By Mehmood-ur-Rashid It is not a book; an architecture of sorts. An architecture where labor undergirds love and discipline holds the weight of purpose. It’s like the tiered roof of a typical Kashmiri Ziyarat where each layer falls on the other ‘like the stanzas of a poem.’ May be it’s … Read more →
Conversation with Anjum Zamrooda Habib
Eminent Political and Social Activist and the author of Prisoner No. 100 Anjum Zamrooda Habib in conversation with Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander about her life, activism, Kashmiri women, political prisoners and present political scenario You have been active in Social work since 1980s. What is your experience regarding the … Read more →
The Kashmir Bakers!
By Shah Tavseef Mairaj Winters are known for their harshness in Kashmir. And talk about Chillai Kalan, the toughest forty days of the year, you would have to negotiate umpteen times with yourself and your wushnear to venture out of your cozy home till the sun is already halfway through … Read more →
Conversation with Parvaiz Bukhari
Parvaiz Bukhari is an independent Kashmir-based journalist whose articles appear in major South Asian newspapers, journals and magazines. David Barsamian is the founder and director of Alternative Radio, the independent weekly audio series based in Boulder, Colorado. Give a sense of what life is like in Kashmir, day-to-day interactions that … Read more →
I remember, I witness!
By Syed Zafar Mehdi When I peep into the past, I am swamped by a torrent of bitter-sweet memories. I grew up in a small-town of Himalayan valley, nestled amidst the gushing blue streams, lush-green meadows, blooming orchards and romantic houseboats. I would wake up in the morning to the … Read more →
Remembering Agha Shahid Ali
Nawaz Gul Qanungo Woh dard ki shiddat badhaatay hain, main apni yaadaasht They’ve been raising afflictions upon me I polish my memory. The subject is Kashmir’s incessant struggle for justice. And these political verses, written by Muzaffar Karim, a young Kashmiri writer, were whispered not in the corner of a … Read more →
Of Kanger and Stories
By Majid Maqbool I can see my own breath on a particularly chilly winter morning. A thick, blinding fog is covering the street. The trees are withered, desolate, robbed of late autumn leaves that lie trampled on ground. I walk towards the road to board a bus. Inside the bus, … Read more →
Parveena Ahangar rejects CNN-IBN’s nomination for ‘Indian of the Year 2011’
While rejecting the CNN-IBN award Parveena Ahangar, founder chairperson of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) released the following statement: Srinagar, December 10, 2011: On this ‘International Human Rights Day’, December 10, 2011, the APDP (Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons), Srinagar, wishes to state that there is something … Read more →
Guru: A Mere Pawn in a Sinister Game?
By S Zafar Mehdi Safvi To hang or not to hang! The debate over barbarous capital punishment still lingers on. Many civil rights activists, lawyers, and liberal intellectuals have been arguing against it on humanitarian grounds for a while now. A potent argument against capital punishment is that it has … Read more →
I: The Stars of My Sky
By Feroz Rather Along that solitary graveled path into a crimson evening, My eyes chase you and chase you until you ask them: ‘Where do these boys go after they kill them?’ ‘What happens to their hearts, the love-lakes, now mad with the tempests of freedom?’ In Kashmir, in my … Read more →
His Favorite Song
By Irtif Lone And we decided to meet again. In the orchards of almonds blooming flowers, shimmering sun the temping smell of garden I waited for long. I looked at Zabarvan, the calmness of Dal, the rowing noise. What on earth could stop him from coming? He never broke his … Read more →
Locks in the Mirror
By Dr. Shahid Iqbal If you are a pregnant door that holds all answers to my questions, I will unlock your billowing shapes and unzip your lips. But, a voice in my head warns, ‘You are the mirror image of what you see in others.’ So tell me, what doors … Read more →
For Milad
By Dr. Shahid Iqbal Mother Kangaroo Teach us the art of Pouch. For we live in the Land of Snakes. Snakes, that swallow, alive, our children. Children, born out Of eyes, not wombs. Holy Tear Drops Trickle down Mom’s Cheeks And pierce Pa’s Heart. Foretellers on seeing our Foreheads, beat … Read more →
Red
By Dr. Shahid Iqbal In the city of red on a red evening with Head on a red pillow in a red sleep I had a red dream. Far at the horizon is the red sky Where on a red planet dwells a red maid Who distributes red roses. From … Read more →
I Was Seventeen When You Were Writing of Kashmir Burning
By Meenakshi Watts (In memory of Agha Shahid) It still burns. This must be a seed planted in Raj Bagh, under the ‘One Inch Himalayas’ On a summer afternoon in your father’s house. Our parents stood around with old times laughing and lost in shared memories and sons that came … Read more →
Jale-ae Watan (Banished to Exile)
Reviewer: Mushtaq Ul Haq Sikander Book: Jale-ae Watan (Banished to Exile) Author: Khaliq Parvez Publisher: Mir Son Publications, Baramulla Kashmir. Year of Publication: Not Mentioned Pages: 356, Price: 350 Indian Rupees The Politics in Kashmir was shaped by the events in the wake of partition of the subcontinent; hence partition … Read more →
A Conversation with Gautam Navlakha
Published on: Feb 1, 2011 @ 18:04 Gautam Navlakha is an Indian human rights defender and a peace activist. An Editorial Consultant with Economic and Political Weekly, Gautam is also the co-convener International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir. Here he shares his views on Kashmiri … Read more →
Remembering Mogal Maas, Human Rights Activist
By Ather Zia I am their Mother, who shall bar me from them?[1] Mogal Maas breathed her last in the fall of 2009, just some hours short of the 27th of October, a momentous date in Kashmir’s history. In her last days, she was bedridden but not defeated in the … Read more →
Humor in Mayhem
BY Hakeem Irfan The razor wires, barbed wire mentality, troops, dogs, garbage, bullets, tear smoke canisters, rubber bullets, pallet guns, murders, injuries, hospital, ambulance, protests, identity card, dialogue, peace, treason, apathy, promise break, impotent curfew pass and of course the CURFEW itself. The vocabulary has reduced to these words in … Read more →
Long Drive to Freedom
Long Drive to Freedom By Sajid Iqbal ‘We shall meet again in Srinagar, by the gates of the Villa of Peace, our hands blossoming into fists till the soldiers return the keys and disappear. Again we’ll enter our last world, the first that vanished in our absence from the broken … Read more →
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