Tag: Kashmir

By the Waters of the Sind | Agha Shahid Ali

~ Sundeep Dougal ~ 2 Comments

Is the sinking moon like a prisoner
sentenced somewhere to Black Water,
perhaps left hanged on the horizon
of an Andaman island? But here,
in Kashmir, by these waters,
its light will leave me—where?

My father is—in Persian—reciting
Hafiz of Shiraz, that “Nothing
in this world is without terrible
barriers— / Except love, but only when
it begins.” And the host fills
everyone’s glass again.

So what is separation’s geography?
Everything is just that mystery,
everything is this roar that deafens:
this stream has branched off from the Indus,
in Little Tibet, just to
find itself where Porus

miles down (there it will join the Jhelum)
lost to the Greeks. It will become,
in Pakistan, the Indus again.
Leaning against the Himalayas
(the mountains here are never
in the distance), wine-glass

in hand, I see evening come on. It is
two months since you left us. So this
is separation? Sharpened against
rocks, the stream, rapid-cutting the night,
finds its steel a little stained
with the beginning light,

and the moon must rise now from behind
that one pine-topped mountain to find
us without you. I stare at one guest
who is asking Father to fill them
in on—what else?—the future,
burnishing that dark gem

of Kashmir with a history of saints, with
prophecy, with kings, and with myth,
and I want them to change the subject
to these waters that must already
be silver there where the moon
sees the Indus empty

itself into the Arabian Sea. What
rustle of trees the wind forgot
reaches me through this roar as the moon,
risen completely, silvers the world
so ruthlessly, shining on
me a terror so pearled

Google Translate renders these lines as:
“Every building you see was disruptive
Except for love, it is free from defects.

The season of the planes

~ Sundeep Dougal ~ Leave a comment

In Kashmir, where the year
has four, clear seasons, my mother
spoke of her childhood

in the plains of Lucknow, and
of that season in itself,
the monsoon, when Krishna’s

flute is heard on the shores
of the Jamuna. She played old records
of the Banaras thumri-singers,

Siddheshwari and Rasoolan, their
voices longing, when the clouds
gather, for that invisible

blue god. Separation
can’t be borne when the rains
come: this every lyric says.

While children run out
into the alleys, soaking
their utter summer,

messages pass between lovers.
Heer and Ranjha and others
of legends, their love forbidden,

burned incense all night,
waiting for answers. My mother
hummed Heer’s lament

but never told me if she
also burned sticks
of jasmine that, dying,

kept raising soft necks
of ash. I imagined
each neck leaning

on the humid air. She only
said: The monsoons never cross
the mountains into Kashmir.

– Agha Shahid Ali

And to honour his mother’s memory, here are the two greats – Siddheshwari Devi and Rasoolan Bai– in a rare recording, singing together.

The Last Saffron

~ Sundeep Dougal ~ Leave a comment

Next to Saffron cultivation in interest come the floating gardens
Of the Dal Lake that can be towed from place to place.

1.

I will die, in autumn, in Kashmir,
and the shadowed routine of each vein
will almost be news, the blood censored,
for the Saffron Sun and the Times of Rain

will be sold in black, then destroyed,
invisibly at Zero Taxi Stand.
There will be men nailing tabloids
to the fence of Grindlay’s Bank,

I will look for any sign of blood
in captions under the photos of boys,
those who by inches – after the April flood –
were killed in fluted waters, each voice

torn from its throat as the Jehlum
receded to their accounts and found cash
sealed in the bank’s reflection.
I will open the waves, draw each hushed

balance, ready to pay, by any means,
whatever the drivers ask. The tone
called Eyes of Maple Green
will promise, “I’ll take you anywhere, even

in curfew hours,” and give me a bouquet –
“There’s a ban on wreaths!”

2.

I will die that day in late October, it will be long ago:

He will take me to Pompore where I’ll gather flowers and run
back to the taxi, stamens – How many thousands? – crushed
to red varnish in my hands: I’ll shout: “Saffron, my payment!”
And he’ll break the limit, chase each rumor of me. “No one’s
see Shahid,” we’ll hear again and again, in every tea house from
Nishat to Naseem. He will stop by the Shalimar ghat, and we’ll
descend the steps to the water. He’ll sever some land – two
yards – from the shore, I, his last passenger. Suddenly he’ll age,
his voice will break, his gaze green water, washing me: “it won’t
grow again, this gold from the burned fields of Pampore.” And
he will row the freed earth past the Security zones, so my blood
is news in the Saffron Sun setting on the waves.

3.

Yes, I remember it,
the day I’ll die, I broadcast the crimson,

so long of that sky, its spread air,
its rushing dyes, and a piece of earth

bleeding, apart from the shore, as we went
on the day I’ll die, past the guards, and he,

two yards he rowed me into the sunset,
past all pain. On everyone’s lips was news

of my death but only that beloved couplet,
broken, on his:

“If there is a paradise on earth,
It is this, it is this, it is this.”

(for Vidur Wazir)

– Agha Shahid Ali

Kashmir without a post office

~ Sundeep Dougal ~ Leave a comment

 


. . . letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
– Gerard Manley Hopkins


1

Again I’ve returned to this country
where a minaret has been entombed.
Someone soaks the wicks of clay lamps
in mustard oil, each night climbs its steps
to read messages scratched on planets.
His fingerprints cancel blank stamps
in that archive for letters with doomed
addresses, each house buried or empty

Empty? Because so many fled, ran away,
and became refugees there, in the plains,
where they must now will a final dewfall
to turn the mountains to glass. They’ll see
us through them see us frantically bury
houses to save them from fire that, like a wall,
caves in. The soldiers light it, hone the flames,
burn our world to sudden papier-mâché

inlaid with gold, then ash. When the muezzin
died, the city was robbed of every Call.
The houses were swept about like leaves
for burning. Now every night we bury
our houses and theirs, the ones left empty.
We are faithful. On their doors we hang wreaths.
More faithful each night fire again is a wall
and we look for the dark as it caves in.


2

We’re inside the fire, looking for the dark,
one unsigned card, left on the street, says. I want
to be he who pours blood. To soak your hands.
Or I’ll leave mine in the cold till the rain
is ink, and my fingers, at the edge of pain,
are seals all night to cancel the stamps.
The mad guide! The lost speak like this. They haunt
a country when it is ash. Phantom heart,

pray he’s alive. I have returned in rain
to find him, to learn why he never wrote.
I’ve brought cash, a currency of paisleys
to buy the new stamps, rare already, blank,
to buy the new stamps, rare already, blank,
no nation named on them. Without a lamp
I look for him in houses buried, empty
He may be alive, opening doors of smoke,
breathing in the dark his ash-refrain:

Everything is finished, nothing remains.
I must force silence to be a mirror
to see his voice, ask it again for directions.
Fire runs in waves. Should I cross that river?
Each post office is boarded up. Who will deliver
parchment cut in paisleys, my news to prisons?
Only silence can now trace my letters
to him. Or in a dead office the dark panes.

3

“The entire map of the lost will be candled.
I’m keeper of the minaret since the muezzin died.
Come soon, I’m alive. There’s almost a paisley
against the light, sometimes white, then black.
The glutinous wash is wet on its back
as it blossoms into autumn’s final country—
Buy it, I issue it only once, at night.
Come before I’m killed, my voice canceled.”

In this dark rain, be faithful, Phantom heart,

this is your pain. Feel it. You must feel it.
“Nothing will remain, everything’s finished,”
I see his voice again: “This is a shrine
of words. You’ll find your letters to me. And mine
to you. Come soon and tear open these vanished
envelopes.” And reach the minaret:
I’m inside the fire. I have found the dark.
This is your pain. You must feel it. Feel it,
Heart, be faithful to his mad refrain—
For he soaked the wicks of clay lamps,
lit them each night as he climbed these steps
to read messages scratched on planets.
His hands were seals to cancel the stamps.
This is an archive. I’ve found the remains
of his voice, that map of longings with no limit.

4

I read them, letters of lovers, the mad ones,
and mine to him from whom no answers came.
I light lamps, send my answers, Calls to Prayer
to deaf worlds across continents. And my lament
is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
to this world whose end was near, always near.
My words go out in huge packages of rain,
go there, to addresses, across the oceans.

It’s raining as I write this. I have no prayer.
It’s just a shout, held in, It’s Us! It’s Us!
whose letters are cries that break like bodies
in prisons. Now each night in the minaret
I guide myself up the steps. Mad silhouette,
I throw paisleys to clouds. The lost are like this:
They bribe the air for dawn, this their dark
purpose.
But there’s no sun here. There is no sun here.

Then be pitiless you whom I could not save—
Send your cries to me, if only in this way:
I’ve found a prisoner’s letters to a lover—
One begins: “These words may never reach you.”
Another ends: “The skin dissolves in dew
without your touch.” And I want to answer:
I want to live forever. What else can I say?
It rains as I write this. Mad heart, be brave.

– Agha Shahid Ali
Parts 3 and 4 were added to this poem by Ali and he renamed the longer poem
The country without a post office