Peace Watch » Archive
Kashmir: Narratives, Not Military Power Triumphs
Punchline Misplaced Optimism By Z.G. Muhammad The past Monday, when my column, ‘Geelani Release- A Way Forward,’ appeared in this newspaper, I felt remorseful of having written something outlandish- far fetched from the ground reality. It was flagrantly in contradiction with the black bordered banner lead stories, ‘Bloody Sunday: 20 Killed’ in all the newspapers. The blood curdling details of blood bath enacted in wee morning hours of Sunday in a couple of villages in Shopian district of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Autobiographical notes, Bombay 8, Haj Pilgrims and Wonderland
Nostalgia Sea Haj Pilgrims in Bombay By ZGM It was like Alice, that little girl in Carol Lewis’ novel falling down a rabbit hole to discover a wonderland and seeing an attractive garden. That is how the Haj pilgrims felt on their arrival at the Bombay Central Railway Station. Sitting, atop their tin trunks and luggage in the old terrain military trucks perhaps of second world war times, on their way to Saboo Siddique Musafirkhana at the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Strangulating Voices of Dissent Pushes Youth To The Wall
Punchline Geelani Release- A Way Forward By Z.G. Muhammad It might have been festive day for nonagenarian Syed Ali Shah Geelani, when he offered congregational Friday prayers, obligatory on all Muslims at the Jamia Masjid, Hyderpora, some two hundred yards from his residence. For about, three thousands days, five times a day Muezzin had been calling on him from the Masjid in his neighborhood to join the congregational prayers, but for his house detention, he could not respond to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Autobiographical Notes Bombay Days 7 : Of Sea Pilgrimage Days
Nostalgia Bonds of Fraternity ZGM “City life is millions of people being lonesome together,” this quote by famed American essayist and poet Henry David Thoreau aptly summed up life in Bombay for me. This metropolitan, where streams of humanity glided like inanimate logs in the river Jhelum in our childhood was a big a contrast to the downtown Srinagar- my birth place; where swallows flying across traffic less roads with loops and rolls like sabrejets, provided companionship … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Geelani: Has Not Passed On Baton
PUNCHLINE Syed Ali Geelani- Baton Not Passed On By Z. G. Muhammad Some days back, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, decided to step aside and passed on the baton of the Tahreek Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir to his second in command Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai. On the expected lines, the decision taken at a Shoora meeting of the Tahreek Hurriyat made it to headlines in the newspapers across the sub-continent. The decision caused some columns and news analysis … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Autobiographical notes Bombay 5- When Our Boys Were Thugged
Nostalgia ‘Blue-Collar’ Boys from Srinagar ZGM ‘The City of Ships’ to use Walt Whitman’s line, ‘proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!’ was now no more strange to me. The maddening crowds on its streets, the huge tides kissing the shores like a passionate lover over an over again were no more alien to me. The evening scenes outside the old campus of the Bombay University reminiscent of some romantic scenes in an Urdu novel … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk
The Idioms of Hubris – To Insult people of Jammu and Kashmir
The Idioms of Hubris By Z. G. Muhammad At times some words or phrases or idioms, more particularly those maliciously spoken to demean a nation’s pride get badly stuck up in one’s mind. Like witches, they haunt even in the bed. These cannot be jettisoned from the mind unless talked about boldly and candidly. For couple of days, an idiom ‘barking up the wrong tree’ has been bothering my mind. It had a resonated … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take