The Rhapsody of Kashmir Maharaj Kaul 9781482874471 Books
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In The Rhapsody of Kashmir, his fifth collection of poetry, Kashmiri-American poet, Maharaj Kaul, describes Kashmir, the land of his ancestors, after the civil war of 1989. He saw the wanton destruction of human beings and homes, milieu and culture. He laments
The clandestine evil schemes of 80’s
Hatched in our neighbor country
Coalesced into one infernal insane fire in ’89,
Destroying the finely woven culture of a millennia in the valley,
Disturbing the tranquility of a million years among the mountains.
A friend turned into a murderer,
A neighbor into an arsonist;
A community acquiesced to become an army.
An angelic valley became a death valley –
All in the name of God and religion.
(From the poem “Roots.”)
In his preface to the book he writes
“The ongoing political crises in Kashmir, born in 1947, has mutilated the soul of Kashmir. The political heroes of the crises have no idea of the damage they have done to it. It will take a long time before the soul of Kashmir is healed,….”
But Maharaj Kaul has a hope that one day Kashmir will be reborn
“But the idea of Kashmir is still not dead,
There is hope, in fact, a dream, that one day it will be reborn
And reconnect with its past glory.
Then we will not mourn the lost time,
But celebrate man’s infinite resilience,
To forget, to forgive, to recreate, and move on.”
(From the poem “The Shattered Dream of Kashmir”)
The Rhapsody of Kashmir Maharaj Kaul 9781482874471 Books
THE RHAPSODY OF KASHMIR – A BOOK REVIEWEvery Kashmiri worth his salt should read Maharaj Kaul’s book, The Rhapsody of Kashmir. I am tempted to add the subtitle, The Agony and The Ecstasy, to its title.
It is a long rambling walk down memory lane, looking back with wistfulness, through the various phases of his life, which opens much like that of a butterfly that painfully emerges from its chrysalis. As Soren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
We would all identify with the myriad pictures he draws, like cameos set in a vast but familiar canvas. Be it reminiscences of school going days, Amar Singh College, a birthday celebration, Maharajini Khir Bhavani, his personal anguishes, et al. They will strike a chord in one and all. There are a plethora of Kashmiri memories that will bring at times a tear and often a smile.
One is struck by the sights and sounds and smells of a home that once existed - a home bustling with life. The man of the house cycling off to work, children running off to school, the older folks watching over the young, the gurgling sound of a hookah, smoke curling from a chillum, the aroma of cooking wafting out of the kitchen hearth shining with freshly applied mud, sanctified for preparing the family meals.
And who will not remember Tarekh Halwoy? My matamal was round the corner. His snacks were very popular; and as Maharaj ji has described it, the scene outside the shop used to be that of crushing high traffic, with tangawalas exhorting their emaciated horses with voice and whip. These are the sounds we would want to re-experience. As Maharaj Ji says:
In those days of youth, permittivity and poverty,
Habba Kadal was our Times Square and Tarekh Halwoy our Macdonald’s.
Maharaj Kaul’s both agonies and ecstasies are palpable throughout his poetry. Some lines that touched me from some of his poems, making me both happy and sad, are:
From A Rendezvous at Habba Kadal
Love surge of youth had to find an outlet,
Circumventing the terrible taboos of the day.
Like a summer brook love found grooves and byways
To flow and flood the virgin ground before it.
From A Tryst at Nishat Bagh
Chinars beckon to eternity,
Daffodils have shed their shyness,
Bleeding roses skew perception;
Their bed looks a massacre at the frontline,
A medley of pansies titillates our sense of subdued elegance.
.
.
It is a visual aura beckoning to a mysterious unknown.
From Aura of Mystery at Pari Mahal
Ensconced high in the lap of Zabarwan Mountain
Lie the ruins of an ancient palace,
With a lovely garden overlooking Dal Lake and Srinagar City.
The elegance of the ruins projects
The grandeur of the edifices they were once.
.
.
You do not feel lonely here,
Even though you are immensely surrounded by it,
Because your inner loneliness melts in the cosmic loneliness.
From Pensive Moments at Shalimar Bagh
Whether it was created to worship god or love a woman,
Shalimar transcends everyday life.
Shalimar is a gift of love,
A sigh floating on the wings of time.
From Roots
We go back to the roots,
To replenish the vision and the spirit we have lost,
To regain our identity and reclaim our history,
.
.
But Kashmir always beckons me to a homecoming,
A quivering echo of a distant thunder,
A withered glow on the horizon,
From Glory and Exile
The community is like scattered leaves in search of the tree they were shaken off from,
Or the stones of a temple demolished by terrorists
Trying to join with each other to re-form the original shrine.
.
.
But Pandits know that their end in this world, at this time, is not their end in the universe,
Because the universe has no beginning and no end,
What has been created by God once lives forever,
Their spirit is enshrined in eternity.
They will be reborn when the present cycle of Indian history is over,
They will reclaim their paradise and live there as they have always done.
From The Shattered Dream of Kashmir
But the idea of Kashmir is still not dead,
There is hope, in fact, a dream, that one day it will be reborn
And reconnect with its past glory.
Then we will not mourn the lost time,
But celebrate man’s infinite resilience,
To forget, to forgive, to recreate, and move on.
From People Ask Me Why Do I Go to Kashmir So Often
God deemed that I have a rendezvous with her,
Our love affair is ancient,
I cannot imagine what my life would be without her,
If at all it would exist.
Her mountains, lakes, valleys, and trees are her ornaments
That she wears in mirth with great abandon,
Her splendorous seasons are her moods.
From The Rhapsody of Kashmir
Kashmir – a dream of the soul,
A rhapsody of eternity.
.
.
Stained and insulted at the moment,
The soul of Kashmir is not dead yet,
It is waiting to rise again.
To all the above I would like to add a great favorite of mine, lines from my beloved Khalil Gibran, because that is how I felt on perusing Maharaj Kaul’s Rhapsody Of Kashmir:
I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart
For the joys of the multitude
.
.
And I would not have the tears that sadness makes
To flow from my every part turn into laughter
.
.
I would that my life remain a tear and a smile
Urmila Dhar Zutshi
Rev: July 5, 2016
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The Rhapsody of Kashmir Maharaj Kaul 9781482874471 Books Reviews
THE RHAPSODY OF KASHMIR – A BOOK REVIEW
Every Kashmiri worth his salt should read Maharaj Kaul’s book, The Rhapsody of Kashmir. I am tempted to add the subtitle, The Agony and The Ecstasy, to its title.
It is a long rambling walk down memory lane, looking back with wistfulness, through the various phases of his life, which opens much like that of a butterfly that painfully emerges from its chrysalis. As Soren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
We would all identify with the myriad pictures he draws, like cameos set in a vast but familiar canvas. Be it reminiscences of school going days, Amar Singh College, a birthday celebration, Maharajini Khir Bhavani, his personal anguishes, et al. They will strike a chord in one and all. There are a plethora of Kashmiri memories that will bring at times a tear and often a smile.
One is struck by the sights and sounds and smells of a home that once existed - a home bustling with life. The man of the house cycling off to work, children running off to school, the older folks watching over the young, the gurgling sound of a hookah, smoke curling from a chillum, the aroma of cooking wafting out of the kitchen hearth shining with freshly applied mud, sanctified for preparing the family meals.
And who will not remember Tarekh Halwoy? My matamal was round the corner. His snacks were very popular; and as Maharaj ji has described it, the scene outside the shop used to be that of crushing high traffic, with tangawalas exhorting their emaciated horses with voice and whip. These are the sounds we would want to re-experience. As Maharaj Ji says
In those days of youth, permittivity and poverty,
Habba Kadal was our Times Square and Tarekh Halwoy our Macdonald’s.
Maharaj Kaul’s both agonies and ecstasies are palpable throughout his poetry. Some lines that touched me from some of his poems, making me both happy and sad, are
From A Rendezvous at Habba Kadal
Love surge of youth had to find an outlet,
Circumventing the terrible taboos of the day.
Like a summer brook love found grooves and byways
To flow and flood the virgin ground before it.
From A Tryst at Nishat Bagh
Chinars beckon to eternity,
Daffodils have shed their shyness,
Bleeding roses skew perception;
Their bed looks a massacre at the frontline,
A medley of pansies titillates our sense of subdued elegance.
.
.
It is a visual aura beckoning to a mysterious unknown.
From Aura of Mystery at Pari Mahal
Ensconced high in the lap of Zabarwan Mountain
Lie the ruins of an ancient palace,
With a lovely garden overlooking Dal Lake and Srinagar City.
The elegance of the ruins projects
The grandeur of the edifices they were once.
.
.
You do not feel lonely here,
Even though you are immensely surrounded by it,
Because your inner loneliness melts in the cosmic loneliness.
From Pensive Moments at Shalimar Bagh
Whether it was created to worship god or love a woman,
Shalimar transcends everyday life.
Shalimar is a gift of love,
A sigh floating on the wings of time.
From Roots
We go back to the roots,
To replenish the vision and the spirit we have lost,
To regain our identity and reclaim our history,
.
.
But Kashmir always beckons me to a homecoming,
A quivering echo of a distant thunder,
A withered glow on the horizon,
From Glory and Exile
The community is like scattered leaves in search of the tree they were shaken off from,
Or the stones of a temple demolished by terrorists
Trying to join with each other to re-form the original shrine.
.
.
But Pandits know that their end in this world, at this time, is not their end in the universe,
Because the universe has no beginning and no end,
What has been created by God once lives forever,
Their spirit is enshrined in eternity.
They will be reborn when the present cycle of Indian history is over,
They will reclaim their paradise and live there as they have always done.
From The Shattered Dream of Kashmir
But the idea of Kashmir is still not dead,
There is hope, in fact, a dream, that one day it will be reborn
And reconnect with its past glory.
Then we will not mourn the lost time,
But celebrate man’s infinite resilience,
To forget, to forgive, to recreate, and move on.
From People Ask Me Why Do I Go to Kashmir So Often
God deemed that I have a rendezvous with her,
Our love affair is ancient,
I cannot imagine what my life would be without her,
If at all it would exist.
Her mountains, lakes, valleys, and trees are her ornaments
That she wears in mirth with great abandon,
Her splendorous seasons are her moods.
From The Rhapsody of Kashmir
Kashmir – a dream of the soul,
A rhapsody of eternity.
.
.
Stained and insulted at the moment,
The soul of Kashmir is not dead yet,
It is waiting to rise again.
To all the above I would like to add a great favorite of mine, lines from my beloved Khalil Gibran, because that is how I felt on perusing Maharaj Kaul’s Rhapsody Of Kashmir
I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart
For the joys of the multitude
.
.
And I would not have the tears that sadness makes
To flow from my every part turn into laughter
.
.
I would that my life remain a tear and a smile
Urmila Dhar Zutshi
Rev July 5, 2016
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