Introduction
In times of silence and difficulty, the poetic verse reminds us that more than flesh and bone organisms, subjects of states, and mortals subject to fate and its many forces, we are also beings formed by a poetry that shapes us through our multiple versifications, as poets and readers of poetry. A poetics of being determines our will to expression, one that allows us to traverse cultures, societies, nations, civilizations, generations and temporalities, rendering us human before one and all. The poetic expression has the ability to convey the unspeakable beyond the means and literal limitations of ordinary language in its functional quotidian uses.
After a self-imposed suspension in our regular publication cycle, in solidarity with the silenced avenues of Kashmiri expression, Inverse Journal presents three timely poems by Ashaq Hussain Parray that meditate on the quality of being Kashmiri (and human) at the present and within a greater continuum of disproportionate and unresolved histories. As a doctoral candidate in Translation Studies specializing in the translation of Urdu poetry into English, Parray brings us these three poems that exhibit the grace of the Ghazal and the couplet, while crafting out the poetic formulations rooted in the Kashmiri language as it ventures out into the world of English literature, maintaining intact a poetic sensibility that is identifiably Kashmiri.
In verses like these we are perhaps to be reminded that the poetics of being transcends the barricaded confines of language and its remoteness to distant and unfamiliar others. Poetry, after all, is governed by a state of mind, a state of spirit and a state of heart, that as disjointed, dispirited, heartbroken and humbled a poetic voice it may contour into expression, maintains a poetics of being that unfolds within and without. Such unfoldings instantiate deeper understanding, a heightened sense of comprehension and multiple possibilities for unity in a disjointed world marked by disparities, schisms and silences compelled to speak.
Kashmir: A Ghazal
Every day is Ashura; every day is Karbala—in Kashmir;
Under the blanket of siege; no sun is fair—in Kashmir.
A lover’s sigh no longer escapes the night of sorrow,
Alas! What has befallen the sky there—in Kashmir?
They had planted the heart of mud on his bruised body,
What cruelty! His wails wedge the dusky air—in Kashmir.
Between my fate and your smile; some hope gleams in;
I will meet you behind the Zabarwan, dear—in Kashmir.
Love! I will never tell anyone my heartaches, but
My smile and the silence—will make it clear—in Kashmir.
What if the heaven does not care about us anymore?
My words are enough for the pain to bear—in Kashmir.
They have beguiled even the air to their side—Ashaq
They have turned shadows against us to wear—in Kashmir
Schizophrenia
I will speak to you—in detail,
In broken English, with
My heavy Kashmiri accent,
How they want us
To forget and move on.
They want us to forget
That we ever lived happily
Under the shade of Chinars;
Until they settled our history
And set us free.
I will write to you perhaps
Should my tongue be silent,
How they want us to forget:
Who stole our apples and Godly
Statured Deodar trees.
If I survive this siege of history;
I will—tell it to you, my children,
Even to my grandchildren:
How one fine day I was
Robbed of my memories.
A Lover’s Lament
Each morning in Kashmir awakens;
Like an old man fed up with sleep
Unable to stand and rest in peace;
Each breath of its people—
Is a temporal dying dance
Against the lances of death.
Each moment, a lover’s lament
Fills the air—about loves lost and
The labours denied with infinite
Promises that never return.
Each morning—waiting becomes
A tireless metaphor of hopes—
Denied and dreams—deferred
Under the halo of jackboots
That knock closed doors always
During night forays in haste.
Each morning—the news brings in;
A bread of grief and drums of smoke
Rising from the half-burnt bodies
In their own homes.
Each morning in Kashmir;
An eerie life throws insurmountable
Questions—pervasive questions,
To people, homeless as refugees
In their own country.
