The Burden Of Kashmiri Poets Is A Fight Against Forgetfulness

In a recent web dialogue Outlook editor, Chinki Sinha, made an observation, to which both interviewees — Kashmiri poets Pune-based Amit Bamzai and Srinagar-based Huzaifa Pandit — agreed. That it is the poet’s burden to fight against forgetfulness, and based on this very thought, Kashmir has spurred an entire generation of resistance poets.

Both the poets say this has to do with the fact that most of the classical poetry coming out of Kashmir is based on sadness and longing, and the deep-seated empathy present in every Kashmiri. “It's exactly how we Kashmiris have turned out. Even with the poems of the greatest, most loved poet of Kashmir—Habba Khatoon—her sheer volume of work has been translated and sung by all great singers but melancholy remains her main theme when she sings of her husband,” says Bamzai. Khatoon’s words have lived with him, first being passed on from his mother to him then through him to his daughter. In the recent Outlook issue, Kashmir Memory Files, Bamzai speaks of a Rubaiyya Aunty, who constantly hums a Khatoon poem. “I was born during the conflict, and throughout my growing years, I heard about Kashmir from my grandparents, and other family members, some of whom are historians and wrote books on the subject. About Rubaiyya aunty, she’s a combination of bubbliness and spirituality, a walking-talking representation of god. Most importantly, she displayed empathy, towards animals, towards the poor.”

It is easy to feel empathy when you are a “co-sufferer, sharing common experiences of trauma” feels Huzaifa. He grew up hearing his mother grieve about her Kashmir Pandit (KP) friends, who lived on the land opposite of their house, still occupied by abandoned KP houses. “My first encounter with a KP was in 2009, and it turns out we were quite similar. Once you know the pain of being uprooted or losing a house, you can well imagine another person’s loss. One of my translations is about a KP house in Jawahar Nagar that belonged to a professor as evident by the English nameplate on the door. I remember going to the house with a camera, taking a picture of it, and posting it alongside a translation by poet Nazir Kazmi. It was a call for sheer empathy,” says the author of Green is the Colour of Memory.

Huzaifa says his translations of Urdu poetry stem from his love for the language. While he completed his entire education till PhD in English, he became hooked on Urdu poetry in the gap year before pursuing a BA degree. “It was during 2009-10, landmark years for cyclical violence, when I was sitting at home, and downloaded this ghazal by Faiz Ahmad Faiz. One of the couplets reflected my deep disappointment with the politics on both sides. Kashmir has a long history of leaders who promise but then falter. I ended up translating that ghazal, and the engagement with Urdu texts started from here. I have translated works by Faiz, Agha Shahid Ali, Parveen Shaukat… almost 50-60 poets.”

Ask Bamzai to comment on why the paintings by acclaimed artists Masood Hussain and Veer Munshi, and the poetry coming from him and Huzaifa are a departure from the beautiful landscapes of Kashmir one is exposed to in the media, and he says, “I prefer to steer from such labels. It’s my choice, a desire to sublimate my experience. No one put a gun to my head. One has a burden before they write. When you start to write, you share that burden with the intention of converting people. It’s true, there are limitations. Recently, Jeet Thayil brought out an anthology on the best of Indian poetry, and before that Sudeep Sen did. To my knowledge, there is no Kashmiri poet in any of these. An exclusion from the cannon,” says Huzaifa, who adds that he writes to remember. “I feel that is the purpose of poetry…To become a safeguard against forgetfulness by default.”

In a previous issue some years ago, Huzaifa had told Outlook that the poem The Country Without A Post Office by famed poet Agha Shahid Ali would arguably inaugurate the spectrum of resistance poetry. “But now I don’t agree with that line of thought. Agha Shahid Ali is a fantastic, but has now become an ‘exotic marginality, an eclectic mix of Hinduism, Muslim….whole cosmopolitan’. Also, his idea of Kashmir was very elitist. His grandfather and father enjoyed a specific amount of privilege from the various systems he contradicted.”

Bamzai also shares Huzaifa’s views and explains his thoughts by citing the reactions of Kashmiri poet Mahjoor and Dinanath Nadim (Boomaro Boomaro fame) to events in Indian history. He says, in 1947, after Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India, when Sheikh Abdullah came to power, his J&K National Conference workers (JKNC) started getting richer, and took over plum businesses, including the salt depots. JKNC workers started artificially inflating salt prices, and soon Kashmir faced a salt shortage. “Mahjoor experienced the highhandedness of these workers at a salt depot, which he narrates in a poem: ‘I wanted salt, and went to a National Conference shop. But they put a mandate that first I should say I am an Indian. After hearing this, I am shaking because my heart is with Pakistan.’ This is a national icon, India has realised stamps on his name, and he’s here speaking about this resistance towards this highhandedness. When you move a couple of decades ahead to Nadim, when there are tensions of a war between India and Pakistan, he says, ‘When everybody is gunning for a war and want to destroy each other’s country, he says, I am hopeful about tomorrow, that people will be better, and things will get better.’ This in itself is resistance, of hope. So you see, resistance poetry did not start with Agha Shahid Ali and will not end with him.” In conclusion, Bamzai says a writer belongs nowhere. “A writer belongs to the whole world. Faiz Ahmad Faiz is as relevant in Manhattan, as he is in Sialkot, Lahore.”