Peace Watch » Entries tagged with "ZGM"
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
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
“Shallot Man” – A Dickensian Character in Ashpaz’s Team
Nostalgia ‘Shallot Man’ ZGM The lofty tents with white satin roofs, frills at ends hanging like damsel braids and transparent curtains flying at a slight breeze have an Arabian Night romance about them. For their grandeur, they are called white houses. The dazzling illuminations and the mellifluous folk songs tearing apart silence of the nights reminiscent of festive occasions like Shab-i-Shalimar of the late fifties are most familiar scenes these days in the city. Scores of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Imperiled Kashmir Identity and Our Response
PUNCHLINE Imperiled Kashmir Identity By Z. G. Muhammad It is a historical truth. Arthur Brinckman was not wrong when in December 1867, in his introduction to his forty-page pamphlet titled, ‘The Wrongs of Cashmere’ he wrote ‘that since the bargain (Treaty of Amritsar”) was concluded in 1846 the poor Cashmerees have been shamefully oppressed by the rulers we put over them that this oppression is getting worse. And these unhappy people have been asking … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Why Antonio Guterres Is Obliged to Resolve Kashmir Dispute
PUNCHLINE Word with António Guterres Statesmanship would be to give people a right to decide their future. Z. G. Muhammad Kashmir problem is a loud crying forsaken baby of the United Nations Security Council left in a cradle of barbs. For past sixty-nine years, it has been forcefully asking the august body to take it out of this painful situation. And whenever there is a change of guard in the world organization, people of Jammu and Kashmir … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk, Point of view
Saadar Court, Srinagar: Repository of Legal Giants
Nostalgia Of A Temple of Justice Creatively blending facts with fiction, he told us that here was a lawyer who won a case without carrying any books to the court ZGM The long winter vacations, with all their loveliness had some sluggish moments. When I got bored with homework or got stuck up on a mathematics question, I liked to go out and sit with my friends on shop fronts in our Mohalla. One of our favorite … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Of Spin-doctors, Machiavellians and Kashmir
By Z. G. Muhammad Spin-doctors have a field day in Kashmir. Summer 2013, belongs to them. The phrase, first used by New York Times in its editorial is now part of global political jargon. According to New York Times columnist, William Safari ‘spin’ is ‘deliberate shading of news perception.’ Moreover, for decades the spin-doctors have been playing the role of ‘putting slants on information when it is presented to public or in press.’ The spin-doctors have been there through out history, as someone has rightly said the first spin-doctor was the Serpent in the Bible for convincing Adam and Eve that Apples were next big thing. In modern political lexicon, they are called PR pundits but their role in many situations is to put an ‘optimistic face’ in worsening situation. The spin-doctors coin … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take