Kashmir as Saffron

We’ve discussed in class how Agha Shahid views Kashmir as being a paradise on Earth. He ends the poem with Jehangir’s quote: “If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.” This is not only to point to the beauty of Kashmir but also describe it as a place of home/rest or a final settlement, as it is preceded by Shahid saying: “on everyone’s lips was news of my death”.

He uses Saffron as symbol for Kashmir; saffron a spice which is derived by smashing flower petals. Agha Shahid thus talks about the present Kashmir as being something fragile and yet exquisite, with both Saffron and Kashmir as being built delicately but rare in their nature/appearance.

But another thing worth nothing in the poem is how he makes references to the commercialization of Kashmir’s assets, from the sale of saffron itself in “floating gardens of the Dal lake that can be towed”, the implication here being the boats that sail on the Dal lake. “Jhelum receded to their accounts” and that “blood censored…will be sold in black”, all reference those very losses incurred, “in interest” of certain capitalist ambitions.

Agha shahid thus talks about this painful present of Kashmir in which there are “boys…[who are] killed” and “men nailing tabloids to the fence of Grindlay’s Bank” as being a complicated place in which Kashmir struggles to retain its pureness and rareness of old as a consequence of a presence of an outsider – perhaps a state – whose objectives Kashmir is not natured to fulfill. 

(CP)

Class Spaces in Zinda Bhaag

                Zinda Bhaag presents an extremely localized account of an exilic experience, drawing boundaries for the exile which constitute his class. Outside of this space he appears to be uncomfortable in his interaction with the higher classes, even though in the act of offering up his labor, he takes the burden of easing the communication and relation possible between his class and the higher one.

The first instance in the film in which the exile comes in contact with a different class shows how adept these working-lower middle class characters are in capitalizing on opportunities that arise due to a close proximity with the upper class. In this scene, Tambi goes to the house of a rich urban woman who has problems with her internet. While she is outside, lying comfortable on her sofa and working on her laptop, Tambi enters her room. But before letting him in, she says: “shoes please if you don’t mind” to which he says: “its ok ma’am”. His prompt reply using her language speaks about the fact that these characters often visit such urban high class gentry and have learnt to communicate with them out of necessity. The necessity is perhaps to earn trust and cash in on certain opportunities. Inside her room, Tambi looks at all her pictures, is incredibly impressed by the tiling and the interior of the room, smells her perfume and puts it on as well. And then when he’s about to set her connection, he looks inside her wardrobe and steals a red dress, which he then hands to Khaldi so he can gift it to his girlfriend. When Khaldi expresses fear for his job because the dress was stolen, Tambi assures him and says: “Kuch nhin honda. Easy hoja easy. Kam az kam ik hazar dress hona hai odi almari ich. Onu pata we nhin lagna”. These exilic characters are aware of the social stratification. And their knowledge of the way the lifestyles of the higher classes work and the complete absence of it the other way around, leads them into certain favorable positions. But sometimes this close proximity can prove insulting as well.

I am speaking of the dinner scene in which Chitta and some other men are caterers serving the gentry when one of the rich men loses his cell phone during the dinner. He is, without reason, suspicious of the waitresses and the chefs, including Chitta, so he has them frisked. Turns out he was overreacting. The gentry resume their dinner as Chitta and company feel humiliated. This scene is particularly telling of the treatment these working men receive in an environment which is not their own. And their reaction to being searched for the phone shows that perhaps that they have been through such ordeals before too but have now internalized that anguish.

In their home in Samnabad, they drink, they gamble, and are at ease because the place and people in it are familiar. The directors do a good job of localizing their comfort into one setting, drawing the language of the characters from local references. But despite this ease, life is far from satisfying within Samnabad because its comfort promises no fruitful prospect for the future. If they leave this space to earn a living and rise socially, they come in clash with a class that does not understand their interests and references and is not conscious of their desires. Their knowledge of this higher class and close proximity with it leads to mixed results, and thus is not enough for these exilic characters to sustain themselves. Hence, the desire to escape these demarcations altogether and emigrate. 

(CP)

Religion and Zinda Bhaag

                There are two crucial scenes in Zinda Bhaag that point to the absence of exile’s association with religion. There’s a minor reference to this in the funeral scene during climax when Chitta’s dead body comes back. Khaldi, who at this point is utterly desperate to leave the country, approaches Chitta’s father and asks him for his passport. It appears somewhat selfish, even though we already see Khaldi sob over the death of his close friend. But the desperate times he is in necessitate such painstaking decisions which Khaldi has to take. And hence he comes off as being irreverent of a religious tradition of a Muslim community which sits together and mourns the death of a person for days on end.

                But there’s also not a lot of understanding of religious ceremonies on the part of the exile during lighter moments. In another scene early on in the film (which was missing in the version we saw in class), Khaldi and his friends go to a bungalow to fix an air conditioner. At the same time a dars takes place at the house which a ceremony delivered by Islamic scholars on traditions and rituals of Islam. Such meetings are usually attended by women belonging to privileged backgrounds who are not exactly working and can afford to spend time discoursing in such activities within social spaces where they meet people from the same social statuses.

Khaldi and his friends are alien to this setting. To them such religious activities are pastimes that the rich afford and amount to mere abstract discussions. The woman leading the meeting says:  “remember, sisters, we have to think in terms of horizontal and vertical.” And then she asks the guests to respond to her when she says: “So, sisters, the horizontal is us, and the vertical is…?” to which the women reply together: “Allah”. Khaldi and his friend (Tambi), through a facial expression shared between each other, show a complete lack of understanding of this interaction between the speaker and the attendants, not understanding one bit, what the women were implying. This lack of affiliation with the dominant religious engagement ties with the film’s overall objective of portraying these exilic figures as being dissociated from the national discourse.

(CP)

Zinda Bhaag-Rida Baqai

This poem aims to encapsulate the mindset of an individual who deems exile inevitable because his nation has failed him. It sheds light on why people take the exilic path especially from countries like Pakistan.
                                                                      زندہ بھاگ        
                                                   اس رات میں عجیب سی بےچینی ہے
                                                  اس رات میں عجیب سی خاموشی  ہے
                                            منزل کے اتنے قریب اور دل اتنا بھوجل
                                                         جانتا نہیں کیا ہوگا کل
                                            سوچتا ہوں کہ ہوجاےینگے سارے مسلے حل
                                               پوھنچ جاؤں گا جب یہ دن جائے ڈھل
                                                           اب روکنے کی وجہ کیا؟
                                                           جب دل ہی ہوگیا سیاہ
                                                   نہ ہے بجلی،نہ پانی، نہ سکوں
                                                     بس پٹھتے بم ،لاشیں اور خون
                                                  اس سے پہلے کہ کفن کہ پیسے بھی لوٹ جاییں
                                          کیوں نہ ایک نیئں دنیا میں گم ہوجاییں؟
                                                         لگنے دو ہم پر بھی گدار کا داگ
                                              .بس یہاں سے زندہ بھاگ، زندہ بھاگ 

Zinda Bhaag
Iss raat mein ajeeb si bechaini hai,
Is raat mein ajeeb si khamoshi hai,
Manzil ke itnay qareeb aur dil itna bhojal
Jaanta naheen kia hoga kal.
Sochta hoon keh hojayeinge saarey masley hul,
Pohanch jaaon ga, jab din jaye dhal.
Ab rukne ki wajah kia?
Jab mulk se dil hi hogaya siyah
Na bijli ,na paani,na sukoon,
Bus phattay bum,lashein or khoon
Is se pehle keh kufn ke paisey bhi lut jayein,
Aik nayee dunya mein kyun na gum jayein?
lagne do hum per bhi gadaar ka daag,
bus yahan se zinda bhaag, zinda bhaag.

Silence and Words in Agha Shahid Ali's "The Country Without a Post Office

In Agha Shahid Ali's poetry, words have very little meaning for the figure in exile primarily because the voices of the exiles are isolated from the rest of the world. “The Country Without a Post Office” depicts the strife of an exiled man who fails to communicate with anyone. Human contact is rendered impossible because letters cannot be delivered or received in a country where stamps have “no nation named on them”. Moreover, man is also unable to communicate with God because: “When the Muezzin died, the city was robbed of every Call” and the “Calls to prayer” fall to “deaf worlds across continents”. It is interesting to note, however, that the narrator does seem to be talking to someone in the poem. At a cursory reading one could assume that this particular aspect contradicts the essence and meaning of the poem. However, a closer look at the conversation reveals that the interaction holds little meaning. For one thing, it is extremely fragmented. It is also extremely difficult to gauge the number of people the narrator seems to be quoting.

When words fail to have meaning and when they do not facilitate communication, the language of exile is silence.

"I must force silence to be a mirror

to see his voice again for directions"

Silence acquires new meaning and allows the 'exiled' to re-evaluate communication. The idea that silence needs to be a “mirror” suggests that the person in exile needs to reflect in order to save or reinstate communication. Silence gives him another chance to interact.

"Only silence can now trace my letters"

Words have died completely because the letters are referred to as a “shrine of words”. This is particularly interesting because a shrine is constructed in remembrance of something or someone and is visited often. Therefore, the letters have become a medium of remembrance instead of a medium of communication. This is evident from the fact that the narrator reads and revisits the letters.  

“I read them, letters of love, the mad ones,

and mine to him from whom no answers came.”

the failure of the particularity of the exilic experience in "Seasons Of Migration to The North" (CP blog)

“and in the journey from the cradle to the grave they dream dreams some of which come true and some of which are frustrated”

This particular quote highlights the narrators attempt to emphasize the problematic distinction between the 'European' and the 'Oriental' figures, yet it presents only a part of the idea of what this similarity implies and where it stems from. “Seasons of Migration to The North” is a novel that proposes a reversal to the oriental discourse, and by presenting a protagonist like Mustafa Sa’eed, on the surface Salih takes the reader into the mind of a man who’s sole purpose in life is becoming one with the ‘North’. But perhaps by presenting such a reversal, and showing the perspective of the oriental male who spends his life “conquering” women, Salih is actually turning the reader’s attention to the fact that the impossibility of the friendship between colonizer and colonized is not so much a reality because their differences cannot be overcome, but is more the consequence of similarity between them that exists in the wake of a post colonial world as a result of the colonial experience.

In fact the post colonial narrative can be seen to represent the disfunctionality of the relationship that did exist before the colonizer had left, the effects of which are deeply entrenched not only into the life of the oriental (Mustafa Sa’eed) who is on a journey to find his identity in the north, but is also apparent in the colonial figure, embodied by the women who are constantly pulled towards the oriental man in an attempt to identify themselves. In essence the post colonial narrative gives birth to two self destructive figures who will continuously be pulled towards each other because their experiences are not as different as they have been thought to be. And in trying to create such a relationship both are fated to die, the women committing suicide and mustafa sa’eed drowning in the Nile. Hence the text introduces a new perspective, where the exilic state is not the consequence of a lost identity but of the muddle created by a multiplicity of identities that are impossible to separate. The exilic figure is constantly seen tying himself to a history, but Salih is able to show that when histories become intertwined and the colonizer and colonised can no longer separate themselves on the bases of a history then the exilic state is no longer the experience of an individual, or that of a particular group of people, but the experience of a particular era that transcends geography. 

"I’m trying to breathe my share of air" (missed blog)

This particular dialogue stood out to me as one that epitomizes Kanafani’s message in his novel “men in the sun”, which is that of an individual struggling to create a place for himself in a land both physically and to some extent spiritually, and in essence looking for some sort of space where he can “breathe” and moreover live. And it is through the course of the novel that we see that there is no place for the three men, that in fact the air for them runs out, and their death then symbolizes a physical embodiment of their mental state, which is utterly displaced and fighting a battle to gain some semblance of a meaningful existence.

Furthermore the words indicate an almost selfish struggle for one’s own existence and apathy towards the other yet all the partaking in a moral struggle to appear more human and justify the decisions each of them have made. We see this clearly represented in Assad’s intention of escaping his engagement and Abu khaizuran drinking the water while the rest watch him. In contrast we see that a relationship does form between the men however this relationship cannot survive because it is neither true nor possible in the exilic figures life. Hence even the journey itself can be seen as an attempt on their part to find air to breathe, and in essence create a life for themselves in a place that although may be alien might be kinder to them then what they have been facing. Finally the phrase is a representation of abu qais’s helplessness where all he can do as he lies between what he has left behind and what lies ahead is breathe his share of air, and hence this symbolizes the lack of control each of them have on their lives, where on one hand abu khaizuran is unable to come to terms with his castration and Marwan struggles to fill his fathers shoes at a point in his life where he cannot even fill his own. 

The troubles of Translation in Agha Shahid Ali (missed blog)

Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry is rife with references to his contemporaries (poets, authors, intellectuals) who share, in some respect or the other, his experience of exile. In a ghazal (pg 73), Ali cites Mehmoud Darvesh “From exile, Mahmoud Darvesh writes to the world”. In another instance, he dedicates a ghazal entirely to Edward Said (“By Exiles”) and finally, he translates many of Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s poetry.

Ali’s translation of Rang Hai Dil ka Mere gives a lot of insight into his own poetic inclinations and interests. After comparing about five different translations, I realized that Agha Shahid Ali gives preference to a particular interpretation over others- one line that struck was “shab-e-taar ka rang” that Francis Pritchett translated as “the color of black night”, Shiv Kumar translated as “sable night”, Naomi Lazard as “lacquered the night black” and Agha Shahid Ali, interestingly, translated as “the black when you cover the earth with the coal of dead fires”. The choice of the words coal of dead fires is an independent insertion into the poem which has a transformative effect on both the mood and the meaning. The trope of coal and ashes (dead fire) appears again and again in Ali’s poetry. The imagery is of death and destruction as a consequence of war.

Ali’s translations are tinged with his own politics. Of course that goes for all people involved in translation projects, however I find that his particular selection of Faiz's poetry and their renditions throws light upon his own poetic agenda. Consider, for example, the poem "City of Lights"/ Roshniyon ka sheher. "desolation everywhere, /the poison of exile painted on the walls. /In the distance, /there are terrible sorrows, like tides"
Another poem he translated is titled "Evening"/shaam "the sky is a priest,/saffron marks on his forehead,/ ashes smeared on his body. Indeed, there is a particular motivation behind the selection of Faiz's poems, and their translations even more telling of the politics of translation