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)
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