Ghulam Mohammad Khan I am Desolation. I am the unauthored text, a narrative in search of a scribe to inscribe my meaning upon the world. I am a chameleonic resonance, assuming myriad shapes and hues. I am the breath on the windowpane of a lonely room, the hollow echo in … Read more →
Fragmented Geographies / Fragmented Selves
Madiha Tariq Srinagar runs in every memory that burns and cools and burns again. My home is an outline traced in memory, a door that swings open in dreams but refuses to appear in waking life. It is where, betrayed by the cruelty of all which is not home, something … Read more →
Maybe
Nikhil Azad Maybe one day we’ll meet in Srinagar— where the Jhelum forgets its habit of ferrying craniums of sleeping children, and Kashmir is no longer a bruise pressed into my father’s throat. where curfewed women don’t cradle the stench of bones mourning their lovers, and children no longer wait … Read more →
Child of Wonder
Ashen Kaid He remembered the boy who used to hum to the stars. That child never asked for applause. He didn’t need a reason to dream or permission to wonder. He simply believed the world could be soft again. Now grown, he carried the weight of unspoken goodbyes and crowded … Read more →
The Girl Who Didn’t Exist
Ghulam Mohammad Khan The streets are tombs. Rubble stretches like the bones of a gutted beast. The wind carries the scent of crushed concrete and something older—buried breaths, unfinished screams. At the airport, the conveyor belt swallowed his words. His anger was a live wire. Stubble shadowed his jaw, rough … Read more →
The Harvest of Hair
Ghulam Mohammad Khan Arifa’s fingers trembled as she tucked a loose strand of hair beneath her scarf, the motion sharp with a quiet desperation. The kitchen floor gleamed under her furious scrubbing, the water swirling in murky spirals—dirt, fear, something unspeakable dissolving into the grout. This house no longer feels … Read more →
Why all men should be feminists?
Faizaan Bhat & Saalim Bhat After the 2014 devastating floods ended in Kashmir, women, as the old wives’ tale goes, were almost squarely blamed for it. Bizarre enough to believe, reasons given by society for the unfolding of the doom were women’s choice of clothes suggesting the growing inculcation of … Read more →
Dedicated to to my beloved Baba
Syed Tanees Zubair The backbone Someone was born On that day To face the fears Resist the fray He makes me happy He resists my fear, And when I cry He wipes my tears. He does so good So why is the world foe; Why only he Why this woe? … Read more →
Shi’ism in Kashmir
Hakim Sameer Hamdani author of Shi’ism in Kashmir in conversation with Faizaan Bhat A few years back, a friend introduced me to Hakim Sameer Hamdani. Since then, a casual meeting has evolved into a friendship; discussing ideas, and books on philosophy, history, theology, etc. We probably disagree more than agree … Read more →
Interview with Asif Tariq Bhat, author of “Khwaban Khayalan Manz” a Kashmiri novel
Asif Tariq Bhat is a poet & novelist. Currently pursuing a master’s degree in Kashmiri literature from the Central University Of Kashmir, Arif has recently penned his first novel in the Kashmiri language titKhwaban Khayalan Manz.” Here he is in conversation with Kashmir Lit’s Sadam Hussain Q: Why did you … Read more →
DELETED: Forcibly Disappeared Kashmiri Writing
PS: This page is symbolic of write-ups deleted on Kashmir Lit. Read why the write-ups were deleted on this link: Thank you]
The Enforced Disappearance of Kashmiri Writing
Kashmiri writing and Kashmiris writing are under attack from India. Many write-ups on Kashmir are reported to be mysteriously disappearing. Kashmiri journalists wake up to their entire oeuvre being deleted from the internet. These reports mostly pertain to the real ground situation in Kashmir. This “vanishing of Kashmir’s newspaper archive” … Read more →
Tribute to Syed Ali Geelani, Kashmiri Freedom Fighter & Resistance Leader
These remarks were read by the author at a ceremony in 2021 commemorating the life of Syed Ali Geelani who passed on September 1, 2021 Ather Zia Syed Ali Geelani is unparalleled, and a beloved icon of Kashmiri resistance. He was a teacher, journalist, prolific writer, chairman of the All … Read more →
The worse for wear
Bangalore, Jan 2022 Ashfaq Saraf today takes only so much from yesterdayas may serve to make life bearablenothing ever is as it was before, things change –age, morph, decay so thatone sees in the mirror, sees their own faceand exclaims with relief at the awareness: I did love is it … Read more →
APNA TIME AAYEGA — A Primer for an Artivism-Driven Online Performance
Compay Lizardi APNA TIME AAYEGA (translated from Hindi as “My/our time will come”). You see this motto on this red T-shirt as a battle cry of individual resilience. For the common Indian, and particularly the Indian youth, it is a saying that represents the overcoming of struggle to reach a … Read more →
The Near Death of an Unborn Marriage
Dr. O Bilal failed. Again. It was the twenty-eighth time in ninety-two days. I He loved football. Growing up, Bilal idolised the great footballers of the time and styled his play on a tall Portuguese goal-scoring machine. He became the most sought-after footballer in his village by the time he … Read more →
Review, Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan through Its Women Singers
Author Fawzia Afzal-Khan, 2020, 252 pages, Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford UP Reviewer Dr. Shazia Malik Dr. Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s book Siren Songs: Understanding Pakistan through its Women Singers is a wonderful feminist intervention into a conventionally masculinist discourse, depicting Pakistani women music performers’ dilemmas, resistances, and identities intricately connected to the political, … Read more →
Review: The Chill in the Bones
Written by Wani NazirPoetry, 2022, Book Street Publications, ISBN:978-93-91317-50-8, Pages 126, price INR. 200Reviewer Ayaz Rasool Nazki Kashmiri poets and writers never shied away from languages that were essentially foreign; the languages other than the native language – Kashmiri. At least two streams of intellectual expression have always existed, one … Read more →
A Letter to My Newborn Daughter
Gulam Mohammad Khan Dear Sweetheart, I am writing this letter to you when you are just three months old when you have just learned to smile; the smile that lights up the world of your mom and dad. I write this letter so that when you find it many years … Read more →
The Voice
O Kashmiri I tried telling The Voice, To let me go my way, But it spoke too loud, And the words were too strong, I couldn’t resist following, It, the way it led me, To an edge of a Cliff,’ I thought I heard the waves, Call my name from … Read more →
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