koi ye kah de gulshan gulshan – Jigar Morarabadi. Translated
koī ye kah de gulshan gulshan laakh balā.eñ ek nasheman let someone proclaim from garden to garden there are innumerable calamities but only one nest qātil rahbar qātil rahzan dil sā dost na dil sā dushman expert guide killer highwayman no friend like heart no enemy like heart phuul khile haiñ […]
How I Became a Writer?
When I was born, English was not my first language, Kashmiri was. English was the language of my motherland India’s occupiers, the British, who ruled India for 200 years; so, it became the language of the education imparted in many schools and colleges in India. jii The story of my love affair with English is […]
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 a sprawling household of six brothers, their families, and a battalion of servants. I […]
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 listener’s psyche. Sorrow, more than joy, touches the deepest chords of human soul. There […]
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 its last mental creation, has been an awesome pillar of strength to it. Even when […]
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 now in the corridors of heart, In the recesses of our shared memories, In the […]
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. After the talk about the advantages of having an organization of KP’s in U.S., […]
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 followed the raid. He even interviewed some survivors of the St. Joseph’s Convent and the […]
Reflections on Human Happiness
Life Comes with No meaning at its Birth It is correct that human life does not come with a meaning at its birth, but it is endowed with a strong biological force to live right from that point on till its end. This strong will to physically survive forms the basis of the […]
In Search of Happiness
A human being is born mostly as a physical system, which later on evolves into a physical and mental system. Together two of them propel human life, under the guidance of the latter. The need for happiness only arises when the combined system is unable to fend off general unhappiness and peace of mind. Left […]