How often do you actually remember him? You left the dessert half-eaten when suddenly his smile flashed in front of you. I do not. Instead, I devour my meals, my days, I spend engrossed in books where lovers unite in the end or don’t. Or die. Or are victorious against a tyrant. Someday I’ll know,…
Introduction: Eqbal Ahmad was born in the village of Irki in Bihar in 1933.During his early childhood his father was murdered as a result of a land dispute. His father was involved in India’s pre-independence nationalist movement and in the gifting of lands. During the partition of India in 1947, Eqbal Ahmad and his elder…
In January 2019, a 21-year-old militant, Syed Rubaan Hussain, lost his life in an encounter along with his two associates in district Budgam. Rubaanโs elder brother, Syed Tajamul Imran, writes about the void his brother has left behind; recounts what his death has brought to him and his family and the painful memories they have…
WHILE PROTEST REVERBERATESย on the streets of Chile, Catalonia, Britain, France, Iraq, Lebanon and Hong Kong, and a new generation rages against what has been done to their planet, I hope you will forgive me for speaking about a place where the street has been taken over by something quite different. There was a time when…
Thereโs a strange dynamic to the architecture of hotels in Kashmir that have existed during these times of siege since the last few decades. Today, as I walked through the barbed wires boldly glistening in the faint sunlight of an unbecoming winter, I noticed that most of them, or least of all the ones I…
At a time when George Orwell was struggling to make sense of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona in the 1930s, the Himalayan region of Kashmir had made a transition from economic awakening to political awakening. Prior to this,ย the philosopher-poet Dr Iqbal had written a Persian poem titledย Saqi Namaย in the Nishat gardens in Srinagar. The…
I donโt dream aboutthe divine spirits of revolutionabout ghosts in the shapesof struggles, protestsand fightsblood and bombs. I donโt dream abouta place whererain is born to weave the rainbowswhere from there is no exileno head is bowedno sinsno sorrow. where every griefeach sufferingin silencemake up slogans. Azadi. Azadi. Azadi I donโt dream aboutan isolated, lonely…