SHALIMAR GARDEN OF KASHMIR AND AGHA SHAHID ALI'S POEM

This is an evening time view of Shalimar Garden of Kashmir
Photo Autar Mota 2011
A son- et -Lumiere scripted by Ali Sardar jafri (on Grand Mughal romance ) was an added attraction of this garden in seventies . Agha Shahid Ali has also written a poem “Son et Lumiere in Shalimar Garden ”. The poetry of Agha shahid Ali brings one straight fact to us that the poet had an excellent knowledge of the ancient culture and history of kashmir . This poem in particular has a direct linkage to Neelmat Purana .Here is the poem

(Son -et- Lumiere at Shalimar )

Brahma’s voice is torn water:
It runs down the slopes of Zabarwan
And Kashmir is a lake
Till a mountain to its west is pierced
With a trident
And valley drained to reveal
the one born of water,
Now easily slain.
Who was the demon
Of desiccated water ?
No one knows
In the drying land
Where a rattle of cones is thatching
The roofs of kingdoms .
We watch the wind .
And unhealed ,
The centuries pass :
Slaves plane the mountains
With roots the carried
In trunks from Isfahan;
Spotlights lash their backs
As Shalimar blooms into
Mughal’s thirst for
Terracing the seasons
Into symmetry .
In the marble summer palace ,
A nautch girl pours wine ,
Into the emperor ‘s glass
Splintering the future
Into wars of succession,
The leaves scattered
As the wind blows
An era into
Another Dynasty’s Bloody Arms
( Agha shahid Ali from the Book “ The Veiled Suite “The collected poems )

                                                               

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