Kashmir’s fading verses |
Deep in the valley where jagged peaks guard ancient secrets, Lal Ded’s vaakhs once cut through the mountain winds like a call to the soul, and Habba Khatoon’s songs wrapped longing around every heart. Kashmiri literature, born from that raw spirit, still flickers against the dark but its own language ebbs away, as the young chase Urdu and English, forsaking the words that once bound generations by the hearth. Poets now gather in quiet corners, piecing together a heritage frayed by time and neglect, wondering if one more line can hold back the silence.
Those early flames burst forth in the 13th century, with Rājānaka Shiti Kantha’s “Mahānaya-Prakāsha” lighting the path, but it was Lal Ded and Nund Rishi who truly set the valley alight. Her verses stripped faith to its bones, Shiva and Shakti dancing in the breath of common folk, while his shruks preached harmony amid division, a balm for a land forever pulling apart. Persian breezes soon swept in, carrying masnavis and vatsun, yet locals bent them to their will: Habba Khatoon wove romance into twilight laments, her voice the nightingale’s cry over lost love and restless........