Agha Shahid Ali: Farewell (CP Blog)

Agha Shahid Ali’s lamentation of his lost Kashmir is scattered throughout his poetry, yet the emphasis on the sense desolation is evident from techniques such as the constant juxtaposition of contrary statements in the poem “Farewell". The poem is replete with images of implacable bitter mourning and a continuously deepening sense of loss, and the tone employed by the poet itself is deeply pain-stricken “They make a desolation and call it peace”; perhaps Shahid’s resentment is also towards the perpetrators of Kashmir’s destruction, and the lack of response internationally because the “desolation” has been so carefully guised as “peace”, a truth only he as a citizen could have understood. Moreover, this lack of action further alleviates the pain of the “defenseless” who had “no weapons”. Shahid’s wistfulness is perhaps most evident in his poem’s conclusion “If only you could have been mine, what could not have been possible in the world?”; this powerful ending magnifies the loss to almost metaphysical dimensions, because there is a loss of possibility itself, of a different end, had the means of retaining his own nation been possible. Thus the conclusion represents more than just the unbearable pain of loss and estrangement, rather, it symbolizes an unattainable fate. Although the poem is most popularly assumed to be a letter from a Kashmiri Muslim to a Kashmiri Pandit, it epitomizes the larger loss of Kashmir, and the exiles sense of betrayal to a country he could not help save. The suffering of the Kashmiri people is made evident through the children running out with “windows in their arms”. The poem discusses the loss of relationships and culture that were an intrinsic part of the land:

"I'm everything you lost - You won't forgive me. 
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history - 
There is nothing to forgive. 
You won't forgive me.” 

His words then become part of the greater trajectory of the loss of Kashmir itself. The constant referral to non-forgiveness demonstrates a deep sense of guilt on part of the poet/exile. The reference to memory also serves a purpose, Shahid swerves between “My memory is in the way of your history” and “Your history gets in the way of my memory”, demonstrating that history itself played a role in shaping the collective memory of all the sufferers of Kashmir’s fate. Shahid’s depiction of religion with the “arms of temples and mosques are locked in each other’s reflections” in the lake demonstrates his desire for the elimination of religious rivalry, an element that has also played a role in the tearing apart of his beloved homeland, and an emphasis on the possibility of peace between two opposing religions that he grew up amidst. Moreover, the poem also points towards the inadequacy of religion to purport peace; the “Gates of Paradise” themselves are left unguarded. The imagery of the paddle further again reiterates his loss, a loss and pain that is so deep that the poet feels as if he is “being rowed through Paradise on a river of Hell”.