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Literary Dispatch
Clay and dust from history!
Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s Between Clay and Dust does not receive the attention that it deserves, not least because his novel departs from the west influenced literary trend in Pakistan that has been in vogue in recent years. The book sets on the early post Partition years, in the old part of a town somewhere in the northern side of the subcontinent. The exact location of geography is blurred under the prominence of main plank which tries to recall the passing of the composite, Urdu-speaking...
Book Review: Beacon Light
Azam Inqilabi, a name that needs no introduction. It is a known name in the Resistance Movement of Kashmir spanning over several decades. A revolutionary, a believer in armed struggle now turned a pacifist has a multi dimensional personality. It rarely happens that a revolutionary who believes in changing the course of events with armed or political pacifist struggle, turns to pen and comments, advises, debates, surmises and chalks out strategies related with the resistance movement and...
A half-filled book of resistance
How do you rate an autobiography of a person who is taken asthe national treasure in Kashmir? A person surviving only on half a kidney! A person attacked dozen times by troops and manhandled many times by communal forces; yet remains unfazed. Syed Ali Geelani’s autobiography is a work that traverses the elite history and slashes the notion of victor’s history of the past and the present.
Jail fearlessness
“Stand up,” writes Syed Ali Shah Geelani, when he is taken prison first time...
Jail fearlessness
“Stand up,” writes Syed Ali Shah Geelani, when he is taken prison first time...
Book Review: The Half Widow
A Review of: The Half Widow, by Shafi Ahmad, Published by Power Publishers, India, (2012)
Shafi Ahmad's The Half Widow is an important addition to the handful of historical fiction novels that have portrayed the troublesome lives, in recent times, of the residents in the picturesque state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Ever since Kipling's notable novels, "Kim" and "The Man Who Would be King," readers have been fascinated with this region located high up in the Himalayan mountain range...
Shafi Ahmad's The Half Widow is an important addition to the handful of historical fiction novels that have portrayed the troublesome lives, in recent times, of the residents in the picturesque state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Ever since Kipling's notable novels, "Kim" and "The Man Who Would be King," readers have been fascinated with this region located high up in the Himalayan mountain range...
Lal Ded- a conceptual icon
A bunch of articles read by few migrant scholars in Delhi in a seminar edited by Dr. Shashi Toshkhani jolted the belief I had inherited and developed from childhood in the Lady Icon of Kashmir, Lal. In the morning assembly in our school we would recite eulogy in praise of Shiekh Noor-ud-Din Wali (RA) in which a special mention of Lal as his foster mother had imbibed equal emotional commitment with that great lady.
The study of Toshkhani in that compilation (PP: 39-66) under caption...
The study of Toshkhani in that compilation (PP: 39-66) under caption...
Shall I ever talk
Gather the pieces rendered asunder
The day morose city melted
Against a bruised gaze,
Glints of vision punctured
The only unaided eye
Battling rivers, in the days gone by.
Moments conspired, thus was it meant
Miles became dumb, skies bent
Bearing out a slashing silent scream
Horrendously levitating steam
Child of an undeciphered, drowsy dream.
Shall I ever talk
Of those rheumy eyes
Sunk into a decrepit sleeve
Abandoned in virtue, dissipated in sighs.
Shall I ever talk
Of wilting stapled...
The day morose city melted
Against a bruised gaze,
Glints of vision punctured
The only unaided eye
Battling rivers, in the days gone by.
Moments conspired, thus was it meant
Miles became dumb, skies bent
Bearing out a slashing silent scream
Horrendously levitating steam
Child of an undeciphered, drowsy dream.
Shall I ever talk
Of those rheumy eyes
Sunk into a decrepit sleeve
Abandoned in virtue, dissipated in sighs.
Shall I ever talk
Of wilting stapled...
Plastic Caterpillar
I am a plastic caterpillar
Crawling from under the dawn
I welcome the gloomy moonlight
like the guests of freedom
I am the one who breathes the night
with lungs of love
that shivers the light and the dream
you can wake by
I summon the darkness to grow the night
Dear child you are known and sane
I am unknown, a strange name, an empty colour
I am a plastic caterpillar
I divide divinity
I give birth to flight of feet
I take the winds on the edge of my nails
I blow my secrets away
I...
Crawling from under the dawn
I welcome the gloomy moonlight
like the guests of freedom
I am the one who breathes the night
with lungs of love
that shivers the light and the dream
you can wake by
I summon the darkness to grow the night
Dear child you are known and sane
I am unknown, a strange name, an empty colour
I am a plastic caterpillar
I divide divinity
I give birth to flight of feet
I take the winds on the edge of my nails
I blow my secrets away
I...
Headlines from home
From home, comes a dead body,
wrapped in late September breeze, overtly displaying
its left arm, dangling like a branch of dried apple tree,
away from sunlight and warmth,
eating from scare winds and all pervasive shades,
bearing no fruit and no seeds anymore;
from home comes a horde of living men; In trains and buses,
looking for a bed, living baffled under the hot piercing sun,
sleeping decomposed over the sweat dripping nights,
wallowing dusty with the turn of afternoon hours;
From home...
wrapped in late September breeze, overtly displaying
its left arm, dangling like a branch of dried apple tree,
away from sunlight and warmth,
eating from scare winds and all pervasive shades,
bearing no fruit and no seeds anymore;
from home comes a horde of living men; In trains and buses,
looking for a bed, living baffled under the hot piercing sun,
sleeping decomposed over the sweat dripping nights,
wallowing dusty with the turn of afternoon hours;
From home...
Of our Azaadi and your country
I liked your face, bronzed by time and burden
I liked the gleam in your eyes—of truth, of fight.
When you asked me: How does a free Kashmir look to you?
I was only looking at your sculptured hands
I wanted to hold your hand and tell you
about all my dreams--wordless, clockless.
When I saw your worn out chapals and your carefree feet,
as if still dangling in the ancient waters reflecting a promise
I wanted to ask, what do they mean to you—earth and freedom.
Your eyes when filled...
I liked the gleam in your eyes—of truth, of fight.
When you asked me: How does a free Kashmir look to you?
I was only looking at your sculptured hands
I wanted to hold your hand and tell you
about all my dreams--wordless, clockless.
When I saw your worn out chapals and your carefree feet,
as if still dangling in the ancient waters reflecting a promise
I wanted to ask, what do they mean to you—earth and freedom.
Your eyes when filled...
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