His โIndian Muslimโ shrill mightโve cemented the slot his โbuddyโ promised during an emotional farewell, but in Kashmirโs Congress camp, the former chief minister remains the leader whose central canvassing continues to baffle even his contemporaries. The silence from the Delhi-based Congress headquarters over the retirement of the โGandhi family loyalistโ Ghulam Nabi Azad has…
In the lines that follow, I will delve down the nostalgia lane to renew my acquaintance with these fellow creatures who coloured my childhood. Who doesnโt hate homework as a child? My brother and I were no exception. When we were adamant on โall play and no workโ policy, we were scared away by the…
Over the years, Kashmiri firemen have emerged as reckoning crisis and disaster managers fighting the valleyโs fired up situations amid ire and irony. As the tribe of arsonists grew and gutted landmarks in some cindering instances of violence in the valley since 1990, Mohammad Akbar Dar realized that his routine firefighting job has become a…
The ghazal evolved as a highly formalized poetic form with rhyming couplets, and a refrain. The origins of Urdu have been well documented as first emerging as a pidgin โ a negotiation between Hindi, Persian and Arabic, and evolving to establish itself as one of the most spoken languages in the world. Historians broadly agree…
โฆbut if the war is really over why then do we await more loss, more death to mourn, more severe trials, more tears to mourn… The tradition of Urdu poetry has been one of the most longstanding and popular poetic traditions of the subcontinent. It emerged from the court of Mughals as a necessary negotiation…
As the pandemic-affected world observes Universal Children Day on November 20 with a resolve to improve childrenโs welfare, kids in Kashmir continue to await hassle-free campus life and respite from the stressful strife. Asif is stuck in weary-walls of his home since last summer when schools became shut shops in Kashmir following a traumatic thaw…
In the upper reaches of central Kashmir, two seasonal schools for the children of nomadic people are awaiting right touches and treatment. Itโs a daily slog for seasonal teacher Ajaz Ahmed through boroughs, brooks and bridges of Budgam. After dusting miles on foot, he reaches upper pastures and stands sullen in serene surroundings. The grassroot…
Rather than delving into descriptions of landscapes or moments alien to us, resistance literature places itself squarely within the politics of the dispossessed. Much as I share an aversion to classical English literature, as an inhabitant of one of the formerly suppressed spaces, itโs hard to avoid an evocative line or two from it. In…
The concept of morality in Islam centers around certain basic beliefs and principles. Among these are the followings: (1) God is the Creator and Source of all goodness, truth and beauty. (2) Man is a responsible, dignified, and honorable agent of his Creator. (3) God has put everything in the heavens and the earth in…