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
Children Fundraisers Of Kashmir
Author Stories about the thirties, in our childhood, were not that old. Every elder in the family had a story to tell about one or the other martyr of July 31, 1931, buried just three hundred yards from our house. They remembered stories of the movement against the Maharaja like textbook lessons. Even an old small earthen pitcher painted green had a story to tell about fundraising for the movement against the monarchy its discriminatory rule. The pitcher often made my mother nostalgic; … Read entire article »
Filed under: 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
Songsters of our Childhood
Nostalgia Hawkers And Their Songs ZGM Songs and songsters were part of our childhood. It was not only troubadours playing dexterously on a score of small rings on an iron rod and producing musical notes that greeted us with satirical quatrains on sullen mornings and brought laughter in our life. It was not only Abdul Ahad alias Shoda the great songster, with profusely oiled tufts of curly hair, walking like a woodpecker on a tree … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk, Memeiors
Prison Tales: Our Spring Pastimes
Nostalgia Our Spring Pastimes ZGM ‘Some birds are not meant to be caged’, that is how best I can pronounce childhood of my mates, siblings and myself. When spring ‘dressed in all its trim, put a spirit of youth in everything’ like swallows in wee hours we flew out of our homes as arrows from a quiver. Nothing could hold us back. The fright of standing on a stool in class or receiving a cane charge on our palms for incomplete homework could not … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Memeiors
Bombay 12. From Film Nagari to ‘DAWAT O TABLIGH & ISLAH.’
Nostalgia Bandra Bandstand By ZGM Someone to my delight sent an anonymous poem ‘Bandra Meri Jann’ to me on WhatsApp. The amateurish poem took me on a trek to the Carter Road, the Linking Road, the Pali Hill and Bandstand of the city of dreams. It made me relish the soothing breeze blowing along the Carter Road, relive the experiences of the pageant of buzzing street Bazars, high profile designer boutiques, gaudy and stylish shoes and trendy fashion of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Memeiors