Social documents inviting attention |
Reading a book by a veteran folklorist like Ghulam Nabi Aatash is to feast on the partially lost images and symbols of Kashmir. Especially, from the rural Kashmir. Stunning changes are occurring that both amuse, bemuse and very often befuddle the onlookers. The last two decades have created a digital quake that has reshaped patterns in ways that disorient the comprehending capability. The shapes, colors and smells of fields, orchards and forests, not to mention the streams, songs and social gatherings have been redesigned by forces beyond the control of human beings. For people like the author of this new collection of poems, keen witness to an earlier era of slow life and slower news cycles, with time to reflect on the stars and running brooks, the changes are magical and deeply unsettling, calling forth reliance on the nostalgic memories of the past, and zooming out to the reflection on the realms of mortality and the yearning for a youth that has slipped past. Each poem is a testament to a lost innocence.
Ghulam Nabi Aatash has published numerous books in different genres in Kashmiri, with a special lens on the folk heritage of Kashmir. Now in his declining years, with a total loss of eyesight, confined to his room, he has published a new slim collection of poems titled ‘tamah........