The Blessed Word?

In our class discussions we have debated the purpose of calling the opening poem, “The Blessed Word”, a prologue. The blogpost will explore the purpose and function of this title. What is the Blessed Word? The purpose of the poem is not simply to express the emotional plight of the author but to trace a historical narrative of what is happening in Kashmir. It is a reminder, an outcry to reach out to the world and narrate the tale of his homeland, Kashmir.

The title is a direct reference to Opis Mandelstam’s untitled poem. The opening lines are as follows:

“We shall meet again, in Petersburg,
as though we had buried the sun there,
and then we shall pronounce for the first time
the blessed word with no meaning”

It is my contention that this intertextuality (i.e.  is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text) shapes the entire meaning and direction of the entire volume. By affiliating himself with Mandelstam’s work the author is reinforcing the idea that he is experiencing something in Kashmir which is akin to what Mandelstam experienced in Petersburg.  From this point onward he traces a historical trajectory of events.

This is further validated by another intertextual insertion by the author. He says:

“And will the blessed women rub  the ashes together? Each fall they gather Chinar leaves, singing  what the hills have re-echoed for  four hundred years, the songs of  HabbaKhatoon, the peasant girl  who later became the queen.  When her husband was exiled  from the valley by the Mughal  king Akbar, she went among the  people with her sorrow. Her grief,  alive to this day, in her own  roused the people into frenzied  opposition to Mughal rule. And   since Kashmir has never been  free”

The prologue takes us four hundred years back in Kashmir history when Habba Khatun’s husband, Yusuf Shah Chak, the Kashmir king was captured by the Mughal King Akbar. And his capture effectively brought an end to the independence of Kashmir.  The blessed word, in this context, then symbolizes freedom for Kashmir and its inhabitants. The Blessed Word is Freedom.

“One day the Kashmiri’s will pronounce that word truly for the first time”