Come to Srinagar in the month of June
I'll give you World's best strawberries to eat...
You don't get such red and juicy strawberries in the plains...
He welcomed us to see Shahid's room
"I have not changed a thing."
Agha Ashraf Ali's voice trailed from Ejaz's
Friends's colony house to another time
another world..
"Imagine where we are was a sea once. Just imagine"... I recalled...
He was a young scholar once...
...revolted by failiures of revolutions ...
he had wanted to commit suicide...
But that fragmented self...
is now sepia photographs of a happy family album...
Autumn could have been different...
But he makes us smell the spring...
Come students of life...
Tell me what you know and I don't...
I am the poet's father...
It pained when they left out two of Shahid's poems...
Agha Ashraf Ali remembers so much...
Pearls of world leaders...
Moon sheets from History books...
Sapphire seas from old letters...
Weren't we told we remember what we fancy?
How Mad is this heart and how brave...
"I had thought of suicide...
Zakir Hussain had asked me to make a worthy present of myself...
... everything was breaking down...
But see at this juncture Krishnamurthy came into my life..."
What a pity he said!!
"You had to travel so much to return to yourself"
Did we see tears in Agha Sahib's eyes as he said...
"Saints are simple people"
The journey within is the toughest...
"Each ray of sunshine is seven minutes old"...
They must have travelled in shikaras...
and walked the nishat garden...
and read out Rumi aloud...
So much breathing together...
And yet he is not angry with us.
This June he has invited us to Srinagar.
To eat his organic saag.
To discuss History and Shahid.
He told us Shahid saw less of light with his growing tumour..
We have seen blindness...
We have seen death of a child...
But the most red and juicy strawberries...
Have we seen them?
Pathos of a father and that of a Kashmiri. Someone who saw the death of his illustrious son and also the wilting of his once blossomed state.
ReplyDeleteHowever, i've the curiosity of knowing what inspired you to cover him in this piece? Just for the sake of information.
Also, it would help if you can give some background of the protaganist so that uninformed mortals like me can relate better and understand the pain of a man, who, despite all the pain is still willing to play a host to all.
In the end, yet another piece which shows that sensitivity stirs Cycle Waali. Perhaps, only times when the paddle stops, to reflect on the things, otherwise the journey is always on!!
Vijay, I met Agha Ahib in Delhi. In Suvo's house. He is Agha Shahid Ali's father. We had the priviledge to hear from him about his son, a fantastic Kasmiri poet. I have used many extracts from Shahid's poetry...as I was listening to Agha Ashraf Sahib...I kept thinking of Shahid's works...and the resonance!:)
ReplyDelete