SOME EXCERPTS FROM MY BOOK, “KASHMIR: LORE, LIES AND LAMENT"

                                                   

       

SOME EXCERPTS FROM MY BOOK, “KASHMIR: LORE, LIES AND LAMENT...... THE BOOK IS AVAILABLE  WORLDWIDE  :

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EXCERPTS 

(1)

CHAPTER: ELECTIONS, ZINDABAAD, EXILES, CRICKET MATCH, RAY OF LIGHT, FABRICATION OF HISTORY, PAHALGAAM TRAGEDY, MARKAZ KI CHAAL AND OTHER ATYPICAL ISSUES

(a)  

(They pulled down a huge board displaying a photograph of smiling Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. They brought it to Lal-Chowk. The president of the private transport company asked his accomplices to deface the board, walk over it and break it. They did. They raised a new slogan, “Janta Party Zindabad. After about a week, the election results were declared. Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah had won with a thumping majority. And we saw the same president and all his accomplices putting National Conference flags all over Lal Chowk in Srinagar. They danced, crying, “ Aa gaya ji, aa gaya, alla baen( National Conference ) aa gaya. Aa gaya ji aa gaya sheri babbar( Sheikh Abdullah ) aa gaya ”)

(b)

“Sabz dastaaras khoda chhuyi raazi, Pakistaanuk gaazi hayi aav”

(Even Almighty is happy to find a green turban on his head. Here comes the Gaazi from Pakistan. “

This Vanvun was sung by ladies to welcome Morar Ji Desai to the downtown residence of Molvi Farooq. The seniormost Kashmiri journalist based in Delhi accompanied Morarji's cavalcade. When Morar Ji asked him what these ladies were singing, the journalist   said:-

“They are singing in praise of the green turban that Molvi Farooq has tied on your head. It means Almighty has willed that ‘green turban be put on him, he who came to our dwelling like a real Gaazi or religious liberator from Pakistan’. So you are a man from Pakistan. "

The next day, Morar Ji Desai announced at a press conference that there is no tie-up or alliance between Janata Party and Molvi Farooq’s Awami Action Committee. The accompanying journalist was informed by a well-regarded handicrafts dealer, who happened to be the person in charge of the Morarji Desai Reception Committee and was himself a staunch Bakra, or supporter of Moulvi Farooq, that Morarji Desai had been made to sit on the very chair that had once been used to make M. A. Jinnah comfortable when he had visited the uncle of Moulvi Farooq during his stay in Kashmir.)

(2)

CHAPTER: BRIHAT KATHA: A TRADITION THAT CONNECTS KASHMIR, ANCIENT INDIA AND MODERN LITERATURE

 (Apart from Kshemendra and Somadeva, whose Brihatkathamanjari and Kathasaritsagara directly represent the Brihat Katha tradition, Kalhana and Bilhana may also be considered, in part, within its broader narrative spirit. Kalhana’s Rajatarangini combines historical memory with dramatic accounts of kings, political intrigue, ambition and human frailty, while Bilhana’s Vikramankadevacarita blends dynastic history with courtly storytelling and poetic imagination.

 Neither writer composed a collection of interwoven tales comparable to Somadeva’s monumental work. Their literary genres remain distinct: Kalhana wrote a historical chronicle, while Bilhana excelled in courtly poetry and drama. Nevertheless, if the Brihat Katha style is understood more broadly as an expansive narrative approach embracing legends, human adventures, courtly episodes and imaginative storytelling, both writers share some of its characteristics. Their works demonstrate the diversity of Kashmir’s Sanskrit literary heritage, where history, poetry and storytelling developed alongside one another. Together, these writers reveal a literary culture deeply connected with the wider intellectual and cultural traditions of India.

 (3)

CHAPTER: “THE INTELLECTUAL WEAKENING OF CONTEMPORARY KASHMIRI LITERATURE: A STRUCTURAL READING WITH A NOTE ON SCRIPT”

 (This monothematic pressure explains why most contemporary writing from Kashmir fails to acquire readers even when translated into English or any other language.

Great regional literature becomes universal not by abandoning locality but by deepening it. The Kashmiri village in Nadim, the Srinagar mohalla in Akhtar Mohiuddin, the peasant in Amin Kamil is so precisely observed that it becomes recognisable to a reader in Bengal or Brazil. The local is rendered with such psychological and philosophical depth that it transcends locality.

Much of the literature now being produced does the opposite. It treats Kashmir as a theme rather than as a lived world. The narrative is driven by identity, grievance, exile, or assertion. These are important realities, but when they are presented as slogans rather than as human dilemmas, the work loses its capacity to travel.

A story that depends entirely on the reader already sharing a political position cannot survive translation, because the translated reader does not share that immediate context. The universal elements, the rendering of Lore, ageing, childhood, work, guilt, fear, tenderness, which allow a Tamil or Polish reader to enter the text, are absent. Translation therefore exposes the thinness. What was moving in the original because of shared context becomes inert in English because there is no underlying human architecture to hold it.

This is not an argument against political writing. It is an argument for political writing that achieves universality through craft. The Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, the Irish writer Seamus Heaney, and the Bosnian writer Aleksandar Hemon are deeply political and yet universally read, because their politics is embodied in character and language, not declared in authorial commentary. Contemporary Kashmiri writing, in many cases, declares rather than embodies.)

(4)

 CHAPTER ZANGTREI FESTIVITY: WHEN MARRIED WOMEN VISIT THEIR PARENTAL HOME

(Marriage traditionally altered the physical location of a daughter, but Zangtrei affirmed that it did not have to erase her emotional belonging. She could leave her parental home, establish another household and assume new responsibilities, yet the old home remained a place to which she could return. She was welcomed with Zang or Shagun. The offerings could be simple: a packet of salt, a few currency notes known as Atagath, bread or Kulcha and Attahur. Their material value was insignificant. Their emotional value was immense. A packet of salt could become an offering of affection. A few notes could become a gesture of blessing. Bread could carry the warmth of the household. Such customs remind us that traditional societies often expressed emotions through objects of everyday life rather than elaborate declarations. The daughter crossed a familiar threshold, but she was also crossing into her own memories. Perhaps her mother stood waiting for her. Perhaps her father opened the door. Perhaps the brother who had grown into the responsibilities of the household welcomed her. Whatever the circumstances, the message was the same: ‘you still belong here’. This is what makes Zangtrei so different from an ordinary family visit. It institutionalised affection. It gave the daughter a day on which the continuity of her relationship with her parental home could be publicly affirmed.)

(5)

CHAPTER: LAL DED: SHAIVA VISION, LOSS AND APPROPRIATION 

(A close examination of the corpus attributed to Lalleshwari reveals sustained dilution of her Shaiva–Trika vision through careless, vague, and at times wilful misattribution. In a personal discussion, the noted scholar and poet Moti Lal Saqi stated that he could vouch for only thirty-five to forty vaakhs as genuinely belonging to Lal Ded. The remainder, he suggested, had been attributed either knowingly or unknowingly, thereby obscuring the philosophical precision of her utterance. This concern is echoed by Professor Tej Raina in his book, Lalla Vaakh: Echoes from Pandrethan”, which documents systematic distortions in the received corpus. Of the approximately 258 vaakhs circulating under Lal Ded’s name, Professor Jay Lal Kaul selected only 138 for inclusion in his compilation, declining to vouch conclusively even for these.

Over time, verses by Rupa Bhawani have been uncritically merged with Lal Ded’s Vaakhs. Thirty-five verses occur identically in collections attributed to Lal Ded and in the Noornamas and Reshinamas of Sheikh Noor-ud-Din (Nund Rishi), where they appear as shrukhs. Further confusion arises from the attribution of three quatrains by Azizullah Khan, a nineteenth-century Kashmiri poet, to Lal Ded by Rev. J. Hinton Knowles. One of these was later translated by A. K. Ramanujan under Lal Ded’s name and cited as such by K Satchidanandan. Such practices have blurred authorial boundaries and diluted the coherent Shaiva philosophy central to Lal Ded’s authentic voice.)

 

( Avtar Mota )

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