Myean Kath – Life Writing Of An Educationist.
Shamla Mufti Everyone has a tale to tell and a nostalgia to share. Nostalgia is cathartic but equally a life-writing that goes beyond biography. It not only ‘encompasses everything from the complete life to day-in-the-life, from the fictional to factional’ and connects us with others and their immediate past, social and cultural moorings. Some days back, a doctoral thesis by one of our young United States-based scholars Hafsa Kanjwal, Assistant Professor of History’ the University of Michigan, guided me to reading a life-writing … Read entire article »
Filed under: Book Reviews, Kashmir-Talk
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
Noor Ahmad A Religious Scholar Who Revolutionized Tral- Tribute by Prof. Hameedah Nayeem
Prof. Dr. Hameedah Nayeem Noor Ahmad, the Passing away of an Illustrious Son of an Illustrious Father: a Tribute Even though we have been incessantly in mourning for a long time yet some moments of loss intensify it to new levels. The passing away of Noor Ahmad at this juncture in time is such a moment that left the entire Tral division orphaned and dwarfed and its ripples have been felt far and wide.I am extremely grieved by his last journey as I understand beyond personal grief, his communitarian significance and how almost impossible it is to fill the void left by his passing away. I have known him from my teens and have been deeply impacted by his speeches. He was the first person for me who added intellectual dimension to Islamic teachings when I was at an impressionable age; a time … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk
Of A ‘Cardamom’ Pandit- Sycophancy And Bureaucracy
Of A ‘Cardamom’ Pandit- Sycophancy And Bureaucracy . Those days eavesdropping had become my second nature – something instinctive. In wee morning hours, swinging copper Doodha lota like a pendulum and waiting for my turn at the milk sellers shop just outside the small gate to the Martyrs graveyard, I secretly listened to the conversation of elders standing in front of the milk shop. From a shortage of firewood in the government depot and monthly ration at the ‘Shali ghat’ to the last nights Zarb-I-Kaleem program from Azad Kashmir Radio Trarkhal, they talked about everything happening in their lives Besides, the milk shop, it was routine for me to visit, the shop of Muhammad Kak and Salam Kak, the famous tobacco seller in our … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk
My Love For School Peons
Nostalgia Ode to A Peon Z. G. Muhammad Our school was one of the top schools in the city. In the late fifties on the first day when I entered the school gate for being admitted in class three, I got a unique sense of belonging to it. The three- ‘steeple-minarets’ E-shaped building housing the high school looked to me like yet another Khanaqah and the teachers their heads adorned with turbans of all colors- white, green, yellow and pink like pirs at hospices. Despite the awesome grandeur of the school building soothing my eyes the fright of meeting new teachers and new classmates had robbed all smiles from my rubicund face. Someone has rightly said, ‘power of a smile can heal a frozen heart’. On being greeted with a … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk