Kasheer by Mrinalini Harchandrai

You are that mansion allowed to evanesce still the innocence of light seeps through your chandeliered heart nature’s cashmere façade creeps on your silken carpets the Himalayas landscape your upper storeys, they sweep and staircase around you grandly like bannisters your roses sit embroidered with ballroom grandeur ghostly sweetness against … Read more →

NaPoWriMo: April Poems

In the month of April which is dedicated to poetry Samia Meraj curates some poems for Kashmir Lit. The poets featured here are Inshah Malik, Omair Bhat, Sobia Bhat, and Samia herself. Scroll down to read:    Inshah Malik 1 Heart aches for summer, And you aren’t around I had asked … Read more →

Sorry and other poems

Ruhan Madni Naqash Sorry  Sorry for not being your “lovely handsome Kashmiri boy; beautiful Kashmiri babe”- I’ve been very busy dying on the roads with these polka dots you make on my body with your guns- I’ve been very busy crying Freedom. Freedom. Freedom for the walls for not being … Read more →

Ammi

Rehmat Malik I wrote this poem about a year ago when I was visiting “Azad” Jammu-Kashmir, my mother’s homeland. I wanted to explore generational differences in understanding the Kashmiri struggle for Azadi (liberation) and solidarity across the Line of Control. I wanted to write about my mother, a Kashmiri who … Read more →

Saffron

“These infidels cannot insult us like this. If you have the courage, come and face us out in the open. You cannot tie down a speechless animal and think you have beaten us…” By Mirza Waheed She did not make much noise. But I knew, even in my sleep, something … Read more →

Glass Houses

Sumayya Syed   “Nikita is again on a date tonight,” he types into WhatsApp From his lonely South Delhi bachelor pad On what is a thinly-veiled moonlit spring night in Kashmir Where loneliness is an A Almost an invitation To Resistance, Because what is Resistance If not the thyme and the … Read more →

Untitled

Vrinda Jotwani   “You have started stitching your words into Kashmir,  pulling threads from the kashida cushions of this bed,  your mother buried herself in making you leave this graveyard.  She tries to convince you to fold your hands into nationalism,  how could you, you say we have been living … Read more →

‘Banking on Pakistan not sound’

Nasir Husain Peerzada [The Milli Gazette] Azam Inqilabi is a pioneering figure who initiated a Kashmiri movement in the 1960s. He passed through many political phases. Presently he is chairman of the Qaumi Mashawarti Council J&K. The interview was conducted at Inqilabi’s residence at Nageen, Srinagar. To start with, tell … Read more →

Theatrics of Occupation

ATHER ZIA Kashmiris were mourning the hanging of Afzal, a freedom fighter (previously armed) and a Mirza Ghalib aficionado, at India’s Tihar jail. They were shaking off the last vestiges of a coma-inducing curfew which was imposed to numb any arm-shaking, leg-moving, tongue-wagging or neck-raising reaction and the perpetual pain … Read more →