Personal Bio

The author holds an Honors degree in English Literature. Besides writing freelance for various
newspapers, he writes poetry and is currently pursuing Masters of Arts in International Affairs.

To a Kashmiri Pandit
You fled from your godless temples
cradled sleeping deities in your arms,
draped in silk, soaked with tears,
leaving behind weeping angels
Hushed, frozen mountains wailed a spell
Distances prohibit me, I seek forgiveness
Not knowing will you. Shackled,
Unable to reach you,
I know not will you forgive me.
Shackled I couldnt guard what was left
Peregrinations washed your existence
in a night you turn me foe.
(Tied in a Gordian knot.)
Then never my garden saw any spring
I went digging graves day and night.
Who shall stand in front of my pain
Im hiding this pain even from myself
and my bleeding spirit will reach you soon
only to tell you of us
-held in a curfew.
Time has travelled so long, you
wont be able to recognize me, I have
turned old; Exhausted, my hair snow
and I keep giving you voice in my faint
memories where fog has left its curtains down.
I wont tell my misery, melting
every night. Burning rue seeds I call luck.
Dressed in flames I journey dark nights
to reach up to you only to remind
of those knots eager to get Lost

I Revisit the Vale of a Tribe Lost.

Searching under the white earth,
I find toys children had lost.
Chinar on fire melts the frost,
A beloved is lost.
Birds are chirping a new song,
in the garden of saints lost.
I shall grow old telling stories of a past
Flesh will grow on broken bones lost
Desire bubbles with longing
Will children return to a valley lost?

Zubin Plays the Shalimar

7 September 2013
Rat-at-tat of Kalashnikovs
can you hear your own heartbeat,
are you deaf like Beethoven?
Empty rum bottles dangling
on barbed wire around homes
chime in the breeze.
Listen, O Maestro.

Nobody Speaks
I have escaped every single ray
to find refuge in only this new world
of dark rooms. Even when I can see,
I am blind.
I remember you in my dreams
why have you left me behind?
I would have preferred death
by your side.

I keep searching for your face,

see you flee. It ignites a fresh pain.
Nobody speaks. I know what youre doing.
Have I lost you?

You have turned into a rebel

like other men who never returned.
from those controlled mountains
where comrades die.

Remember, the evening I ran

after you to catch up, crumbled
into my own arms.
Meadows hide enemies.
I wouldve asked you
to come along with me to a country
occupied by death: one rarely finds
the way back home.

A dagger is raised at you.

We dont know when life shall betray.
I am running away to search
for myself.

Illegitimate Child

I dug my own doom

I slept like a child.
I was born dead at night
I didn't choose to open my eyes
I swallowed my tongue
I took away my life
Lifeless in endless exile
Im one more homeless child.
Dont call this my suicide
Time slips out of my hands
I was lost in darkness that feeds on light
Monsoon brought no joy
drenched me into the soil
The wood of revolution is wet
What remains cold on fire?

Where Are You Now?

When the day has reaches its end
rebels silhouette shimmers,
Where sky and earth meet.
Where are you now?
Beyond the colonizers interrogation gates,
Buried in some unknown grave
Where Are You Now?
Traitor
buried in snow
Free bird of summer
Where are you now?
I ring you again and again
I have become voiceless like you
Where are you now?
I am tired writing names I dont hear from
Son after son is becoming you
Where are you now?
You haunt me
Clown at the Shalimar
Where are you now?
Therere boundaries inside even myself
Cant bear to see your mother in an unending wait
never letting her eyes away from the gate
Where are you now?
Here, gods are abandoned, angels outraged
This is a country of barbed wires, barricades
Where are you now?
My dreams are at war
I havent slept for decades

Stones
My bread is freedom
Hunger is no humor
This ought to be a sin
I am a traitor
Stones I throw
Once was my home
The day I spoke infidelity
They dug my dome
I am no son of Abraham
No Isaac, no Ishmael
No archangel fell
To see the holy in me.
I have no name
I am many men
All sentenced to death
Is this a game?
I have neither died
Nor am alive
Expelled from myself
I am preserved inside amber.

Sealing Echoes
These walls shall one day fall
truth will set us all free
from the compulsions of war
Nothing has yet come
neither a drop of cure
nor the promised rain
We know better how
the weapon carved its design.
to seal echoes
The smoke of my burning
scent of my blood
is buried in the soil of struggle

Home

Summer
My chocked self
Smoke-shrouded
Eyes closed
Soil is draped green
Dawn writes a novel
Mothers plead
Lovers are blessed
No place to meet
Open your heart

For M. F. Husain
His physique is frail
trembling in autumns gale.
He speaks live
I wont come back home.
In exile, the painter died,
shaming a god
with an infidel stroke.

Gods Lamb Is Yet To Bring Peace

Saffron fades to extinction
Grower sold his field
Is in grief
Mansions in ruins
A painting hangs inside a shadow
Stolen arrows rain red dye on winter
No place for bricks of love
A garden is a potters field
No more do the lovers desire
a bunker at places they meet
Flames lament
Lanterns guard graves
Tonight, a prisoner is set free

Mountains In Plains
I call on all birds of snow
to sing me songs of sleep
Far from my country
wandering inside memories
Chinars aflame
brittle leaves crushed under feet
Rich have warm floor to sleep,
poor gather wood from fallen trees
The bear had his share, fell asleep,
escaped winter inside his dreams
Midnight,
drunken slumber lost its way
Here in the plains,
bearing the skys weight,
I visit friends inside my minds eye.

I Am Going Away
Without me what shall you be?
The smoke sings with me
You and your greed:
Crazy breed, crazy breed
The road is a snake
I have tasted poison
Unrequited love in my pocket
I search the river of my longings

Sorrows of My Youth
I see people cry
sniveling for light.
I hold myself aloof,
light a candle.
It melts
bleeding white.
No complaints
learning pain.
On the other side of the window
a world sleeps.
A watch consumes time,
from the ages
deciding my fate
they throw stones at me
Stones melt on me
I have learned to forgive
It has become fate.
Stones keep adding fire to my fuel
Cold shivers my skin
A wick sets my name aflame
A tulip from belief
Petals dipped in peace
Idols imprisoned inside themselves
Smiling at whom?
To which god I belong theres only a sky
Where to bow my head, where to sigh?
Doors unable to sound my knock
Abandoned, Im a void
I call out names,
cross countries, tear mountain apart.
I blow the pipe of hope
My pen begins to rain

O Restless Heart
I remonstrate
refusing pleas
renouncing my desires
I keep remembering
your smile
Dejected
I rejoice in torment
On a road to hell
You shadow me

Wine

Stain your prayer rug with droplets of wine

O Believer, hereafter are promised rivers of wine

Forbidden, it lures an infidel

I hold a blessed cup of wine

God bless you warrior I am unafraid of war

Beneath mutiny, earth is drenched in wine

I have bled pleading to the gods

O warrior, bless you the wisdom of wine

Food has been promised an angel wines

Toil craves for some cups of wine

A menial pulls a protesting cart,

Hiddenthe love of wine.
Fracturedthe parched earth pleads
Lend me a goblet of wine.

Augenblick
I have been swallowed by a love affair
its swirling current drowned me deep.
It blemished me, melted my fur of snow
I am naked
Estranged,
I drink hemlock from each crust
Trough of my life.
My hopes fractured
I am lost in a chasm
Desires unfulfilled
Unending wait, I relish the taste.
Life is an augenblick
In the ship, I am still.
My frost never thaws
I am as I ever was imprisoned in ice
Spring plays with me
I am Tantalus tantalized.
Beloved you are still young
I am ash
but my hopes are as young as you.

I will not stop coming your way

Even when I am sacked.

Rain in Kashmir
Cracks in the clouds
Sleepless in Srinagar
It seldom rains
To wash all shades of green

Shadows
You take away the seasons
I am not smiling
You take away my memory
I am a dark void
Silence itself has fallen silent
in the dark of my room
I am a shadow in search
of a shadow at night

One more day of Fresh blood

I am out with a dog procession
Again, borrowing a voice
A flock of un-feathered birds
slayer only knows taste of its blood.
Earth has bulged with so many graves
Children asleep

Dear Tabish,
Finding no address
I post letters to the past,
so they reach you
in a land of nothingness
on the other side of time
where no postman goes.
He died leaving blood-soaked sacks in the mud.
O beloved witness, dissolve inside a veil
fly away only to bring yourself back
to a city of lakes
where time washed you in turmeric.
Mildewed, you have lost your self.

Grandmothers Dream

Guns bark everywhere

the news details the dead.
A lunatic, I keep searching for my name.
It is fall in all seasons.
The cold is conceived. I wont let you out
Brittle leaves getting crush under feet
The spring under the dal have burst,
water rises
I search my room I am nowhere