Kashmir Cultural Notes – The Rice-man Chefs of Kashmir The Rice-Man ZGM Other than politics, which has continuously been picking our minds like woodpeckers on tall pine trees, gossip about wazawan dominates our discourses during the marriage seasons. In olden times, even during our childhood, it comprised seven to nine dishes, and as we advanced in our age, it also started graduating from cuisine to cuisine. Today, on average, the number of the multi-cuisine lamb mutton dishes has gone up to thirty-five- in many cases, more particularly the feast for bridegrooms, the number ranges from fifty to seventy. In our childhood, chicken dishes were not part of the Wazawan. These perhaps were added to multi-cuisine dishes in the late sixties. Many an expert Ashpazs had then seen it as spoiling to the sanctity of the traditional wazawan. Though our elders before 1947 frequented … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Featured, Kashmir-Talk, Z. G. Muhammad
PUNCH LINE
REVIEW OF TWO BIOGRAPHIES OF S M ABDULLAH Punch line By Z.G. Muhammad ‘Oh! It is a whopper sandwich.’It was my instantaneous reaction after finishing reading yet another book on Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah. It was the second book I read about him during the past month. The first one that I mentioned in some previous column was Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah- Tragic Hero of Kashmir by Ajit Bhattacharjea; an octogenarian journalist in Kashmir is generally counted amongst the ‘sympathetic’ for his earlier book the Wounded Valley. His book on Sheikh Abdullah, though based on secondary sources, is readable and quite enjoyable. He has beautifully built up Abdullah story from the memoirs of Sheikh Abdullah, B.N. Mullick, Syed Mir Qasim, Karan Singh and Nehru- Sardar Patil correspondence and other sources. He undoubtedly has blended extracts from his source material and his analysis with deftness to present … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk, PUNCH LINE, Z. G. Muhammad
NISAR GILANI’S TRANSALATION OF Younghusband
Nisar Gilani’s Translation of Kashmir, As I saw It. By Z.G. Muhammad Irish poet Thomas Moore introduced our beautiful land to the Western World in the second decade of the nineteenth century with these opening verses of his magnum opus Lalla Rookh : “Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave”, Most writers believe it was a great introduction that attracted European travelers, tourists, and adventures … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk
OF PHERAN AND OUR CHILHOOD
By Z. G. Muhammad Z.G. Muhammad Those were cock-a-hoop days for children in my generation. Everything around seemed in ecstasy. The snowflakes dancing in the sky looked to us no less than whirling dervishes- with Rumi’s cadence. Daily showers of early spring and late autumn had all sweetness for us. The long chain of rain bubbles bursting and re-emerging with rhythm on the tarred roads outside our home brought the rarest warmth to rubicund faces of all children.I admire my childhood days; every small thing made us sing a song of joy. A newly stitched pheran, a recently purchased pair of gumboots or ankle boots (ticha-boot) and even a pair of small wooden clogs, brought us great joy. Those were blessed days of innocence. My impressions about the joy of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
OF SLIPSHOD DAYS AND MATINEE SHOWS
By Z.G. Muhammad Z. G. Muhammad Should I call them slipshod days? No, they were carefree day, really happy go lucky times. I had just passed my matriculation examination and joined Islamia College of Science and Commerce- a college founded by last Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad. It was a fantastic job he had done for our birth burg. It was first Commerce College in Kashmir. Those days most of the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk, Memeiors
Our Childhood Spiritual Odysseys
A view of Srinagar City Nostalgia Growing up amongst Friars By Author Z G Muhammad There was something beautiful- something extraordinary about our city. It is incomprehensible. At least, I have not understood it. Something has been about it that had made hundreds of Saints, Sages and Sufis converging on it, making it a permanent abode and ultimately the final resting place- the shrines. The lofty minarets and spires of these shrines, centuries after continue to wrap up the city I was born in and brought … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk, Memeiors
Ramzan And Our Childhood
Our Religious Schooling By Z.G. Muhammad Reminisces how so sweet they may be, have their poignancy. Many a time writing about my childhood, I feel like Shelly that I am writing, an ‘epitaph of the glory fled’. Believing, ‘the loveliest and the last, is dead’, I hear the cry inside me, ‘Rise, Memory, and write its praise- for now, the Earth has changed its face, a frown is on Heaven’s brow.’ Grand Mosque Srinagar Indeed, the earth has changed; childhood has fled. It cannot be brought back. Every year on the sighting of the Ramadan moon this harsh reality dawns on me but still, memories, make me bask in the spiritual ambience that overwhelmed our part of the city on the commencement of the holy month. I remember the Sahar Khawan during our childhood would not only just beat drums ferociously to wake up … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk, Memeiors