Friday, August 8, 2008

Not Just ‘firdous’



We are too good at poking our noses into everything, we can’t help it, we discuss issues which we may not have even heard of. Everywhere we do it, always ready to share our ‘expertise’. Well, we don’t want to be left behind when others are bent to discuss. We do it all the time.

People talk and others are there to offer their bit, but when they talk about issues related to our roots our traditions and culture, which we have long forgotten, things are a bit different, they remain silent because they are insensitive to the core and are least bothered. But when caught in the firing line they have an all purpose weapon, recite a Persian couplet made famous by Mughal imperialist Akber’s son on Kashmir, who would come to his occupied territory to be away from the burning sun of the plains in India, but originally said to have written by a Persian poet, Urfi, gottcha ya, well how many knew this ?

It seems alright as long as the conversation is unceremonious and to pass time while waiting for hours for your turn in an hospital emergency or a speech by a minister is just a formal lecture to inaugurate a newly built toilet or address a press conference by an Indian politician who returns to plant a tree at a girls school he studied in, or to write narration for a documentary commissioned by Doordarshan to the contractors called private producers or to begin an essay for your daughters Urdu lessons in her 5 grade, which she has to write as her homework but you are the one doing it.

We cannot blame those who are in the business of politics or any such occupation, because they are not the ones who are interested in understanding Kashmir, they are there to complete a formality and earn some bucks, but it is we who hardly know our Kashmir and that is what is the scenario we are living in and this is the environment that our kids are growing in.

The reality is that the very mention of this couplet poses a serious question on the knowledge of those who use it. The very couplet opens every article, every book, every essay, every documentary, every speech and everything else on Kashmir. The couplet has the distinction of being the only phrase that everybody seems to use irrespective of political, cultural, ethnic and religious views, a person may hold when it comes to talking Kashmir. This point towards limited knowledge we possess on the history, culture and the language that lends identity to us.

Recently one of the speakers in a ‘literary’ function speaking on the topic ‘ Kashmir inspires’ used the couplet eight times and each time he referred to it as an ‘vurdu shaar’. We might laugh at that gentleman’s knowledge but the truth of the matter is that even we fall in the same category.

The culture that dates back to the times when humans lived in caves, the literature that is at par with the best in the world, the history that civilisations are proud of and the philosophies that makes life worth living, have been forgotten, we have turned our backs to the fabric of our being, we hardly seem to know ourselves now. All we are left with is this couplet to defend our uniqueness and describe the greatness of our motherland.

We have to take stock of things, get to know our roots and realise that if we want to be addressed as Kashmiris and want to see Kashmir ‘ba royee zameen’ for all times to come, we have to start digging into our own treasures laying under the dust of our apathy.

Kashmir is much more then ‘firdous’ that sells political packages. Let’s make an effort to know and feel its essence. We will surely end up rich.

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