Punchline Our Pain, Their Pleasure   Z. G. Muhammad   I am in mourning. So is our whole nation. On Saturday morning when I started writing my weekly column, my hands trembled and my frozen fingers refused to push on the keyboard. The blood-soaked pictures of our martyred children, Nayeem, Iqbal, Jahangir, Arif, along with those martyred in 2008, 2009 and 2010 hovered around in the sullen environs of my study. They popped up from the corners of every book about Kashmir on the bookshelves with big question marks writ on their faces- bullets having drained every drop of blood from them. How long will, they enjoy the impunity to shoot us down for a sport like coots in the lakes?   How many more teenagers have we to sacrifice at the altar of the … Read entire article »

Why Kashmiris refuse to believe the official version about a schoolgirl’s molestation Every Kashmiri knows what it’s like to be as scared as that child. To many, the reaction to the violence in the Kashmiri town of Handwara last week that followed allegations that a schoolgirl had been molested by a solider is a conspiracy against the army. But for many ordinary Kashmiris, the incident is a reminder that no place is safe for anyone, not even children. For the rest of India, the schoolgirl, whose identity was revealed to the world in a video released by the authorities as a clarification, will become just another footnote in the sad history of Kashmir. The names of the five people killed in firing during the protests will disappear from the news columns. But if … Read entire article »

Punchline Caution Is Needed Z. G. Muhammad Sixty-seven years after, New Delhi stands in Kashmir where it started. True, much water has since then flown down the Jhelum, but it’s ‘strategy’ in Kashmir has not changed a mite. The blowing out of proportion a small purely administrative issue at the NIT, Srinagar by the corporate media, the ruling elite and politicians in New Delhi when seen in a historical perspective is a part of the same “game plan” which began in 1947. Some thirty-two years back a leading Urdu fiction writer and top filmmaker Khawaja Ahmed Abbas in an interview told me that India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947 had cast a role for a group of left-leaning intellectuals and Communist to engineer a change in an inherent … Read entire article »

Nostalgia Saaz to Stereos ZGM For years, Taqyie of Kamal Sahib just near our home bustled with the activities of hashish smokers and songsters. On Thursdays before dusk troupes of musicians and topmost singers from different areas started arriving at the Taqyie,   (hashish-parlour) associated with a saint from Ganderbal. (Sometime back in this column, I have given etymology of the word Taqyie meaning ‘devoted to God’). After the fall of night, it came to life with the mystic poetry of great Sufi Poets like Shah Gafoor, Souch Kral, Mahmood Gami, Shamas Faqir, Rahman Dar, Wahhab Khar and Ahmad Batavar. In the late sixties or early seventies, a deathly silence fell on this abode of the mystics and within days with a wild growth of cannabis it looked like a haunted place. The … Read entire article »