The Brahmin Warrior

I found Hey Ram the movie as a travesty of truth and extremely one sided in its approach. Typical Indian movie. It is sad that Mr.Ansari feels the need to bother us with his analysis of every ghissi pitti book and film from across the border.

(yawn)

I have not seen this movie ,nor do i want to.Bollywood is Disney for the grown ups. Authenticity is the first thing to go before even hiring the artistes.

Even the art movies are pretend ,not real.If bollywood with all its faults , weaknesses & demerits still fail at box office it is considered an Art movie like ugly woman is told `she has inner beuty`.Cliche !

I thought Hey Ram was a really good movie. I don`t know how historically accurate it was. But it was good to see a high-budget Indian art movie. Those are usually the most entertaining. I heard it didn`t do too well at the Indian box office, though.

Sorry for using your board Rehan but I just wanted to pay my respects to a fine writer and
a patriotic Kashmiri, Agha Shahid Ali.
May his soul rest in piece.

Ras

From The Kashmir Times

OBITUARY

Kashmir loses its English Ghazal maestro
By Masood Hussain
SRINAGAR, Dec 9: One of the most prominent Kashmiri American and Kashmir’s only English poet Agha Shahid Ali, who was globally recognised as pioneer of ‘Ghazal movement in English poetry’ passed away on Saturday in US. Since his last public reading of his poems in April last at Baruch College, New York, he remained completely bed-ridden.

One of the finest accomplished English poets, his poetry is visibly different from most of his contemporaries. His friends term him selfless and devoid of prejudice and malice. A liberal minded, he had no hard and fast ideological commitments but was ``imaginatively and emotionally preoccupied with Kashmir``, his homeland. Critics say he was a ``poet of distances and of loss who perfected the art of narcissism``.

A widely travelled person, Agha would often make his friends laugh with his humourous anecdotes. Once, said one of Agha’s acquaintance in US, he was stopped by the security men at the Barcelona airport. ``Are you carrying anything that could be dangerous for the other passengers?`` To which Agha replied: ``O just my heart!``

And when somebody asked him about why Srinagar’s Zero Bridge was called so, he said: ``Anyway, when they started building bridges, they numbered them one, two, and so on. But there was one bridge that had existed before they started building the others, so they renamed it the Zero Bridge.``

Born to Dr Agha Ashraf Ali, Shahid grew up Muslim in Kashmir. Besides, secondary education, he graduated from the S P College and did his masters in English (literature) from Delhi University. He earned a Ph.D. in English from Pennsylvania State University (USA) in 1984, and an M.F.A. (a degree is fine arts) from the University of Arizona (US) in 1985. One of his scholarly books - T S Eliot as Editor (1986) was actually his thesis in the Ph D.

After teaching at various collegus in Delhi and elsewhere, he was keen to teach in Kashmir but ``was not encouraged``. In US, Ali received fellowships from The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Ingram-Merrill Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation and had been awarded a Pushcart Prize. Recently one of his collection of poems - `Rooms are never finished’ (2001) was nominated and shortlisted for the prestigious American prize - the National Book Award.

For most of his career, Agha was poet-in-residence with various American colleges and delivering extensive lectures on creative writing. Apart from Delhi University and a brief stint in Kashmir, Agha held teaching positions at Penn State, SUNY Binghamton, Princeton University, Hamilton College, Baruch College, University of Utah, and Warren Wilson College.

Says Prof Gulam Rasool Malik, senior teacher in the University of Kashmir and a friend of Agha Shahid: ``He was our visiting professor. He would spend around three months in summer here and deliver extensive lectures. However, the disease stopped this abruptly``.

Ever since Agha Shahid’s first collection of poems - Bone Sculpture (1972) was published in India, he wrote continuously. His volumes of poetry include Rooms Are Never Finished (2001), The Country Without a Post Office (1997), The Beloved Witness: Selected Poems (1992), A Nostalgist’s Map of America (1991), A Walk Through the Yellow Pages (1987), The Half-Inch Himalayas (1987), and In Memory of Begum Akhtar and Other Poems (1979). He is also the author of T. S. Eliot as Editor (1986), translator of The Rebel’s Silhouette: Selected Poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1992), and editor of Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (2000). According to some of his friends, he was working on another collection of poems - Call Me Ishmael Tonight - when the brain tumour made him unable to read, write or even to attend the telephone at his Amherst home in Western Massachusetts.

The name of one of his books - The Beloved Witness - according to Prof Malik is infact Agha himself. ``Shahid in Arabic means Witness and in Persian it is Beloved - so the blend of the two``.

Many people are impressed by Agha’s different creations. Besides, his impressive translation of Faiz, ‘In Memory of Begum Akhter and Other Poems’ are a masterpiece. This revolves round the legendary UP singer - Malika-i-Ghazal - who would frequent Kashmir and always be the guest of Agha’s.

However, it was undoubtedly ‘The Country Without A Post office’ that rediscovered his Kashmir connections and helped paint an unbiased image of the plight of the people of the Vale before the world. ``Prisons, let open your gates A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight,`` Agha Shahid Ali offered a speaking portrayal of Kashmir from the days of Haba Khatun to the recent days. In predominantly elegiac tone, Agha draws parallels between Sarajevo and ancient Greece and offers a series of speaking sketches of terror and torture.

The poem aptly described Srinagar as the ``city from where no news can come`` and where the post office turned simply dead-letter office (``Hundreds of canvas bags all undelivered mail. By chance I looked down and there on the floor I saw this letter to you.``). It was there where ``everyone carries his address so that at least his body will reach home,``... He has personally said that this book was his most accomplished one and: ``There’s a certain fullness of voice in it``.

(According to an unconfirmed report, Agha’s entire works are being translated into Kashmiri and the process is nearing completion.)

``We shall meet again, in Srinagar,
by the gates of the Villa of Peace,
our hands blossoming into fists
till the soldiers return
the keys and disappear.
Again we’ll enter our last world,
the first that vanished``

The above lines of Agha Shahid from his acclaimed book on Kashmir remain ironically poignant in the wake of his eternal sleep. Observed one of his fans: ``In order to put flesh to his above ethereal expression, he rushed in urgency to beseech for peace - performed a postman for a ‘Country Without a Post Office’! However, is unfortunate that he cannot see the return of those keys. And that `the first that vanished’ remains vanishing’.``

During these days when people, here, do not see an end of the tunnel - not to talk of the light, so many perplexed Kashmiris do mourn the demise of this young poet, whose foresight defied the hard realities on ground:

``No, they won’t let me out of winter,
and I’ve promised myself,
even if I’m the last snowman,
that I’ll ride into spring
on their melting shoulders``

Agha’s demise created a huge gulf, something which may never be filled. For many generations, his immortal verse shall remain a beacon of defiance and growth in apparently alien cultures. He definitely died unwed and but not unwept, at least in Kashmir, that, according to his close friends was on his mind alongwith his mother, who passed away a few years back.

Have not seen but now shall.

Zafar, thanks for the update.

And don`t make fun of rehan, we`re close, lol.

Dear Rehan . . . how do you or I or a lot of other people automatically assume that Gandhi`s path of self-discipline led to non-violence? I am researching currently why Mahatma Gandhi never got the Nobel Peace Prize and there is some startling information emerging.

The other aspect that Hey Ram brought out, and here I would like to state that Kamal Hassan`s thought process is quite realistic and pragmatic Indian, influenced as it was by his formative years in Bandra amongst other places, could probably be one that I increasingly hear from Muslims in India - that the biggest dis-service to Muslims in the undivided Indian sub-Continent was the formation of Pakistan.

regards/veeresh

faiza:

”I dont care what good intentions you may have in your heart ,i aint seen it as yet . It has been awfully long counting the period you were hurt ,thanks to your cavalier & worse than nincompoop road rage.”

Yea id like to see you driving at 11 in the night on a wet road...i hope u skid into an open manhole and loose all your teeth

”If it were one of our highways you would be in that kabrastan that urstruly mentioned in his `white charade`How about that sobering thaught.nicompoop”

So much malice auntyfaiza…kuch tau khuda ka khauff karrain

“Now to your past comments ,You think im ``Waste`` ,then you have yet to produce anything ,good or bad.When was i suppose to do things according to whims of a bought & sold nincompoop for a lousy icecream cone!A scholar who gets her history lesson fron Chitra Lekha comic & adores the navel & midriff of the scantily clad sita ,radha,parvati,durga ,saraswati .You think you are high thinking some foreign policy strategist cum diplomat?”

listen to me u silly bimbit (that’s bimbo and nitwit together..neologisms..look it up) I didnt call you ‘waste’ anything…what i said was that u are a disgrace to womankind, your religion and your country...and you are...(hopefully, ull be from india) theres nothing wrong with scantily clad sita and radha..they have waists..nice pretty waists…under the types u have some too im sure..

”Writers are ,just like human beings ,good & bad.No writer deserves respect just for being literate .”

auntyfaiza..EVERYBODY deserves respect…unless they go around swearing randomly and persist on making an arse of themselves, ofcourse

“.So who is nicompooop”

you, darling

oh my..very wrongboard..sorry rehan

Vereesh: ``one that I increasingly hear from Muslims in India - that the biggest dis-service to Muslims in the undivided Indian sub-Continent was the formation of Pakistan.``

Do the Indian Muslims make this comment because they are genuinely against a separate country called Pakistan? Or do they make this comment because they fear the Hindu majority in India, and feel that the population of Muslims in Pakistan, combined with the Indian Muslim population, would have given them more security against the majority Hindu population?

I live as a minority Muslim in a majority non-Muslim USA. Just like Indian Muslims live as a minority in a majority non-Muslim state. However, I have never felt threatened in the USA, because of my religion. It would be great if there were more Muslims in the USA, but I do not feel a need for that just due to security reasons. I feel safe enough.

Based on the above, if the Indian Muslims feel that Pakistan should not have been created, does the blame go to Pakistan for creating itself, or to India for not making the Indian Muslims feel secure in India?

Would be interested in your view.....

Dear Romair . . . the Indian Muslims I know span the full expanse of social fabric here, from rickshaw wallah to dope seller to kabadi wallah to paan wallah to meat wallah to sabzi wallah and then working upwards to the educated middle class lot and thence onwards to the hoi-polloi. I would say that 10% of my daily interaction in India is with Muslims, like most other people, and there is nothing strange about it either. 50% of these Muslims are, naturally, women.

I earnestly state that I think none of them are threatened because they are Muslim by religion, whether visibly Muslim or not. (Man or woman on street, called ``Pappoo`` or ``Tilloo`` or ``Seema`` or ``Dolly``, wearing average clothes with standard haircut, how do you tell what religion?? So how does s/he get threatened??) Yes, some are threatened because they are not rich or powerful just as some are threatened because they ARE rich and powerful.

But I do get the feedback that eveybody, especially now the Indian Muslims, feel that the subcontinent could have done better without division. All the women for sure, and most of the men too.

It is not a question of against a separate country called Pakistan; you are Pakistani, you are welcome to your country and what you do within. It is simply a statement that Pakistan was not for them. Who was it for, then? Seems it is for the mullahs or the military or the Arabs or the other current day backers, but not for the average man on street Muslim in India, who hears more than enough about the derogatory terms ``Mohajir`` or the removal from Islam of Ahmediyas and other Muslim sects . . . I assure you, we in India would never make a law de-barring people from their religion like Pakistan has. And that is our strength and our truth:- that we are proud of this fact.

So the very basis of a (theological state??) is questioned, in my humble opinion, increasingly by many Indian Muslims.

To your question: may I know the basis by which you state that Muslims do not feel safe in India? Would we have more Muslims in India than Pakistan has Muslims, if people were not ``safe`` in India?

Please include all sects and sub-sects of followers of Islam and tell me truthfully, are they, the Muslims, safer in India or Pakistan?

On a lighter note, I think Indian Muslims as all other Indians, are safer because they don`t have American Cruise missiles flying over their heads at night. As good a reason as any other.

Mankani`s janam Bhoomi HYderabad,Sindh has become the home of hundereds of thousands of Muslims who migrated from India mainly from Rajasthan, Delhi,UP and Gujrat. The Advani Lane, Maskani Lane, Lajpat Road, Diyal Das Club, numerous homes left by Sindhi Hindus are all the symbols of a great past of this city. The Sikhs of Punjab are lucky that they can easily visit their homes left in West Punjab cities of Lahore, Gujranwala, Jhelum, Gurat, Sheikhupurs, etc and their host can welcome them with open arms without being granted the title of Raw agents or traitors by the Punjabi dominated government of Pakistan however the Sindhi Hindus can hardly visit their lost land and see their towns and cities due to the hostile attitutde of Pakistani establishment towards them. The Sindhis cannot invite their Indian sindhis friends without fearing persecution from government of Pakistan. There can be World Punjabi Congress in Lahore but holding World Sindhi Congress in Hyderabad would remain a dream for many years to come.

subroto #411 This talking hound dog reminds me vaguely of someone...I cannot put a finger on it, but it reminds me of someone...maybe I know and am afraid to say it...

;-)

Reply Romair # 11

“…if the Indian Muslims feel that Pakistan should not have been created, does the blame go to Pakistan for creating itself, or to India for not making the Indian Muslims feel secure in India?”

Bit of both. It involves the usual suspects: TNT and Partition.

Partition resulted in a republic which was ideologically committed to being Muslim majority (a short step to an Islamic Republic? Dare I draw a parallel with a certain Jewish State with “equal rights” for all inhabitants?) and a republic whose official essence was not just indifferent, but antipathetic to the TNT (“Unity in Diversity” and all that jazz, and yes, the defects of the land of e pluribus unum are not that dissimilar).

Said republic was so diverse, however, that it included people whose Hindu nationalist views (which jive totally with TNT) had been strengthened (or perhaps even vindicated? “See, you can’t trust these people…”) by Partition. These people are bad news for Indian Muslims (and for many other Indians as well), and anything which strengthens them and their ideas has the potential to diminish the position and integration of Indian Muslims in Indian society (and threatens India as a whole, in the long run).

Their ideology is based on the TNT. They do not believe individuals of different religious beliefs can be equal parts of one nation (they may not admit this, but actions speak louder than words) and they do not believe that nations, or groups, can live together at peace without one dominating (read humiliating) the other (ditto to above, political mercantilism, so to speak).

In India they are strengthened by:

1 Pakistan’s creation in the past (TNT in action) and

2 The failure of India to put the demon back in its box in the present. Which involves

3 Systematic Government appeasement of political bullies,

4 Vote bank politics involving “leaders” from every religious group, and

3 A subcontinental tendency to enshrine “group rights” (traditionally defined rather than articulated via the ballot box) over “individual rights” (including the right to be different).

Recent events in Maharashtra (Mangle?) and Gujarat are what we can expect in the rest of the country if they get stronger.

They are weakend by:

1 Individuals of different religions coexisting peacefully and interacting peacefully (like sometimes on Chowk :))

2 Education, and the resulting demands on the state for a more competent performance rather than on essentially empty issues such as one more or less mandir/masjid in this country which has mandirs/masjids in vulgar oversupply, and

3 Respect for individual rights (including the right to be different) – that is to say, the rule of law.

Zafar

PS OK, I’m sorry that Kashmir interaction of many months ago got out of hand, but boss you pushed my buttons there…khair, I would be interested in your response to what I wrote here, and hope you reply.

AnNy:

``what i said was that u are a disgrace to womankind, your religion and your country...and you are...(hopefully, ull be from india) ``

Man, if that is not unadulterated hate, I don`t know what is :( Hamney tumahara itna kya begara tha??