,
And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own,
And every woe a tear can claim
Except an erring sister’s shame.
~ Lines from “The Giaour” (1813) by Lord Byron. A work of romantic Orientalism that looks at contrast between Christian and Islamic ideals. This was also one of the first works in which Vampire made an appearance.
His biography was written by Thomas Moore who went on to make Kashmir famous with his Lalla Rookh. Byron was father of Ada Lovelace, the first programmer.
Not the purple queen of Kashmir
June 2013. Kochi.
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Kashmir in forced exiles and paradise lost
There [in Cashmire’s vale], Heaven and Earth are ever bright and kind;
Here [in Albion], blight and storms and damp forever float,
Whilst hearts are more ungenial than the zone –
Gross, spiritless, alive to no pangs but their own.
There, flowers and fruits are ever fair and ripe;
Autumn, there, mingles with the bloom of spring,
And forms unpunched by frost or hunger’s gripe
A natural veil o’er natural spirits fling;
Here, woe on all but wealth has set its floor.
Famine, disease and crime even wealth’s proud gates pollute
~ lines from ‘Zeinab and Kathema’ (1809) by Percy Bysshe Shelley, husband of Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame), and a friend of Lord Byron. This poem was about a Princess from Paradise – Kashmir – forceable taken to Hell – England.
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Kashmir in evil that ignites poetry
The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie,
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
And o’er the aerial mountains which pour down
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
In joy and exultation held his way;
Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched
His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep
There came, a dream of hopes that never yet
Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
His inmost sense suspended in its web
Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues.
Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,
Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
A permeating fire; wild numbers then
She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
The beating of her heart was heard to fill
The pauses of her music, and her breath
Tumultuously accorded with those fits
Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,
As if her heart impatiently endured
Its bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,
And saw by the warm light of their own life
Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil
Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,
Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,
Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips
Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.
His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess
Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled
His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet
Her panting bosom:…she drew back a while,
Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
With frantic gesture and short breathless cry
Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night
Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,
Like a dark flood suspended in its course,
Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.
Alastor (1815) by Percy Bysshe Shelley, about a man traveling from Arabia finding perfection, a woman, in Kashmir
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All of these works were the by-product of Bernier’s description of Kashmir traveling in Europe, including the work that directly influenced these poets – by a novel called The Missionary (1811) by Sydney Owenson. Influenced by more recent travelogues too, this story was about a Missionary traveling from Goa who falls in love with a Prophetess of Kashmir named Luxima whose brave ‘Sati’ death causes a revolution.
At last, through the branches of a spreading palm-tree, he beheld, at a distance, the object who had thus agitated and disturbed the calmest mind which Heaven’s grace had ever visited. She was leaning on the ruins of a Brahminical altar, habited in her sacerdotal vestments, which were rich but fantastic. Her brow was crowned with consecrated flowers; her long dark hair floated on the wind; and she appeared a splendid image of the religion she professed – bright, wild, and illusory; captivating to the senses, fatal to the reason, and powerful and tyrannic to both.
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.
‘Search for a Magic Carpet in Kashmir’ (1981) by Frances Hawker and Bruce Campbell was probably the last of its kind – a children’s book meant to introduce young ones in west to the exotic east, to Kashmir, all using some beautiful images and a simple story.
