Poetry by Different Authors (JR106MISC01)

Poems By Kashmiri Women

Sitting In The Middle Of Khanqah

Listening To Awraadi Fatah

 Having Sips Of Nun Chaai

Under The Folds Of Kashmiri Burqah

An Agonised Voice That Pricks My Soul

 Every Log In Between The Bricks Vibrate

And Produce Blissful Echoes I Crossed Wall After Wall

 To See, Who It Could Be

Splendid Tunes Of Heaven

 There I Saw No Crowd No Hustle Bustle

Around Just The Birds Of Jamia Pecking Rice And Corn

This Anguish Harshness In Winter Has Left Every Eye To Gaze High

These Arid Eyes Ooze Now Brittle Drops To Pacify

This Gloom Neighbours To It, Are Still Dead!

 These Callous Souls Inside

The Ruins Are As Faithless

As The Curse On These Knots Knots,

Which Were Tied With Faith

Once Amidst All This Aloy Of Gloom

And Peace She Unlocked

The Ancient Window Of Her Ruin And Yelled!

It’s Curfew Outside Let’s Die Inside

Anonymous’ Hair Chopper – I Am Not Afraid

Why just me?
as I hear and I see,
they whisper and make commentary
ah! she walks so gaudily

they form a choice in liberty.
I have to see the earthy dust,
by lowering my gaze.
but they are free to trace,
first my face, then my body under the lace

upon they rumble and hit,
and wend marks like a makeup kit
if I smile their desires are lit
and if I evade, then I am not fit

when they shower acid over me
for I say no to their false plea
I stand there as numb and tainted
thinking it’s lone me, who would be blamed.

I am present in every corner,
in your house too,
as a wife or sister
as a mother or daughter
and more importantly, as SOMEONE.

painted as bright upon the canvas of plight
who has given them this right?
to seize my scarf or to cut my hair
what they want, she should fright?

By Iqra Akhoon
My Dumbstruck body with clotted blood, endure tortuous days and terrible nights.
Silence stuck in throat That Strives to cry .
Forms quite dew drops In deep arid well.
Aching heart with heavy sighs, Those taunts and scolds, Those unbearable fies, And my firm belief To tackle it hard.
Those books never dried bears which, the history Of my lakes and Niles.
Under the dawned sky living on dusky desert, With no oasis no mirage. Yet a soothing word Could have an effect, But that too remains Far away far back.
You know that oyster ,
Which Suffers from somber pain, But what you care For
The fruit it bore. kunan poshpora Kunan Poshpora rape victims ranged between the ages of 8 and 80. I left no single leaf On my autumn body, To protest against The barbaric frost And in this way I was being eroded forever
Here I am bearing An untold story That nobody can hear And I can’t share.
By Sauliha Yaseen
They always spoke of how beautiful I was. I was an attraction, a possession highly valued.
They waged wars, shed blood. None would let me go. I am Habba Khatoon who sang songs into the autumn air, waiting for her beloved
I was taught how to live with the pain of losing a loved one very early in my life
I am magnificent but scarred. Each scar has a story of its own. 1931, the world had moved forward and so had I.
I had new captors who reveled in my beauty, and new scars telling new stories.
The winter snow melted into the fragrance of spring and then came summer, one I dread.
Abdul Qadeer spoke as I listened, The slogans of freedom were soon muffled by the sounds raging bullets. I saw the men fall to the captor’s bullets.
I lost a husband that day, a father and a son too.
Yet I have fought all these years. I have resisted always. Years came forth and left me with more memories. 11th February was a winter day, heralding a new spring In all my glory, they told me that I lost another son.
Yes I am Maqbool’s mother who still waits by his empty grave.
It was my wedding day, with a heavy heart and henna stained hands, I left my home. I had my groom with me, I felt protected in his presence. It took them fifteen minutes and my world fell apart. I am Mubina Ghani, I was raped on my wedding day.
February came every year, this year in 1991 it brought along doom on the villages of Kunan and Poshpora. I was pinned to the ground and brutalized on that fateful night, by men whose faces I don’t remember, they were countless, and were they even humans? Years later they speak of that night again and again. Each has a different narration and a different explanationThe wounds healed but the pain did not fade. Now Tehreek had taken a new turn. I was a mother who lost her child.
I was a widow trying to make both ends meet.
My husband left in the morning and never returned.
They handed me a file and told me to move on in life. Each evening as Maghrib prayers are called, I sit by the window waiting for his arrival. Yes I am his half-widow. Sometimes I am silent and sometimes I make noise.
I scream for my son who was taken away I am Parveena Ahangar. I went to the orchard where I thought I was safe.
Forgetting that lived in an occupied land.
It did not take them much time to tear off their garb of humanity and my clothes.
I pleaded not for myself but for my unborn child. I am Asiya, I am Neelofer.
They taught me how to wear hijaab but did not tell me it was not enough.
Each day while going to school I was molested. One day I decided to speak up. I regret I did.
Maybe if I had kept quiet, it would have saved lives. I am the Handwara girl who lives with regret. My brother had gone to play when I heard the bullets. I took my dupatta and ran into the streets to get him home.
Hours later I was brought home in blood sodden clothes.
The bullet that was meant for him, I stood in its way. I am Yasmeen who was murdered on the street. I stand in the queues of government offices waiting for compensation. I had promised I would not take money from my husband’s killers. But my kids were hungry. I wait ouside Tihar and Kotbalwal, in the scorching sun just to catch his glimpse. My beloved son, who is languishing in the jail for no crime other than being a Kashmiri. I sit on the wooden bench waiting for my doctor, Every time this young lad tells me to not take stress as he prescribes antidepressants How can I not take stress? Every night as the army patrols the street, I lay sweating in bed. Each knock on the creaking door makes my heart beat louder and louder.
I have heard stories. I have seen too much to not take stress. Each day is a struggle but I have survived. And I always will.

My Favorite Family Member

 ·SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 201726 Reads

My then seven years old grandson (Mohammed Ibrahim Rashid) was tasked to write a poem about his Favorite Family Member. This is what he wrote:

My favorite family member Grandfather

I love him because he takes us for cycling

He tells me about scientific discoveries

He brings books for me and I am reading them He comes to visit every Sunday

When I get good grades he brings gifts for me

He tells me and my brother stories when we go to their house

When I was three we used to plant seeds and water them I pray for his health every day.

The fairy from heaven

By Javed Rashid

 The fairy from heaven

Had her eyes clouded by Pucks lotion

Her feminine radar went hay wire

She fell head over heals for this nobody

Who was smitten by the fair lady from heaven

Who had lost her way to this Eden on earth

The gods of love frowned upon this unequal match

And separated them in what seemed to be

A blink of the eye for many years

The fairy smitten by the love potion forgot

To cleanse her eyes of the potion

And the nobody defied the gods and

Could never forget this Beautiful muse

The changing of guards in the murky

Depths of the heavens ended this

Banishment and the “nobody” found

This enchanting lady again by a miracle

That was abetted by the faithful Puck

What happens to the “nobody” and the muse?

Is still not decided and the grand

Council of the love registrar

Is still to convene and determine the fate

Of this unequal match

This nobody hopes that Puck, the

Faithful old friend also sits in this

Grand council to decide the fate of these two

RESCUE ON THE SEA by Zeenat Iqbal Hakimjee( JR87MH01)

 RESCUE ON THE SEA by Zeenat Iqbal Hakimjee( JR87MH01)

ZEENAT IQBAL HAKIMJEE

RESCUE ON THE SEA

                                                                                                                   

Very little has been written about the ancient coastal people of Lyari – the irrepressible Makranis – who take their name from the Makran coast of Sindh and, Balochistan, which also indicates a common history of the two provinces; the Makran coast constitutes the South-East of Iran and the South-West of Pakistan; a 1,000 km stretch along the Gulf of Oman from RA’s (cape) Al-Kuh, Iran (West of Jask), to the Lasbela District of Pakistan (near Karachi). The Makran coast is on the Arabian Sea, to the North-West of Quetta in Balochistan.

The following is a story of one such coastal village:

Children on   bare - back camels, watch   the   sea, its   vastness spanning even beyond the grasp of their eyes. Fishermen on the beach watch the sky, like the city dwellers read their newspapers first thing in the morning. Through the knots of their nets hanging on the line, they seem to predict the weather. This exercise determines whether they should take a boat out or not on the deep sea, for their daily expedition to catch fish. The air is filled with the smell of rancid water that is due to the deposits of oil, resulting in decayed and dead sea-life. Music, which is a part of their lives, plays in the background. The sounds are a fusion of musical cultures from the Middle East, Indo-Pakistan and Africa.

            The shells on the beach look like the abandoned toenails of the old fishermen, and they are more beautiful there, than on the foot. The broken wings, the sand-logged crabs, a woman’s lonely shoe, a rusty toy damaged beyond recognition, the plank or sail from a doomed boat, all lay sprawled on the beach, each with a story behind it, cleansed and sterilized by the salt and iodine in the great hospital of the sea. In the night, the light from the tower was but a spot against the background of the sky and spectacular cliffs.

            The weather beaten villager’s munched dates from the interior while watching holidaymakers trying to teach their children to swim, like fish to water, amidst the shouts and screams of the children who are already submerged in the waters. The steps of the ladies faltered as they approached the sea, clad in shalwar kameezes filled with the wind, the Shalwar Kameez itself a deterrent for swimming.

            The story told here is that of a villager who because of his sharp sense of hearing helped in the rescue of a drowning man. The villager was alone and as he had no family to fend for, hence he had no responsibilities to drain his energy. Somehow he had also preserved his youth, which he owed to mother nature. Religion that usually comes into the house with the presence of a woman was lacking in his and he was quite oblivious of it.

            One evening when it was well after ten and the moon was full with black clouds scudding in ordered masses across the sky, he was still sitting on his wall, all alone. A cool wind suddenly sighed from an unexpected quarter and in its wake was a noise like that from a distant cavalry charge. His razor sharp ears picked up the sound. His brow creased up as his eyes searched the distance. He hobbled to his neighbours house and banged on the door of his traditional mud-hut – the two men, though natural life-guards, knew thoroughly all that was written in the books about rescue on the seas. The coastal blacks were descendants of imported slaves – the fishermen being known as the Meds and the seamen as the Koras – when there was no response; he banged on the door again. A groggy fellow soon appeared. He pointed towards the horizon and mumbled something in the Makranic dialect. The man’s eyes tried to see beyond the direction of the location being pointed at. A boat in trouble, he thought aloud. Without wasting any time they woke the other men.

            A rule of the sea states, that half the purchase price of the vessel of the sea is given to the rescue party. This prize money was quite a temptation, but since it was always dangerous the case required to be argued, all hands knew that the proposed journey was perilous.

            The village women all having gathered on the beach, saw their men disappear, reappear, disappear, reappear and finally disappear into the darkness. They were now a tiny speck in the vast vista of the sea – the ocean that is open to all and merciful to none, that which threatens even when it seems to yield, pitiless always to weakness.

            Many of the Makrani women now worked as domestic servants in Karachi; they were also experts in the art of massaging any mother and child    after    birth.   Their   traditional   long   dresses with   hand-woven

Embroidery gave them a distinct ‘folk’ touch, separating them from the typical Karachiites. The skirt-like look, with its wide circumference, and the loose shalwar could be compared to the costumes of the pathan and Kabuli women.

            The men in the rescue boat changed sides, so as not to tip the balance of the boat as the surf sprayed them from head to toe. The taste of salt lingered in their mouths during the voyage. They were not bothered by their appearance. On the contrary, they felt no different from when they started out dry.

            Suddenly, a dark object was thrown at them on the crest of a wave. It was a man. They held on to the poor fellow and eventually succeeded in dragging him aboard. Nobody felt sorry that this time, there was no prize. They rowed back to their village.

            Couples fought with each other to offer hospitality to this half dead man; and they almost came to blows in their struggle for this visa to heaven.

            They fetched a doctor from a nearby village, while the women sat all around him wearing their beads. The doctor was a Karachiite who had been sent to the village to serve them. The doctor prompted the man to speak. The man said, “Mahganj” very faintly. Repeated attempts, received the same response. The diagnosis stated that he was a victim of a traumatic shock and was suffering from amnesia, which meant a loss of memory, if only temporarily.    

            The Priest, who was also a member of the village council, was also summoned, as was the case in other similar incidents. “What’s going on here?” he asked one of the ladies. “A miracle” said all the ladies together. The Makrani women are predominantly Muslim.

            The Priest was briefed about the rescue and what followed. Being

 an elderly fellow, he recalled that a girl by the name of ‘Mahganj’ had been registered in the mosque some eighteen years ago.

            Now, it was easy to put two and two together. The man they found was associated with Mahganj and was discovered as belonging to the same village as her’s.  He was also supposed to marry her.

            Mahganj was the granddaughter of the village tailor. Thus it was decided that the man be taken back to the same village that he originated from. Similar surroundings would help to revive his memory, it was hoped.

            A therapist was hired from the city and surely, slowly though, his memory came back in bits and pieces. Mahganj’s presence always evoked a response in the man, so strong was the bond of love. His memory did eventually return, which in turn led to their marriage. They led a happy married life.