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Abstract
There is no binary division to be made between what one says and what one does not say; we must try to determine different ways of not saying such things…There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of strategies that underlie and permeate discourses. (27)
A close relation exists between language, literature and history especially in times of crisis, when public and private lives intersect. It involves a constant transaction questioning history as not sacrosanct but a narrative of presence and absence. The paper through its analysis of Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry largely moves between the overlapping frames of borders [literary (of genre), linguistic (language) as well as spatial (of home)] by using the borderlands provided by translation. As Kashmir faces a renewed clampdown, his poetry redresses ruptures in collective memory, writing history from the inside that is personal yet political. It attempts to understand this translation of forms/bodies as a vehicle of affect, which (re)articulates a silenced history of absence. By analyzing intimate links between language (its containment, policing and proliferation) and hierarchies of power in relation to translation, the paper lays bare the fault-lines in the concept of nationalism that functions through the policing of voices and bodies in “the calculated management of life” (140).
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Unless otherwise attributed, all citations to Shahid’s verse refer to The Veiled Suite: The Collected Poems (Ali Citation2009), which includes his published poetry from six collections. The Half-Inch Himalayas through his final volume, Rooms are Never Finished, also including his book of ghazals, Call Me Ishmael Tonight.
2 Originally called “Kashmir Without a Post Office” and published as the title poem of the collection.
3 The Kashmiri Pandits (also known as Kashmiri Brahmins) are Kashmiri Hindus and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community from the Kashmir Valley.
4 The ghazal is of Arabic origin (7th century approximately), literally meaning “a love serenade” or “conversation with/ talking to the beloved”. It is made up of couplets, each couplet an autonomous, independent entity by itself but tied together by a strict scheme of line length or metre (bahr) and the rhyme.
5 Marsiya is an elegiac poem commemorating the martyrdom of Prophet Muhammad's grandson and their family in Karbala (Iraq). The Urdu Marsiya developed as an independent genre in literature, by the efforts of Mir Zamir and Mir Khalikh and was later honed by poets Mir Anees and Mir Dabeer.
6 Jungle comes via Hindi from Sanskrit jãngala “rough and arid (terrain)”; Aleph is the first word of the Hebrew and Urdu alphabet; zenith derives from the Arabic samt “path (over the head)” and means absolute success.
7 Karbala has a special significance for the Shia sect among Muslims. Situated in present-day Iraq, the city was the witness to one of the defining battles in Shia Muslim symbolism and life. The Battle of Karbala was fought on 10 October 680 (10 Muharram in the year 61 AH of the Islamic calendar) between the army of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid I and a small army led by Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Since then, Karbala is seen as a sacred site that marks the martyrdom of the grandson of Prophet Muhammad and his family and this event is considered the beginning of the month called Muharram in the Islamic calendar, considered a time of mourning.
8 The grandson of Prophet Muhammad.
9 A traditional gathering during the period of Muharram where Muslims, the Shia sect in particular, come together to remember and mourn the martyrdom of Hussain and his family. This is marked by recitation of the episodes of the events concerning the battle of Karbala as well as reciting and singing poetry commemorating this event.
10 Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar. The literal meaning of the word is “forbidden or banned”. The month holds particular significance for the Shia sect of Muslims who observe it as a month of mourning in memory of the martyrdom of Hussain and his family.
11 Nauha is an integral part of the elegy literature associated with Muharram (Rasai Adab). It means loud lamentation with beating of breast using words. For more details refer to: Bilgrami, Syed Athar Raza. 2002, “Nauha: Rasai Adab Ka Aham Satoon wo Qaumi Yakjahti Ka Aaina”, Raah-e-Islam, 174.
12 The exception to this is “Karbala as Metaphor in the Poetry of Agha Shahid Ali” by Nishat Zaidi published in Indian Literature by Sahitya Akademi which discusses the importance of Karbala as the core of Shahid's volume Rooms Are Never Finished.
13 The Japanese practice of glueing broken vessels together with gold.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Wafa Hamid
Ms. Wafa Hamid is Assistant Professor at the Department of English at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi, India. She has taught several courses in English language and literature at the postgraduate and undergraduate level for over a decade. She is also the Senior Essays Editor of Jaggerylit: A South-Asian Arts and Literature Journal. She received the FLAGS (Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies) research awards by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies, WGSS (Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies), Yale University, 2018–2019; and was a 2018–2019 Fulbright Fellow at Yale University for 2018–2019. She is at present pursuing her doctoral research at the Center for English Studies, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Her main areas of interest include: Critical Translation Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Literary Theory, Popular Culture, Culture Studies, and South Asian Studies among others.