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Majboor's Verse on Worse in Kashmir
B. L. Kak
Events and happenings in Kashmir during the decade that was
1989-1999. They have been, and are being, discussed not only in Jammu and
Kashmir, but also elsewhere in India and beyond its borders. And a Kashmiri
poet has proved that Kashmir events can be taken note of not only by
politicians, police personnel and press persons but by others as well.
The poet, under reference, is none other than Arjan Dev Majboor. Saddest though about political turmoil and militancy that forced him to
leave Kashmir in 1990 and seek shelter in Udhampur sector of Jammu region has
become too evident to be missed in his poems just published by him in New Delhi.
As many as 24 poems form part of Majboor's book titled Waves.
And these poems have been translated from Kashmiri by Arvind Gigoo, who is
currently residing in Udhampur sector. Undoubtedly, Arjan Dev Majboor's poetry
is marked by deftness of expression and mature treatment. His poems constitute a
muffled outcry of his bruised heart against the disappearance of old values in
his homeland, Kashmir.
A glaring sample, in this regard, is available in Majboor's
poem titled Rootless: "Each warm evening wet memories transfix my heart and
cripple me/Helplessness floods the room/ Objects shiver/My existence is a
knot/Home and river and rustle flit and pass/Hope is hazy/The city is a litter
of broken bricks, burnt houses and choked gutters/ Their present. our past and
your future fall to pieces before the gun/The gapping wound speaks of/ broken
man's chopped fate".
Arjan Dev Majboor, aged 75, though uprooted from his home and
hearth in Kashmir's Pulwama district, has his strop , roots in the literary
field, with as many as 15 publications to his credit. He has five anthologies of
Kashmiri verse and translation of Kalidas' Meghdootam to his
credit. His poems, short stories, research papers and review articles have
already appeared in the various literary journals in the country.
And his publication, namely, Waves, in an
obvious reference to the stubborn among the Kashmiris, contains loaded
expression in one poem titled The Fowl: One said: ’Wonderful-The
fowl has two legs'/Another said: ‘No, the fowl has four legs'/The stubborn are
foolish/The third came with a swollen head and bulging belly/He said: 'Wrong!
You are wrong/The fowl has only one leg/I will continue repeating that the fowl
has only one leg even if you don't agree'/A cat pounced upon the fowl and had a
hearty meal".
Yet another poem titled The City has
substantiated the substance of the adage: Too many cooks spoil the broth.
Majboor has lamented: "A camel ran amok in the city/The wisest among the
people said: ‘Now everybody is to himself/I am no one to show the way'. There
were a thousand masters. a hundred thousand rulers/Now in the city each is to
himself/ Those who can see have run away/ All prattle, they are stone-deaf/
They call this frantic blindness freedom ……..'" This, precisely is
Majboor's verse on worse in Kashmir.
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