Welcome
This website is the distillation of my literary work done during the last thirty years.
Right from the the first consciousness of my life, I have felt that I belonged to the “other” world. This world seemed to me an obstacle to the world I wanted to be in. As a result, throughout my life, I have struggled with this world to reach to the other world.
I see the trivialization and insult to the human spirit in this world. The value of human life lies in the marvelous state of living consciousness it provides, the range of imagination it is capable of producing, the ideas on things it can generate, the inherent power of the human experience, the obeisance it pays to the nature it feels a part of, the spirit it evokes when it is threatened.
All my life I have felt like a child trying to understand the spirit of nature, whose small part human life is. I am bewildered and tormented to see how common beings belittle and malign human life, not knowing its magic and potential.
My work is to depict and salute the human spirit, to extol it, to perpetuate it.
My poems, articles, and books are directly and indirectly an expression of my honor for the human spirit. Small in measure that they are compared to the possibilities, I feel that within my lifetime I must exert as much as I can to bring out the inherent beauty, power, and magnificence of human life.
Maharaj Kaul
Journal
Reminiscences of My Early Boyhood at Malikyar
I am said to have been born around five in the morning (not a convenient time for deliveries even in modern times) in a hospital, from where my mother and I were taken to my maternal grandfather’s house, which contained … Continue reading
Best of Raj Begum
Raj Begum in 2011 (at 84) Raj Begum continues to have a special aura among the singers of Kashmir. It is because she had a high-pitch, deep-drilling, haunting voice, that touches the timeless and sorrowful plateau of a … Continue reading
Book Review : Earth on Trial – Fighting the Visible and Invisible Enemies By Jeevan Zutshi
Even as Covid -19 has squelched humanity’s pride in itself to almost naught, but it has not numbed the titanic strength of its questioning mind. In the human evolution the birth of intellectualism, which I consider to have been … Continue reading
Anupama’s Heavenly Birthday
Her word was soft, Her footsteps were softer, Yet her presence was louder than others. Today we grieve the friend we lost, The light that was shut off, The voice that is heard no more. We find you … Continue reading
KOA Presidential Elections 2020
Dear KOA Biradari, In 1977 I attended, what is considered now the first meeting of an organization that later was called Kashmir Overseas Association, at Surinder and Mohini Nath’s residence in Washington D.C. There were about eight people in attendance. … Continue reading
Qabali Raid in Kashmir, Oct. 22, 1947
I have not read a more thorough description of the 1947 Qabali Raid than what Shanti Swarup Ambardar has given in his book, Day of Destiny, A Memoir, published in 2014. He was in Srinagar at that time and closely … Continue reading