As a literary maverick, Agha Shahid Ali is quite legendary for voicing his homeland blues through poetry, but his prose on TS Eliot makes a different case for the poet, perhaps for the first time after his demise, 19 years ago, on December 8, 2001. Years before he would pen down Rizwanโa poetic Kashmiri boy…
The Murderer and the Murdered I have never found it in my heart,to clean my room.I like it muddy and untidyโthe kind of chaos, that accompaniesa frantic search for the passport,just before leaving for the airport. A madness walking naked,turning my walls into New York Subways,where trains leave from one city to anothertravelling through holes…
These tarnished rays, this night-smudged lightThis is not that Dawn for which, ravished with freedom,We had set out in sheer longing,So sure that somewhere in its desert the sky harbouredA final haven for the stars, and we would find it.We had no doubt that night’s vagrant wave would stray towards the shore,That the heart rocked…