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Dreaming of Rumi’s Quill
Dreaming Of Rumi’s Quill Quill pen! Oh! I always dreamt of having one. It was a dream. I was reminded of this dream on reading these lines from some little known poet: “Everyone asks, who inspires your hand? My quill pen, fellow poet.” I vividly remember when I started dreaming of having a quill pen. I was in class five; the class we started reading English premier. The artwork and the alphabets in this premier caught my imagination. The alphabets, to me, were as inanimate and lifeless as rotting logs of wood in the Ramzan Khan’s timber shop that had eaten into the cherry trees of Ama Lala, our neighbour. The illustrations were vibrant, vivacious and pulsating; every moment I looked at them, they came to life as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk
My Memoir: My Father Fond Memories of My Pets Jackie and Tommy
Part VII My Memoir: My Father Death of Tommy- My Pomeranian Dog Z G . Muhammad Z.G. Muhammad Numaish had become our dream world, and with father’s juniors holding the fort, we felt no less than princes during our visits. The grand illuminations, the music at the bandstand filling the exhibition ground with lilting tunes and the well of the death with a motorcyclist playing stunts inside wooden well had its thrill for my elder sibling and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk, NostalgiaKashmir, NostalgoaKashmir, Z. G. Muhammad
Of Supplications, Collective Prayers and Rains.
ZGM Zahid G Muhammad It sounded like folk tales, folklores of yore – whenever we heard stories about great famines that had often visited our birth burg in the past. Despite being a tale of the past fear of starvation, flood and epidemics continued to haunt our grandparents. It tormented them more ferociously than the looting sprees of desperadoes from distant lands that had ravaged our nation in the past. One would often hear vivid stories … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk, Memeiors, NostalgiaKashmir, Z. G. Muhammad
My Memoir: My Father Part VI. Story of Two Alis- Ordinary Kashmiris
Part VI Part Six ‘The father did not join political discussions in the Radio Room with the news loving neighbours. Perhaps the reason was fear of snoopers and gumboots reporting it to those in the saddle and fear of earning their wrath.’ Nevertheless, when I wrote it at the start of this memoir, it was not suggested that he was snobbish, uninformed, or ill-informed about political happenings. Even if he may be detesting politics and the contemporary … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk, NostalgiaKashmir, Z. G. Muhammad
My Memoir: Story of A Generation
My Memoir: My Father My Father Part V Z. G. Muhammad Literally, the evenings during the Jashin-I-Kashmir presented a lively scene as kaweyenewol, which thrilled children and made them jump, knock and cry slogans against a cruel Governor of the yore.[1] Like crows to their destination, people, poor and hardy, wealthy and elite, flocked to floodlit Shalimar garden as the sun, after sparkling golden the waters of the Dal Lake, finally dipped in its depths. The glittering ‘celestial … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Memeiors, NostalgiaKashmir
My Memoir and MY Father. Of Jashan-i-Kashmir Days by ZGM
My Memoir: My Story My Father Part IV Mothers are a massive influence on children; it may sound a cliché, a trite, but it is as good truth as the sun rises in the east. ‘They are the bones of the spine, as someone has said that keeps children straight and true. The way my father was, his disposition and demeanour did tell he was his mother’s child. She was a wonderful human being, her supplications like her … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk, Memeiors, NostalgiaKashmir, NostalgoaKashmir
STORY OF MY FATHER
My Father. I had bid farewell to a multi-coloured Watanigour willow walkermade in Islamabad. I don’t know if a rouht phitrawan (bread breaking) ceremony was arranged on my first step without a walker, as was the tradition. I had inherited the walker from my elder brother Mohammad Yousf, and it was passed on to my younger sibling Ghulam Hassan. Along with a walnut wood crib, a mace with quartz head, an old lantern, an old gramophone record … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Memeiors