The excellence and simplicity with which the complex subjects are dealt with is simply mind blowing. The simple and pristine life of Kashmir valley as an upper elite class Pandit woman sees it, is a heaven of its own kind. The reader is left unaware about whether it is the same for the ‘other’ community that she mentions in the form of people related to service at her home the Fishwoman, Riceblind, Mohamdu and farmers who bring the ration to her home, writes Inshah Malik.

Sudha Koul was...

Baba has grown old,

Can’t stand the cold –

A decrepit Moses,

Maimed by the mountain,

Takes an exodus,

Switching elements

Saffron exsanguinate’s to fade to extinct
his cultivator in grieve has lost his course

Of the nearby graves the soil stolen
mansion rubbled and no one to broil

The Lamb of God is yet to come

Rain rains stolen arrows of some war
to dye red this winter its whitefall

Till no place is left for flowers and trees
each houses rubbled with graves blooming infront

The Lamb of God is yet to come

Alone a shadow in a dead painter’s nocturne
she had said of stitching their shadows

Lanterns burn...

The snow is sniffy.

I want to call home

George Washington

And talk politics.

He cannot tell a lie.

History is my hurdle,

Joins me in my dance

On the highways of the dark night

And sings numbers

In low tunes

I feel

I’m not alone.

Literature is an indivisible entity. However, that is not tantamount to denying its plurality and diversity. Literature could be as diverse as the languages of the world. In fact, it may go beyond that as there are Englishes now, not just “English” as there are multiple variations of the English language in existence now.

The English language has had a very formidable and formative influence on the Kashmiri language and literature both technically as well as thematically.

The transition from the customary poetry to a more creative and forthright expression that took place in the early twentieth century Kashmiri poetry also happened out of the indirect influences of that language in its initial phase. That influence took place at two levels-literary and technical. Literary revolutions that were afoot in the...

I am incarcerated, in these dark walls
I see nothing, coerced to smell
Filthy, dirty, plagued floors
You caught me by my collar
Dragged me to these walls
Which I won’t call a “place”
Some days ago
Just the sore words I whispered
“We Want Freedom!”