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 →
Language of Resistance
Mudasir Ali Lone & Tajamul Islam Epistemic violence constitutes the very foundation of the pyramid of violence. The reason is that it is much more lethal, and has the power to transform the subjects or to rally an entire community against another based on the distortions scripted in the language in … Read more →
Survival by Ashaq Hussain
(I) How do you bear the separation While your home is under siege: By recalling an army of metaphors Or dead clichéd caterpillars of hope? How do you bear separation alone While you oscillate between awful Dregs of despair and the hazy Halloweens of commercial ads? (ii) How do you … Read more →
Two Poems by Sayan Aich Bhowmik
Bridges Across the Jehlum A narrow passage Down the hall And I find you seated On a boat That has never been moored. Your fingers move Carelessly across your face Tracing alphabets of a race That swore by the chinars in Kashmir And died by guns of the occupying army. … Read more →
Verse-journal of the Kashmir Siege
Ather Zia August When I asked if there would be a war, they replied “did it ever end?” and continued their song. 8/4/19, the siege begins next day * our hearts are sinking, but our prayers are rising, Azadi, Azadi, Azadi 4th day of the Kashmir siege, 8/8/19 * … Read more →
Two poems by Naveed Ul Hassan Bhat [Urdu]
اس دورِ بے آر میں اس دورِ بے آر میں پھولوں کی آبرو پہ سوال ہے – کانٹوں کے قہقہے میں گلشن کے رندوں کی جوانی ہے- نظامِ حسرت میں چند گلابوں کا کھلنا ہے- یہ رات کے جاموں میں زنداں کی روانی ہے- شاعروں کی نظموں … Read more →
Two poems by Shabir Ahmed Mir
GHAZAL Eyes of porcelain. Dreams of stone. Pieces of porcelain. Screams of stone. These impotent idols, this adamant priest, This tyranny of faith, these regimes of stone. A mouthful of dust; a handful of bones: What castles of ambition! What schemes of stone! The thirsty artificer sculpting … Read more →
Two poems by Aakriti Kuntal
An event in the neighbourhood I adopt a movement like air Wading along the mind’s eye through the obvious, the oblivious, the steam of all perspiring things The moon stares at nothing— cold eye of the sky, the quality of a stone in its eternal passiveness Someone died in the … Read more →
Two prose poems by Sambuddha Ghosh
November Light (I) The magpies of my forgetting are such that perched on the chiselled granite steps of my own mausoleum, they tell themselves stories of rivers and streets of unfrivolous peace. The wine was silent they knew, made out of a dank, perhaps inconsequential cellar of grapes left fermenting … Read more →
Two poems by Ra Sh
1. The Valley of the Blind- A crow chronicle. a pellet is a precious pearl. soft as a grain of rice. kisses the eye like a lover. caresses the pupil like your mom. crows are vile birds, traitors, who predict the arrival of armed guests in riot gear and armoured … Read more →
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 →
A Kashmiri Woman’s Lifetime Struggle for Azadi
Conversation with Anjum Zamarud Habib Faizaan Bhat Anjum Zamarud Habib is a social and political activist, senior executive member of Hurriyat [Geelani] and author of two books, including Nigha-E-Anjum, her autobiography, published by Kitaab Mehal and Qaidi number 100 published by Pharos Books, which is a journal of her days … Read more →
Resisting the Language of Occupation
Tajamul Islam & Mudasir Ali Lone “We cannot allow the occupier to dictate what to speak and when to speak. Being free is our religion and its consciousness is our survival” – Manan Wani, former doctoral student, militant (Hizb-ul-Mujahideen); martyred on 11th October 2018 When you are under occupation, the first … Read more →
Two Poems by Insha Muzaffar
(1) In the mirror the hangman looks so like my silence that I wish I was born as a million tongued word meaning freedom there are no flowers like that of moon (eclipsing over old mountains) no resurrection other than its absurd cycles but then the way some people longingly … Read more →
Kashmir, A Ghazal by Shabir Ahmed
Where to, shall we now row in Kashmir? No more does the Vyeth flow in Kashmir. See how we are smiling in sepia tones Ah! It is just an old photo in Kashmir. Lest it bring the memories of peace They no longer allow snow in Kashmir. Saffron does not … Read more →
Eid ul Fitr in Kashmir by Aaliya Mushtaq
The sacrificial Eid is yet months away Yet Ishmael is dangled on the cross The angels keep their censored silences and pour them into our hearts. It isn’t even Muharram But sisters wrap mourning over their torn cloaks, and wipe off sweat from the cold bullets settled in the brows … Read more →
A Bloody Night in Pampore by Muhammad Tahir
Don’t tell me Papa Kishtwari looked ferocious, And his eyes had all the fire of terror; That his hairs were dyed dark ginger And he walked with intimidating airs. Tell me about that January night in 1996, Which was the Night of Salvation, When his armed pack of savage men, … Read more →
Pashmina, Tombstones have names & Witness by Sayen Aich
There have been evenings When my grandmother would weave stories, from the pashmina threads of memory. That still kept her going. With such delicate threads one had to be careful. A little lie here, a little too much effort And a castle of stories would crumble down. She would … Read more →
To a half disappearance & If wishes were horses by Zabirah Fazili
Back home we laughed merry laughs, tears streaming down our eyes, a defiant smile on the face offsets familiar aches felt by us. we lost him in our strength and frailty yet we hugged and held each other back home to shelve our shrieks we smiled at our helplessness. we … Read more →
Occupation by Tasim Zahid
Misery filled our lungs long before you, But then you came guns blazing and tear gas popping Shooting us, shouting, we come in peace, we come in love Fuck you and fuck your guns, I will be ready to die before you can even count to ten But how will … Read more →