Poems inspired by 2016 Summer Uprising in Kashmir Defiance This summer too They came Trampling my dreams Under their heavy boots This summer too They came Tearing my body With their sharp pellets This summer too They came Drowning my voice Under their shrill rhetoric This summer too They … Read more →
Three poems on Kashmir by an Indian tourist
Shrenik Mutha India’s Occupations (tr. from भारतीय कब्ज़ा) maps lie by drawing boundaries maps lie by messing up names maps lie by closing places so that the color would not leak out so that the people will be shut in and stifled like in a prison to finally enter the … Read more →
A Shriek about Kashmir—A Ghazal
To Abir Bazaz, Javaid Iqbal Bhat, Hamzah, and all my Kashmiri brothers How do I see, think, dream, or speak about Kashmir? One more ghazal shall I tweak about Kashmir? Another bloody summer looms over the Dal, Wani’s died and been deified this week, about Kashmir. Vani … Read more →
Three Poems for Kashmir
By Amit Kumar 1.1 For a Murderer Its Friday, All faithful are running for the Namaz-e-Juma Somewhere a Brahmin is reciting the sacred mantras Every devotee is hand-folded, sitting in reverie I could never understand the ‘Arabic verse’ la illah ila allah mohammed rasoul allah Grandmother’s fairy-tales appealed more than … Read more →
When people picked soil from Burhan’s grave as ‘tabarruk’
A Aalim Ahmad The Martyrs’ Graveyard at Tral, where Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was buried, is the most visited place these days. The graveyard was carved out of a portion of the expansive Eidgah 27 years ago when the body of a Pulwama militant arrived from the Line of … Read more →
A reminder to Shah Faesal- the ‘poster boy’ of Indian bureaucracy
Media in the besieged Valley of Kashmir is going gaga over a ‘Facebook post’ shared by the poster boy of Indian bureaucracy in Kashmir Shah Faesal. The way Kashmir press is giving it hype is both surprising as well as saddening. The Facebook post in itself isn’t something that deserves … Read more →
Kashmir: Dispatches from Behind a Siege
Yasir Altaf Zargar People were returning from their regular chores, when the news that the famous Kashmiri local rebel who had turned to militancy at the age of 15, had been killed in an encounter near Kokernag, 15 kms away from district Anantnag. People in long chains came out from … Read more →
That Language Of The Gun
Tariq Mehmood I came to Srinagar, Kashmir, for the wedding of my friend’s daughter. After the wedding, along with a couple who had come from Malaysia, we decided to visit Pahalgam. We started our journey from the Dal lake. It was a bright warm summer’s day. The reflection of the snow … Read more →
A tribute to Atta Mohammad
Angana Chatterji Atta Mohammad (1940-2016) was a gravedigger and caretaker of the unknown, unmarked and some mass graves at Chehal Bimyar located in the Northern Kashmir district of Baramulla. For those seeking to locate persons missing and disappeared and to access local knowledge and the events of history, Atta Mohammad’s … Read more →
Kashmir – Of Occupation and Casbah-ization
Umar Lateef Misgar Kashmir has been subject to a state of untold persecution for the last 500 years. Lately, India, Pakistan and China have all annexed and occupied some part of the historic Kashmiri nation. The country, as we live in it now, feels no better than Occupied Palestine or … Read more →