Ahmad Durrani: Stories of Kashmir

A recurring theme in Agha Shahid Ali’s ‘A Country without a Post Office’ is of correspondence. Letters, often undelivered, are mentioned in several poems such as ‘Dear Shahid’, ‘The Floating Post Office’ and ‘A Pastoral’ The image of a post office which cannot seem to deliver mail speaks to the isolation of Kashmir and its people, unable to communicate their stories to anyone. This image is also a personal one, as an exile, Ali probably depended on letters to keep in touch with his loved ones in Kashmir. Other images include that of telephones that never seem to work and telephone calls that are often short and confusing. The phone too then is not seen as a reliable form of communication.  (Considering that this is a country without a post office, it may be pertinent to ask; can the exile stay truly -or honestly- connected to his homeland?)

Agha Shahid Ali depicts an isolated Kashmir in his poems, a Kashmir that it is impossible to get in touch with. His poem ‘The Correspondent’ is not about informal letters and phone calls however but about a reporter who wishes to report on Kashmir. ‘His footage is priceless with sympathy/close-ups in slow motion: from bombed sites to the dissolve of mosques in colonnades/Then, wheelchairs on a ramp/burning’ It is unclear whether this footage is of Kashmir or of Sarajevo (from where the correspondent has just returned) but it is clear that Ali wishes to draw parallels not just between these two places but also regarding how their stories have been told by mainstream media.

Ali goes on; ‘I ask: When will the satellites/transmit my songs, carry Kashmir, aubades/always for dawns to stamp/True! Across seas? The stars careen/down, the lamp dies. He hangs up’ Ali is conscious of how the story of Kashmir is being told to the world and wishes to offer the world another narrative of his homeland to which the correspondent responds simply by hanging up the phone.

Agha Shahid Ali’s poems speak not just of the isolation of Kashmir, the country without a post office, but also warns us of the stories that are being told about Kashmir; stories that speak only of violence and destruction and will only teach people to look upon Kashmir and Kashmiris with sympathy. In his question to the reporting concerning the transmission of his songs, Ali makes clear the need for alternative narratives of Kashmir, told by the people themselves.