FIRAQ GORAKHPURI AND ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

                                           

FIRAQ GORAKHPURI AND ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

"Aadmi ka aadmi hona hi mushkil hai Firaq

Ilm o fun, ikhlaaq o mazhab jis ko chaahe poochh lo"......Firaq Gorakhpuri

"For a man to be a human being 

has itself become impossible, Firaq,

Ask whomsoever you will

 about matters of knowledge, 

art, morality, or religion."

The couplet asserts that the ethical and spiritual ideal of Humanity has collapsed. In every public domain , the intellect, the aesthetic, the sacred, and the civic  conduct is no longer guided by fairness or humanity.

Firaq Gorakhpuri’s couplet reads as a precise Indian articulation of Schopenhauer’s pessimism. For Schopenhauer, human beings are driven by a blind Will, and reason is seldom used to transcend it, but rather to rationalise ego, appetite, and domination. Firaq observes the same failure across the four pillars of civilisation. When he says "ask whomsoever you will about ilm, fun, ikhlaaq, mazhab",  he is stating that no institution remains uncontaminated. Knowledge has become sophistry, art has become display, morality has become convenience, and religion has become faction. Thus "to be a human being"to act with compassion, truthfulness, and self-restraint  has become the most arduous vocation. In Schopenhauerian terms, this is the tragedy of a species endowed with intellect yet enslaved by Will, wherein culture exists without cultivation.

Firaq’s poetry carries every element requisite for classification as literature of humanity. He is tall in vision, indic in sensibility, full of clarity and profound in moral judgement. His idiom is Hindustani, but his concern is universal: the dignity of the human person. He does not lament from cynicism, but from a classical humanist standard against which he measures the age and finds it wanting. Like Schopenhauer, he diagnoses the disease of the age; unlike the German philosopher, he retains the lyric faith that poetry itself may be one of the few remaining spaces where "aadmi ka aadmi hona" is still possible. It is this fusion of ethical severity with aesthetic grace that places Firaq within the lineage of world literature concerned not with nations or sects, but with man as such.

( Avtar Mota)

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THE DIAGNOSIS AND THE PRESCRIPTION

                                              

                                           


THE DIAGNOSIS AND THE PRESCRIPTION 

"Zindagi kya hai aaj isse aey dost  

Soch lein aur udaas ho jaayein"— Firaq Gorakhpuri  

" What is life, my friend, 

If we pause today to think on it,  

We will only end up heavy with sadness."

Firaq begins with the wound, and Camus gives us the way to live inside it. The image is for  this thesis: two silhouettes on sand, the sea before them, the sky bruised into a dark red around the sinking sun. They sit close, with the weight of the dune at their backs, and they look forward, together, toward the horizon where tomorrow will rise. In that posture , silence is no longer privation. It is method. It is ethics. Language, when pressed against the futility ,tries to close the distance between man and world with explanations, with promises, with theology. It fails, and in failing it makes noise. Silence refuses that failure. It does not explain the sea. It does not argue with the sunset. It lets the world be indifferent, and in that permission something rare occurs: lucidity without bitterness. To be silent here is to acknowledge that no other person can carry the burden of meaning for me, and that I cannot carry it for them.  The gap is real. And yet the choice to remain, to sit, to face the same direction, converts isolation into a shared condition. This is not communion as fusion. It is communion as parallel endurance. The sand behind them is the past that cannot be changed. The blue before them is the future that cannot be known. The red glow is the present that is dying, and must be watched without flinching. Silence allows that watching. It trains the eye to see what is, not what we wish were. So here , silence functions as phenomenological reduction: it brackets interpretation so that the thing itself ;  light on water, wind on skin, time passing  can appear. Praise, then, belongs to silence not because it is empty, but because it is full in the right way. It is full of attention. It is full of the courage to not fill the void with chatter. 

And so the solution to the existential question is not found in dialogue about the problem, but in the orientation toward what comes after the problem. To look at each other would be to seek absolution in a mirror. To look in the same direction is to enter a pact of defiance without hatred, solidarity without illusion. Name it a revolt: to live, and to live knowingly. Firaq names the cost: to think, and to grow sad. Both are true. The sadness is not to be cured. It is to be carried. The couplet tells us that thought leads to heaviness. The image tells us what to do with that heaviness ;  place it on the sand, and keep your eyes on the sea. Tomorrow’s rising sun asks nothing of doctrine. It asks only presence. That is why silence is praised here, in the highest register. It is the space where each bears his own meaningless , and by bearing it beside another, without turning, without pleading, we discover a fragile joy. Not happiness as escape, but joy as fidelity to the real. The world will not answer. The sun will set, and it will rise. Our task is to be there for both, with sand at our backs and no words between us, because the words would only lie. In that wordless facing, life ceases to be a question that must be solved and becomes a scene that must be met. And to meet it, again and again, is the only honest answer Firaq’s sadness and Camus’s defiance can share.

 Firaq gives the diagnosis: thinking makes us sad. Camus gives the prescription: face the same horizon in silence for  "parallel endurance" .

( Avtar Mota )

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KNIFE IN THE KITCHEN: INDIA AND THE WEST

                                          

                                         

                                       

Indian and Western Knives in the Kitchen: One Blade vs Twelve

If you open an Indian kitchen drawer and then a Western one, you see two completely different philosophies laid out in steel.

In India: one or two knives in  the drawer or on the kitchen slab  and a small one in the pocket.  In the West: a wooden block with a minimum of 12 knives, each named, each with one job.  The difference is not about money or skill. It’s about food, history, who makes the tools, who sharpens them, and what the knife means to each culture.

The Indian Kitchen: One Blade for Everything

In most Indian homes the kitchen knife never used to be  from a brand. It was from the Lohar ,  the local blacksmith. For centuries he’s taken scrap steel, old car springs, railway files, heated them in a coal forge and hammered out a knife.  Handle of wood, horn, or welded metal. Because it was  forged to survive, you never needed  more .

The traditional Indian kitchen typically makes do with just two knives, and there is sound reason for it. The first is a large, heavy knife , often called a Boti or cleaver , used for robust tasks such as chopping hard vegetables, splitting coconuts, and cutting meat. The second is a smaller, sharper knife for more delicate work: peeling, finely slicing onions and tomatoes, and preparing fruit. Indian cookery relies far less on an array of specialised blades and far more on grinding, pounding and hand-preparation with a mortar and pestle or mixer-grinder. Because most chopping is straightforward and ingredients are cooked down into curries, dals and stir-fries, one knife for power and one for precision is perfectly adequate. It is a practical, economical approach that keeps the kitchen simple, easy to maintain, and suited to everyday cooking.

And there is a knife  that doesn’t stay in the kitchen.The second part of the Indian system is the pocket knife. A 3-4 inch folding blade. In India, a pocket knife is a handy daily tool. People use it to peel fruits, open packets, cut ropes, and sharpen pencils. Farmers use it for small farm work, vendors for cutting, and travelers for emergencies. Compact and practical, it’s carried more for utility than for show.

So the rule has been: generally one or two knives in the kitchen and a smaller version in the pocket.

Who sharpens it? 

The Indian bicycle knife sharpener is a street institution. Usually a man with a simple setup mounted on the back of an old bicycle: a foot-pedal powered grinding stone, a tray of water, and a few hooks to hang finished knives, scissors, and sickles. He cycles from gali to gali, announcing his arrival with a bell so homemakers, butchers, tailors, and vendors can bring out their dull blades. For a few rupees, he sharpens everything with practiced skill ; holding the blade at just the right angle, splashing water to cool the steel, and testing the edge on his thumb. It’s more than a service; it’s a piece of moving, sustainable micro-industry. No electricity, no shop rent, just skill, sweat, and a bicycle. In an age of electric grinders and packaged disposables, the bicycle sharpener still survives because he’s affordable, accessible, and part of the neighborhood’s daily rhythm. It was one man, one wheel, keeping the one knife that fed the whole family alive.

 The Western Kitchen: The 12-Knife Block

Open a Western kitchen and the first thing you see is the block. Chef’s knife, paring knife, serrated bread knife, carving knife, boning knife, utility knife, santoku, cleaver, 6 steak knives. Add cheese and tomato knives and you’re at 12-15 pieces easily.This didn’t come from home cooking. It came from French professional kitchens.

In the 1800s Auguste Escoffier created the" Brigade system" . One cook for sauces, one for pastry, one for meat. Each had tools made for that one task. A boning knife is thin to go around joints. A bread knife is serrated to saw without crushing. A carving knife is long for clean slices at the table.

In the 20th century, manufacturers sold that system to homes. Cookery schools taught it. Magazines photographed it. “Starter sets” appeared in department stores. The message: serious cooks have the right tool for every job.

Western meals reinforced it. Courses. Bread, then salad, then roast, then cheese. You don’t cut brie with the onion knife. You don’t cut raw chicken and then an apple. Hygiene, etiquette, and presentation demanded separation.The knives also demanded it. Western knives use high-carbon hardened steel to hold a razor edge. That makes them excellent, and expensive.

And sharpening became an industry.

No sparks on the pavement. Instead, branded motor vans drive through suburbs: “Professional Knife Sharpening”. Inside: electric belt grinders, water-cooled wheels, angle jigs, polishing buffers. Or you take your block to a kitchen store. At home there are electric sharpeners, whetstones, honing steels.

Because you own 12 or 24  knives, you need a system to maintain them. Each needs sharpening occasionally. Because they cost so much, you pay to have it done right.

 Technique vs Tools : The real difference is philosophy.

India puts the skill in the hand. The same knife rocks, chops, pounds, scrapes. The cook adjusts force and angle. The food is mixed, so a rough chop is fine. The knife must be a workhorse. 

The West puts the skill in the tool. The right knife makes the job easier and the plates look better. Thin tomato slices. Perfect dice. Clean roast carvings. The knife does part of the work.

Neither is wrong. They’re optimised for different food and different ideas of a meal.

Cost, Care, and Culture

India: Knife from blacksmith: ₹30–₹100 . Pocket knife: less. Sharpening charges : ₹10–₹30. If it breaks, make another. Wash, use, and repeat.

West: Block of 12 or 24 : A wedding gift. Displayed on the counter. A good branded stainless steel set of knives could cost between 600 to 1800 US dollars. After use, wash the knife by hand with regular dish soap, rinse with hot water and dry by hand immediately. Dishwashers are very bad for knives. Even worse for carbon steel knives.

Culturally too: In India the knife is invisible, like a spoon. Sharpening happens in public, with noise and sparks.  In the West the knife block is visible ,  a status symbol of a “well-equipped kitchen”. Sharpening happens in a van or in the pantry with a gadget.

 

The Knife Beyond the Kitchen

Beyond cooking, the knife also took on meaning in literature and everyday language. Across cultures it became a symbol for mistrust, deceit, and the treacherous act. Because a knife works only up close, poets used it for betrayal by those near you. Because it is hidden, it came to mean hidden intent ; a smile with a blade behind it. Because it divides, it came to mean a cut in trust, a broken promise. From “Et tu, Brute?” to “peeth peeche chhura bhonkna” to “muh mein Ram, bagal mein chhuri”, the same object that feeds in the kitchen represents betrayal in stories. Who doesn't remember the iconic song lines from Raj Kapoor 's  film " Mera Naam Joker".

"Aye bhai

Kaisa hai karishmaa

Kaisa khilavaad hai

Jaanavar aadami se

Zyada vafaadaar hai

Khaataa hai kodaa bhi

Rahata hai bhookha bhi

Phir bhi wo maalik par

Karata nahin vaar hai

Aur insaan yeh maal

Jis kaa khaata hai

Pyaar jis se paata hai

Geet jis ke gaata hai

Uss ke hi seene mein

Bhokataa kataar hai

......Aye bhai zara dekh ke chalo" 

(Oh brother  

What a farce it is  

Animals are more loyal  

than human beings  

They eat beatings too,  

they stay hungry too  

Yet they never  

attack their master  

And this human,  

whose salt he eats,  

from whom he gets love,  

whose songs he sings  

He stabs a dagger  

right into that very chest  

......Oh brother, walk carefully)

( Avtar Mota )

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MY SHORT STORY " WITHOUT WHY"

                                          

(Without Why)

The river was in flood. Three days of rain and the river had no banks. It moved wide, brown, and silent. A boat carried villagers to safety. Then it lurched. A child, maybe four, slipped in.  

“ Ayee! The child!” 

Hands rose. Voices broke. On that boat sat two swimmers. They wept and did not move. From the next boat a man stood. Thin. Spectacles. An accountant. Fondly named Master-ji. Ink still on his fingers. He could not swim. He looked once. The water was not cruel. Only not listening. He created a fake thought that he could swim. The mind received it well. And he jumped.

He jumped on a belief he did not have. If he waited to say “I cannot,” the moment would pass. So for one second he acted as if. The current hit him. Arms made for ledgers fought it. He caught the child, lifted him, threw him into the boat. The mother wept to see  her son alive .

Master-ji turned for his own boat. The water had already taken its due. The current was faster than will. He went under. Came up once. Was gone around the bend. The boats went on. Safety was reached.

Later they asked, “Why did he jump?”  

Because the world gives no reason, and he chose to give one.  Because there was no “other,” only a child and a man who was there.  Because to save was to be. And to be lost was also to be found.

There was grief. There was futility. A man who could not swim saved a life and lost his own to the same water. The flood receded. The water stayed indifferent.  And the act remained.

( Avtar Mota )

Critique of the story 

Avtar Mota’s “Without Why” presents a single, unadorned incident ; an accountant who cannot swim enters a flooded river to rescue a child and from it derives a compact ontology of ethical action. The narrative economy is deliberate. Stripped of biography, setting, and consolation, the text functions as an exemplum: it does not describe heroism so much as enact the structure of a moral decision.

The story is best read through three philosophical frames that converge on the same problem: action in the absence of guarantee.

1. The Upanishadic frame: Nishkaam Karma

The act embodies nishkaam action,  action without attachment to phala, or fruit. Master-ji “jumped on a belief he did not have”. His arms are “made for ledgers”, not for swimming. Capacity is irrelevant. What matters is Sannidhya, presence. “There was no ‘other’, only a child and a man who was there.” This echoes the Upanishadic and Gitaic insistence that dharma is performed because it is dharma, not because the world will reward it. The moral agent is not defined by outcome but by the alignment of action with duty in the instant.

2. The Camusian frame: Revolt in an Indifferent Universe

 

The river “was not cruel. Only not listening.” Nature is amoral. Camus’ absurd arises here: the human demand for meaning meets a silent world. Master-ji’s response is Camusian revolt. “The world gives no reason, and he chose to give one.” He does not wait for justification. He creates it through the leap. To save is “to be”. The cost ,his own disappearance, does not invalidate the act. Like Sisyphus, meaning is not found but produced in the doing.

3. The Kundera-esque frame: The Weight of Lightness

 

Kundera diagnosed modern life as burdened by lightness: without eternal return, acts feel weightless. Mota inverts this. Precisely because there is no audience, no monument, and no afterlife of recognition  “the act remained” the choice gains weight. The lightness is not triviality but radical responsibility. One second, one decision, and the self is constituted by it.

In sum, “Without Why” archives more than an anecdote. It preserves a cross-cultural argument: that ethics is not predicated on certainty, but on presence. 

(J.Paul) 

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URDU COUPLET SEEN TROUGH THE PRISAM OF ADI SHANKARA 'S ADVAITIC THOUGHT

                                             

Urdu Couplet Seen Through the Prism of Adi Shankara's Advaitic Thought 

"Maine poochha ke zindagi kya hai  

Haath se gir ke jaam toot gaya"

"I asked what life is.  

The glass slipped from my hand 

and shattered."

In Advaita, Adi Shankara's core teaching is: "Brahma satyam, jagat mithya, jivo brahmaiva na aparah": Brahman is real, the world is apparent, the Jiva and Brahman are not different.

The couplet stages the fundamental Advaitic impasse in domestic miniature. The interrogative subject, the Jiva, is animated by Jijnasa, the metaphysical desire to grasp the nature of existence. Yet the response it elicits is not propositional but catastrophic. The Jaam functions as Naama-rupa, the phenomenal world of name and form upon which the ego predicates meaning, continuity, and security. To hold the glass is to enact Kartritva, the assumption of doership and possession. Its fall therefore enacts the central Shankaran insight that all Upadhis, all contingent vessels of identity, are inherently Mithya: empirically functional yet ultimately incapable of sustaining the demand placed upon them. The shattering is not an accident within the world, but the world's disclosure of its own ontological insufficiency. In this moment the empirical project collapses, and the seeker is confronted with the limits of conceptual grasping.

What remains after the vessel breaks is precisely what Advaita seeks to isolate. The water, Chaitanya or consciousness, is not destroyed; it cannot be, for it is without parts and without origin. The glass merely gave the illusion of containment, and its dissolution reveals that consciousness was never circumscribed by form. Thus the couplet performs Neti-neti: life is not the object held, nor the relation of holding, nor the narrative of the one who holds. The hand is left empty, and in that vacuity the question recoils upon itself. Who witnessed the fall? Who abides when every answerable thing is withdrawn? For Adi Shankara this is the decisive turn from Pravritti to Nivritti, from seeking Brahman in phenomena to abiding as the Sakshi, the witnessing awareness which is non-different from Brahman itself. Existence therefore answers metaphysical inquiry not by supplying an object, but by rescinding all objects, leaving only that which was never born and never perishes.

( Avtar Mota )

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WHEN ONE BOOK BRINGS A FORTUNE TO ITS PUBLISHER: "THE OUTSIDER"

                                              

 ( President Macron and Antonie Gallimard at a book festival)

When One Book Brings a Fortune To Its Publisher : The Case of Albert Camus's 'L'Étranger' or The 'Outsider'

( Photo : Antoine Gallimard ,Present CEO of Editions Gallimard)

Tucked away on a quiet, plane-tree-lined street in the 7th arrondissement, behind an unassuming façade, stands the spiritual home of 20th-century French literature.

Editions Gallimard was founded on 31 May 1911 by Gaston Gallimard, alongside André Gide and Jean Schlumberger. What began as La Nouvelle Revue Française swiftly became the most authoritative arbiter of French letters. To be taken on by Gallimard was, and remains, to be admitted to the canon.

In the post-war years the house defined an era. From this address came Camus’ L'Étranger, Sartre’s La Nausée, and the essays that shaped existentialism itself. The corridors here once echoed with the arguments of Nobel laureates.

Since 1988, the firm has been led by Antoine Gallimard, the founder’s grandson. Under his direction the house has navigated the shift to digital publishing with a deft hand, whilst remaining fiercely devoted to the printed book.

The true emblem of the house is the Collection Blanche. A novel bearing its cream cover and single black band is not merely published , it is consecrated. For a French writer, inclusion in la Blanche is the closest thing to literary knighthood.

The building itself lies a short stroll from Rue du Bac and Solférino métro stations, not far from the Musée d’Orsay. The street was renamed Rue Gaston-Gallimard in 1985 in tribute to its founder.

This is not a museum, but a working maison d’édition. The doors do not open to casual visitors. If you wish to pay your respects, the nearest public shrine is Librairie Gallimard on Boulevard Raspail, five minutes’ walk away, where every Blanche title awaits. To stand on Rue Gaston-Gallimard is to stand where modern French thought was edited, printed, and sent out into the world.

In publishing, most books lose money. 80% of titles never earn back their advance.  Then there is L'Étranger.  A 120-page novella written during the Nazi occupation, first printed in 4,400 copies, has turned into a €150M+ asset for one publisher: Éditions Gallimard.  This is the story of how one book built a fortune.

The Unlikely Start: 1942

May 1942. Paris is occupied. Paper is rationed.   Gallimard publishes  L'Étranger by a 29-year-old Algerian journalist named Albert Camus.  First print run: 4,400 copies. It sold slowly.  The German censors approved it because "nothing happened  politically." French critics liked it. That was it. The book brings nominal revenue to Gallimard that year: maybe 60,000 francs.  No one at Gallimard in 1942 could have predicted this book would still be in print 84 years later.

The Three Engines That Created the Fortune

A publishing fortune doesn’t come from one big year. It comes from compounding. L'Étranger had three.

Engine 1: The Nobel Prize, 1957

When Camus won the Nobel at 44, Gallimard immediately reprinted everything. L'Étranger went from literary novel to global event.  Sales jumped 10x in 18 months. Foreign publishers lined up in 68 languages with advance For Gallimard, this was free marketing worth millions.

Engine 2: The French School System

In the 1960s L'Étranger entered the lycée curriculum. Every French 17-year-old reads it.  That means 150,000 to 250,000 guaranteed copies every single year for 60 years. No advertising budget. No returns. Just September reorders.   In publishing, this is called "an annuity."

Engine 3: The Paperback, 1972

 

Gallimard launched "Folio" , cheap, €7-€10 paperbacks sold in train stations and supermarkets.  L'Étranger became impulse-buy literature. Parents buy it for kids. Tourists buy it in Paris.  Low cost + high volume = massive margins.

The Numbers: A Fortune in Present Value

Gallimard does not release book-level accounts. But from catalog data and industry standards:

Metric Estimate :Total Camus sales for Gallimard 29 million copies

Estimated L'Étranger share 12-15 million copies

Gross revenue 1942-2026 ~€75 Million 

Present Value 2026~€150 - €165 Million

Net profit to Gallimard ~€40 - €60 Million

To put that in context: Gallimard’s total turnover in 2010 was €230M. One book has generated more than half a year’s revenue, over 8 decades. The author side is also huge. Camus + his estate have likely earned ~€80M PV 2026 in royalties. But Gallimard owns the copyright. They will keep earning after the estate does.

Why L'Étranger and Not Another Book?

Gallimard has 38 Nobel winners. Only a few became fortunes. Why this one?

1. Length: 120 pages. Cheap to print. Teachers can assign it in 2 weeks.

2. Theme: "The Absurd" is teachable. Every year new students need to write essays on it.

3. Tone: Short sentences, no difficult vocabulary. Easy to translate into 68 languages.

4. Timing: Published under Occupation = myth. Won Nobel = legitimacy. Entered schools = permanence. It hit the rare trifecta: Literary prestige + Educational necessity + Commercial accessibility.

5. What This Means for Publishing

L'Étranger is Gallimard’s pension fund.  In any given year, Gallimard publishes 400+ new titles. Most will sell under 3,000 copies and disappear.  

The profits from L'Étranger pay the editors, the rent on Rue Sébastien-Bottin, and the advances for risky new authors. This is the business model of literary publishing: Find one book that lasts 80 years, and it will fund 800 books that last 8 months. Antoine Gallimard, the current head, still calls Camus and Saint-Exupéry the "two pillars" of the house. Remove L'Étranger and Gallimard is a very different company.

Conclusion: The 4,400-Copy Lottery Ticket

In 1942, Gaston Gallimard took a chance on a young writer from Algeria.  He printed 4,400 copies during a war. That decision is still paying dividends in 2026. L'Étranger proves a brutal truth in publishing: you don’t need 100 bestsellers.  You need one book that never goes out of print.Because when one book brings a fortune, it doesn’t just make the publisher rich.  It keeps literature alive. Gallimard’s standard contract in the 1940s-50s: 10% royalty on French retail price  for the author. For foreign translations, Gallimard would license the book and pay Camus @ 5-8% of what they received.

Camus was never rich ; not even after he won the Nobel Prize .He  died Jan 4, 1960. After that, royalties went to his estate: wife Francine, then children Catherine and Jean.Camus himself never saw most of the money. He  bought a house in Lourmarin from his Nobel Prize money, and supported his  family including his windowed mother . 

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
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AHARBAL WATERFALL TRAGEDY : 20TH JULY, 1969

                                           

THE  VESHAW STILL REMEMBERS : AHARBAL 20 JULY,1969

"History,

will you mention us In your faded scroll ?

We do not seek rewards,

Nor do we want our pictures In the calendar of years.

But tell our story simply

To those we shall not see,

Tell those who will replace us :

We fought courageously."

......................(Bulgarian poet Nikola Vaptsarov)

The memorial stone outside the Department of Physics in Kashmir University  has  weathered. It has   some graffiti on it now, but the core message is still legible: a tribute to a young student who lost his life trying to save the life of a fellow student. It reads this :

"IN MEMORY OF  BRIJ KRISHEN KOUL  WHO SACRIFICED HIS LIFE  AT AHARBAL FALL   ON JULY 20 1969  IN A VAIN EFFORT  TO SAVE THE LIFE  OF A FELLOW STUDENT  ZAMROODA HABIB "

On July 20, 1969 at Ahrabal Falls in South Kashmir, Brij Krishen Koul, a student, drowned while trying to rescue his fellow student Zamrooda Habib. Ahrabal Falls is on the Veshaw River in Kulgam district and is known for strong currents ,  even today it’s a popular but risky spot although some steel fencing and precautionary notice boards  are seen now.

The Fall and the River

Aharbal is about 76 kilometres from Srinagar if you take the shorter route via Pulwama and Shopian. The other route is through Khanabal and Kulgam, roughly 95 kilometres. From Shopian town, it is another 16 kilometres to the site.

The waterfall is created by the River Veshaw, also mentioned in Sanskrit texts as Vishnupaad. The Veshaw begins at the high-altitude Kounser Nag Lake, a glacial lake that Kashmiri pilgrims have associated with Lord Vishnu for centuries. From Kungwattan, the river gathers force and drops 24.4 metres at Aharbal before continuing down to join the Jhelum, or Vitasta, at Sangam near Bijbehara Bridge.

What many visitors do not notice at once is that there are two falls. The main fall is the 24.4-metre drop that everyone photographs. About 50 metres downstream, there is a second fall, around 7 metres high. It is smaller, but in monsoon it is just as furious. The sound of both together, with the spray rising like smoke, is what people mean when they say Aharbal is "horribly beautiful". Horrible in the old sense of the word: it inspires awe and a little fear.

The geology here matters. The Veshaw cuts through soft Karewa soil and harder rock. That is why the gorge is deep and narrow, and why the water has such power. Government surveys have noted that Aharbal has a potential of about 100 MW of hydroelectric generation. For a power-starved state, that number has been discussed for decades.

A River That Did Not Inquire

  

On 20 July 1969, the Veshaw was in spate. Monsoon and snowmelt had turned the Aharbal fall in Kulgam, that 25-metre cataract tourists now call the “Niagara of Kashmir”, into a churning throat of white water. Into that merciless pool stepped two students of the University of Kashmir. One was caught by the current. The other went in after her. Neither came out alive. Their bodies were found a day later, downstream, where the river had finished its work.  

Brij Krishen Koul was in his final year of M.Sc Physics. He lived near Magar Mal Bagh, commuted on the University buses, and was expected back in the department for research. Zamrooda Habib belonged to the Urdu Department and lived  near Zaldagar in the old city. In any ledger of the time, they belonged to different columns. On that day, the Vishav erased the columns..

The Brightness We Have Misplaced

The  memory refuses to age. It belongs to a Kashmir that understood itself differently.  Koul was not merely a physicist. He was the heartbeat of Gandhi Bhawan. Friends still speak of him as an accomplished  stage actor , singer who loved poetry, music and tidy dresses.

Habib moved in that same orbit. University life in the late 1960s did not run on departmental lines. Where Koul was, a crowd gathered: Physics, Urdu, Arts, Music. Gandhi Bhawan was neutral ground. That is where  other students knew him. That was where all of them knew each other. The University sorted them by talent, by laughter, by who would turn up for rehearsal.

The Moment That Defined a Character

The details of the picnic are held closely by those who were there. What is not in doubt is the choice. Zamrooda Habib was taken by the current below the fall. Aharbal forms a recirculating boil beneath its plunge with merciless waves. Bystanders could only watch.  Koul did not watch.  He jumped to save a life .

A family member says  today with a clarity that fifty-seven years have not dulled: “He was a  Kashmiri Pandit student at the university whose courage and compassion defined his character . Known for his kindness, humility, and unwavering sense of duty, he believed deeply in humanity above all else. In a tragic moment that revealed the true strength of his heart, Brij Krishen jumped into the swirling waterfall and sacrificed his own life while trying to save  a life. Though neither of them survived, his daring  act stands as a powerful testament to selflessness and  human values .In those moments, the religion did not matter. There were no divisions, no differences. ”

There is  no memorial erected at Aharbal . Since then, railings have gone up. Signs in Urdu, Hindi and English now warn visitors. Local divers from Kulgam have pulled some more  from the same pool. The Tourist Department lists Aharbal as a “must-visit”, and adds, quietly, “caution advised.” The waterfall remains beautiful, and treacherous, and remembering.

About this tragedy ,Prof Kuldeep Jamwal writes this :-

"Brij Krishen Koul was a Final year student of Physics M.Sc while I was enrolled for Research in Electronics in 1969 in the same department. He lived close to my residence in Magar Mal Bagh and we commuted together in  University buses. Brij was a very friendly person who took lot of interest in dramatics in the University. I still possess some of his photographs taken in Gandhi Bhawan during drama rehearsals. He had very keen academic interest in research and had decided to join the department in research programmes after obtaining Masters degree. 

Alas all his bright future plans were decimated in the tragic event of July 20, 1969 while trying to save the life of Zamrooda Habib,  a girl from the University's Urdu department from the fast swirling waters at Aharbal. Both bodies were recovered downstream of Veshaw river after a day. His premature departure was a big blow to his family and that of Zamrooda Habib. It was the most heart wrenching and tragic event for the University and  the department. Humanity and religious beliefs did not come in the way in this heroic effort."

 Why We Must Tell This Now

Kashmir in 2026 is tired. Public memory is crowded with politics of hate and division ,destruction, innocent killings, and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. Into that noise comes a story from 1969 that will not sit down.   It is not a Pandit story. It is not a Muslim story. It is not even, in the narrow sense, a University story. It is a Kashmir story, told by a river.  It is also a civic story. We teach our civil servants about Seva, about sacrifice, about impartiality. Koul demonstrated it all without wearing a uniform or any bureaucratic training . He was a student. Yet he walked, unhesitating, into what Kabir called , "kabira khada bazaar mein , sabki maange khair", and paid the highest price. 

Fifty-seven years on, the Veshaw still runs. The fall still roars every July. And some people in  Kashmir  still remember two of its own who proved, at the very edge of water, that the only identity that mattered was human.  That was our bright past. It is not nostalgia. It is evidence. 

Why Aharbal Feels Different

Kashmir has many waterfalls. But Aharbal is not tucked away like a secret. It is accessible, loud, and public. That is why families come, why students come, why young and old come. There is a Kashmiri idea that water is not just scenery. It is character. It shapes temperament. The Veshaw at Aharbal is restless. It does not meander. It breaks, it falls, it remakes itself.  That is perhaps why the lines of Dina Nath Nadim feel so right here. Nadim, one of the great voices of modern Kashmiri poetry, wrote about youth, change, and responsibility. Standing at Aharbal, you understand what he meant.

"Tse Naar Chhuk Aalaav Chhuk,  

Tse Yaavnuk Jalaav Chhuk.  

Tse Neir Koh Te Van Tsatith,  

Toofaan Tul Toofaan Bun.  

Tse Mir e Karwaan Bun,  

Kashiri Paasbaan Bun."

(You are fire and fury,  

You are the flame of young hearts.  

You break through mountains and forests,  

And carve your own path.  

 Bring change, and lead that change,  

 For you are the guide of Kashmir’s caravan.  

Be the protector of Kashmir too.)

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.