The Garden of Solitude-A Review by Rashneek Kher

http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2011/Feb/1/the-garden-of-solitude-9.asp

That it took twenty-one years for a Kashmiri Pandit to write the first account of the exodus is but a sad reflection on the scholarship of a community that prides itself for being the only one in the world to have hundred percent literacy rate. Among many other things that the community is slowly losing the most telling has been its scholarship or so I thought.
Siddhartha Gigoo’s , ‘The Garden of Solitude’ is a chip of the old block genre of literature. It may disappoint the reader for it does not have the magic realism of a Rushdie or the intricacies that one finds in Tarun Tejpal’s writings. Siddartha’s writing is as simple as the ones that we read as children in our text books, simple but loaded with meaning. The jargon is intentionally kept out as is the bitterness of being in exile. It is this lucidity of the novel that makes it stand out in the swamp of present day modern English literature.
Sridar, a rather uncommon name for a Kashmiri Pandit boy born in seventies, but name apart Siddartha’s protagonist could be anyone of us who was born in Kashmir during those times, when today’s Kashmir could simply have been dismissed as a bad dream. The Garden of Solitude is a docu-novel that recounts the beautiful times of peace in Kashmir, the onset of the armed insurgency, the forced exodus of Pandits and its aftermath. Sridar is not just an eyewitness like the Sanjaya of Bhagwad Gita but is himself a character, a sufferer in every sense of the word. As the novel progresses the author gets a firmer grip on the plot and its characters. His earlier accounts give the impression of being sketchy and a little lost in the maze of his memory. It recounts the days of his growing up in the neighborhood of the downtown Srinagar. At some length the author delves upon the complex relationships between Pandits and Muslims and how suspicion creeps into the fragile peace of these relationships once the call of Azaadi reverberates across the valley much to the chagrin of the Pandits.
Till then the novel is paced even. It is from here on that the lid on the crucible that had held together the different strains breaks free and the novel takes itself out of the cozy confines. It does not mince words and remains honest to the plot. Suddenly the ugly Kashmir (sic) reveals itself.T he contained entropy takes the shape of a hideous beast. The novel travels out and crosses the Jawahar Tunnel for the first time but only to return at a later date.
It records and documents the exodus of a community from what had been its home ever since one knew of history. When the novel takes us to the chaos of refugee camps & schools it speaks of the sordid condition and the inhuman existence in which the Pandits are forced to live. It talks of stink and hopelessness, of rot and dirt, of despair and existential and identity crisis but does not give its opinion. It does not wallow in self pity nor does it bring in the prejudice of a victim. The story is told as it is seen. The author’s protagonist merely mentions to us what he lives through.
Sridar is fortunate not to have lived in refugee camp for long but for all those who suffer them without a hope of freedom from them find voice in the extremely well sketched character of Pamposh, a reticent boy living in one of the many refugee camps in Jammu, who has no more than a cameo in the novel but one that leaves an indelible mark. Through Pamposh one feels the pain of exile and rootlessness but more than the apparent symptoms the putrefaction of the mind that such a state of being brings in with itself, where his grandfather wants to smell the urine of his own granddaughter.
Sridar has shades of Kafka in his character. The meaninglessness of life and existence occupies his mind and that makes him a wandering soul. To me the most beautiful part of the novel is Sridar’s travel to the picturesque Leh. It is here that the novel attains the meaning that it may not seek to find. Sridar meets the mysterious but truly mesmerizing Ameira-a woman without a past as she is described to Sridar. But then the shell crumbles, just a little and we discover a half Kashmiri girl who comes looking for a past eventually to settle in the anonymity of the oblivion. The silence between the two of them and the moment where Sridar’s trembling hands hold hers could easily have been the culmination of the novel.
Dreams and their meanings have a special significance in the novel and it is one such dream that brings Sridar back to the refugee camps that he had left behind. He searches for his friends and their stories but finds none. Time seems to have devoured them all. The world seems to have forgotten the Pandits. Sridar finds a purpose in his living-The book of ancestors!
The novel comes back to Kashmir. Sridar comes home but the occupants aren’t the same.The daughter of the new owners asks her mother who could this man be who speaks Kashmiri like them but isn’t one. The unusual homecoming smells of hope and underlines somehow the layers of complexity that’s inherent in relations between the two Kashmiri communities. He is welcome everywhere and people are cordial but that doesn’t take away the fact that he is seen as someone who has come from Delhi,a guest.
The book ends on a note of optimism or pessimism depending upon how we look at it. The Book of ancestors is published but released on a hot sultry day not in Kashmir but in Jammu where the exiles live. It begins to rain as soon the book launch finishes. The author leaves it open ended. Like everyone else he too isn’t sure if the Pandits will ever return to their Garden of the Solitude.

A Time for Parting

That evening was unusual.
There was a sense of loss and the joy of possession. They were drinking to keep there eyes open, their hearts wide awake. The cacophony of the night was music to ears. There wasn’t much sense in sentences nor was there a title to the talks. They were wandering, monk like- directionless but meaningful hoping to find an anchor in quicksand. It soon dawned that it was time to go.
It was a sad moment. A moment no one wanted. They all wanted to live on. But then who and what lives for ever.
The time for parting had come.
The glasses were laid to rest. Cigarette buts were thumbed and benumbed. There were no more embers as one could see.
The urges were going stronger .The embers had found spark elsewhere. It was too early for a cosmic union and probably too late for a quick one.
Disparaging thoughts and unfettered desires seldom make for good partners.
They said their goodbyes and made promises to meet again.Thus passed the evening leaving a void.

"Bhagwaen Daed-The Poet we know not"

I wonder how many of us even know of a mystic poet called Bhagewaen Daed.

I would stay clear of a dry scholarly paper because that would defeat my idea of choosing her as the woman who would represent the Kashmiri kaleidoscope.She wasn’t in any sense a forlorn or estranged wife or even a disconsolate daughter in law that we generally associate with Kashmiri poetesses.

Krishan Joo Razdan,the great Kashmiri Leela poet would have found a match for his metaphor”basti manz sanyasi roz” in Bhagwaen Daed. Bhagwaen Daed lived amongst people like us and yet she was connected to her higher self. I will not bore anyone with mundane details but to understand her thought and poetry we need to know of the time and space that she lived in. To give you an idea of the space I will go to the following verses by Abdul Ahad Zargar,who in my opinion is one of the greatest mystic poets in not just his era but across timelines in Kashmiri literature.

Yas babe dodh choth,Daam dame sheer
Tas seet nikah chuy,Ba tadbeer

The above verse invited a fatwa from the Islamic clergy and clearly clipped the wings which Kashmiri poetry could have taken. So I guess you have an idea of the time. It was as Charles Dickens would have described it, ”It was the best of the times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of hope, it was the age of despair”. Under the Dogra rule Hindu revivalism was taking small strides and Sanskrit texts were being re-written or published after a long time. Krishanjoo Razdan had passed away leaving a rich legacy of bhakti poetry, so the leela had become a much stronger genre of poetry than it was ever in the past. It was in this time that Bhagwaen Daed appeared on the Kashmiri literary-spiritual firmament.

With that introduction let us now understand Bhagwaen Daed the poet and the seeker.
As I said in the beginning I will try not to be too pedantic or dry. I begin with an anecdote that my grandmother tells me about Bhagwaen Daed and believe me or not, this isn’t hagiography. Due to her spiritual penances she had attained a stage where she needed a Guru to lead her further. She was a restless wandering soul with abundant spiritual energy but in a state of entropy. In the process she wanted Ahad Zargar to be her Guru because Govind Kaul refused to take her as his disciple. Upon seeing her in a state of restlessness, Ahad Zargar put her on a tonga to Wanpoh and directed the coachman to take her to Govind Kaul of Wanpoh. Probably the message from Zargar made Govind Kaul take the young Bhagwaen as his disciple. The above anecdote can be testified by the following verses

Man phyoor Zars zaresey,man vot nish zargarasey
Zar-e-zare havyom prahuhas,man myon aantan kobohas
Govind-goo sware bhagwanene,laey gache paanay man ti pranay
Laey gache syam hamsoo has,man myon aantan koboohas

It seems these were still early days in her spiritual journey and when by her own account she still was like the proverbial parud (mercury) that is unstable. It was under the spiritual and poetic genius of Govind Kaul that Bhagwaen was chiselled.

Staying away from falling into the trap of how her poetic career took shape and how many phases her career had, I shall try and take a look at her stylistics as a poet, her thought and her diction, her idiom of expression and the rhyme in her poems. We will also try and look at her contribution towards furthering the Bhakti movement in Kashmir.

She is a poet who is immensely or shall I say singularly devoted to her preceptor. Her book of poems titled Manposh has 150 poems and there isn’t one where she hasn’t made mention of her guru. Most of the poems are dedicated in form or another to the grace and divine glory of her preceptor. The echo of Govind-goo in her songs is a direct manifestation of her love for her Guru. She anoints herself as the cuckoo who sings Govind-goo. Although the expression of goo and kukil isn’t new to Kashmiri poetry yet the poet presents them as her own expressions drawn out of her experiences and not merely as jugglery of words. I will stick out my neck to assert that there is a tinkle and a rhyme in her poetry which would do a Krishanjoo proud. The reader doesn’t simply read them; he sings them along in ecstasy.

Kukilay Govind goo karnaavtam
Hoo hoo karyo bhi
Bhagyewaene Baste seet daam dyavnamtam
Shaye shaye shiv chuy

Govind govind naam chuy aemusuy
Kukilay damsey manz wich tray
Dham heath dam rat mao praar tamesey
Chay mahramasay maene manz jay

In a way Bhagwaen Daed has not broken the old mould of spiritual poetry. Stylistically her poetry is very similar to that of many other Sufi poets. The influence of all these poets is clearly reflected in her language which remains Persianized to large extent.The metaphors, the symbols, and the similes are borrowed hugely from the Persian word-stock. But that’s where the analogy finishes. As a poet she has her own experiences to recount and those are the experiences of a Yogini. Her regular references to words like Agam, Shaktipaat, Shieshkal, Muladhar and various processes of Yoga are a testament to the fact that whatever might have been her medium of expression her thought was clearly rooted in the hoary religion of the land. One is reminded of poets like Shams Faqir or Prakash Ram as one reads Bhagwaen.

Shams Faqir

Hate oosum mwothehaar,gate manze gash trovnam
Kaal-e-shah su laal-e-bazzar,harmwokh vichu deedar

Bhagwaen Daed

Bhakti-bade vochumay shakti shahanay,Pwokhtekaar mwothkte dahanay aav
Mwotehaar vichumaey tamesund khanay,Gaash shabanay paanay aav

Bhagwaen’s Bhakti is of a type that is unheard of in the Kashmiri literature. Her yearning and love for her Guru manifests in various ways. At one point the guru is the divine consort while at the other he is a child who is to be cuddled and put to sleep. I find this unique because no other Kashmiri poet has taken Guru to a pedestal where love manifests itself in such roles.

Chaen lolan karenas bambereay,ghare ghare soo ham soo
Pan naveth saveth chey laare,ghare ghare soo ham soo

Garas haey Rophe Manzuluy,Baras Jigreke Lolay
Vichas vaen korkumuy,Mae Yaar vuch hane hane

As Bhagwaen moves a stage up from naiveté her verse changes, yet she feels she is still not there

Na bhi pwokhtay nab hi khamay
Mae kaem aaram nyumut vaseye

It is this stage of her spiritual quest when she feels the pangs of separation. It is here that she speaks of her un-sureness, her being neither complete nor incomplete.

But the stage of incompleteness is soon trounced. Her unison with her higher self is reflected in such poesy and ecstasy that one wonders what poetic genius springs from the cosmic union and oneness with the supreme

She sings it in the following verses

Vothaan,beyhaan,Shongnuuy,Manz Saad-e-Sangan Daey Vuchum
Rangarang Berangney,Lahas ti labas laey vuchum
Madham Murali Changeney,Manz kalwalaan mouy vichum

I hope this small write up on mine would persuade readers to read about this rather forgotten poet of ours. There is so much to write about her but I am afraid I don’t have the wherewithal to do so. A translation of some of her poems would be the least that we could do so that the younger generation may get to read some of her poems and then maybe they will delve into her poetry.

Parallel Lines

The room was full of people. Men and women of all ages had come looking for someone. Someone they didn’t know. Someone they did not want to know. There are far fewer women and far more men. Men clamouring for a fleeting glimpse and a quick one. Women playing it hard to get.
After all earth girls aren’t so easy.
Women knew, men want sex, a surreal sex, an ethereal fleeting moment, a moment to let their testosterones out. Women weren’t exactly sure of what they want, at least not all of them wanted sex.

It was here that they met.
Their eyes met in a room full of people. They jostled to reach out to each other. She had charming smile with an aquiline nose, eyes like that of a deer, her long neck with prominent collar bones presided over her chiselled body. He was dreamy eyed, lost and poetic. Initially all he wanted was a moment of testosterone leak but gradually it all changed.
They liked each other. At least he thought so. Soon they met; ethereal, surreal and real. There wasn’t a day when they did not. She grew on him and he on her. They were too mature to be inseparable and too young to be separated. She was in a shell and he abound in abandon. He professed love and she appreciated but never reciprocated.
She was a mother and a wife, he a husband and father.
They had begun to enjoy each other’s company, in-fact yearned for it though she stayed reticent and he overt.
The love was there waiting outside a shell, an impregnable shell. Inside the shell was a throbbing waiting to be let out. A caged bird seldom gets to fly.
She was scared of pain and he loved the pleasure of pain. She had a past and he wanted a future. They were two parallel lines.

Is Nietzsche’s "Übermensch” Shiva?

To most of us Nietzsche immortalizes the atheistic right. It was he who first said, ”God is dead”. A literal interpretation of this statement should make one accept that Nietzsche did not believe in the concept of an overarching force that runs this universe and if at all there ever was one, Nietzsche just declared him dead. Could it be that it was the existing concept of God (in Nietzsche’s era and his geographical space) that Nietzsche did not conform to or believe in. Was Nietzsche simply anti-Christian or was he anti-God?

His criticism of Christianity was primarily on the grounds that it lay too much of emphasis on morality and he on the contrary praised the Greek Hyperborean and even Pre-Christian Paganism. His extolling of the Apollonian and Dionysian philosophies leads us to somehow believe that it was Abrahamic religions that he seemed to be against and not God. Am I being too simplistic in understanding Nietzsche or have I eaten the flesh and thrown the bones to the dogs.

In his pioneering work “Thus Spake Zarathustra” Nietzsche talks of the concept of Übermensch(translated as Superman or Overman or Superhuman).He describes human beings as a stage of transition from apes to Ubermensch. The metaphor or the symbol of the Ubermensch stems from the Nietzschean idea of self-overcoming. One of the passages where Zarathustra speaks to the Ubermensch reads like this,” "All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughing stock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.”

In all these questions Nietzsche exhorts a human being to achieve what he/she is capable of becoming ie The Ubermensch. How similar is the concept of Ubermensch to the concept of Shiva (especially in Kashmir Saivism) or is there no connection whatsoever? I am tempted, maybe out of my ignorance or non-Saivahood or not being an Ubermensch, to believe that the concepts are similar. I will try and explain to myself.

According to Kashmir Saivism all of us have the capacity to become Siva. Depending upon what state and stage of consciousness any living form is, determines his distance from Shivahood (I am using this word for lack of a better word in my epistemological vocabulary).So we are somehow somewhere between the apes and the Siva. Are we? Are we in the process of attaining The Ubermensch. Are so much of us still a worm, a worm whose consciousness is limited? From what I understand of the concept of Ubermensch is the freedom to be or Swantatrya as we would call it in Kashmir Saivism. Only when one attains the state of Ubermensch can one claim to attain freedom from bondage. Am I getting it right?

Shiva as we know him today hasn’t been the same through the ages. Many scholars have compared Shiva to the Greek God Dionysus and not without reason. The early iconography and attributes of Rudra Shiva are in many ways similar to that of Dionysus. Both are Patron agricultural gods, have a certain sense of madness associated with them but it is the ecstasy factor that makes the resemblance quite striking. The bull, the serpent and the wine are iconographic similarities that are too hard to miss. Nietzsche has placed great virtue in Dionysian philosophy and its concepts of celebration of nature, intuitiveness, chaos and intoxication. Was Nietzsche’s Ubermensch a celebrant much like Abhinavgupt’s Bhairava(or Shiva) in Vypat Charachar Bhav Vishesam or am I intoxicated too much by Dionysus-Shiva?

The Turncoat Loses

There are days when I am so full of kindness that my milk of it is over spilling its edges. Today is one such day. I want to help someone. I thought of so many people who may need money. Then suddenly I realised that our friend Sajjad Lone has just lost his security deposit of Rs 10000.00 because he polled less than 10% of the total number of votes in Barramulla constituency.
Would you believe it?
I had to pinch myself into believing that Sajjad Lone,the one and only Sajjad Lone-the darling of the Indian Media, a face we consistently see on our television screens as the “young voice of Kashmiris”,the Sajjad Lone who till the other day was a separatist, the Sajjad Lone who did not even have the courage to cry when his father was killed by the very separatists that he stood for all these years, the Sajjad Lone who barked during television debates during Amarnath agitation, the Sajjad Lone-the great betrayer of his own people and finally the Sajjad Lone who contested elections and sadly lost deposit, face and maybe political future too.
The day he took a U-turn, a Kashmiri Muslim friend of mine told me, mark my words”he will lose badly”. I did not quite believe him then and I had reasons enough. My friend is no political analyst. He isn’t a politician or a journalist either. Yet somehow his words were prophetic because he was an ordinary man on the street who did not base his comments on euphoria. He wasn’t like those journalists who wrote columns and centre pieces on Sajjad Lone. He wasn’t like the Editors’ of our English Dailies or News Channels who had already made Sajjad a house hold name among the Indian masses. In his loss I also see the loss of credibility of all those people who somehow want to make us believe that the separatists are some force by themselves. Sajjad Lone has just proved them wrong.
It gives me immense pleasure that people like Lone lose. They deserve to lose not because we want them to or that we dont want peace to return to the valley but because they are betrayers and betrayers deserve a kick on their ass. It is because of people like him that Kashmir is a festering wound. It is because we have no dearth of such people who changed sides because it suited them that way. I may never have liked Sajjad’s polity but would have respected him had he gone to grave as a separatist. But maybe I was expecting too much from a man in whose veins runs the blood of a turn-coat.

Invisible Exiles: Kashmiri Pandits (Published in Vijayvani)

The present crisis in Sri Lanka has once again brought to fore the issue of internally displaced people. Everyone from the United Nations to the European Union to the Foreign Ministers of Britain and France wants to visit the refugee camps of the Tamils, displaced by the war between LTTE and the Sri Lankan army.
The Indian Government seems so over-concerned about the safety, security and well-being of Lankan Tamils that it has sent two topmost secretaries to meet the Sri Lankan President. What is more, almost every now and then one senior functionary of the Government of India issues statements and puts pressure on Colombo to ensure the best relief and rehabilitation measures for the internally displaced Tamil refugees. This solicitude is utterly missing when it comes to India’s own displaced refugees - the Kashmiri Hindus (Pandits).

The complete post is here