Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Reflections on Rahi as a Poet of Silence. In Kashmir we have enough pain and beauty for one million documentaries. But we have chosen, generally speaking, not to speak on almost everything Kashmiri. There is very little of Kashmir, especially its glorious empire of Mind and Spirit – on the YouTube. There is no Kashmiri cinema for reasons we know. Silence is sometimes imposed and often chosen. It is no wonder that our best known living poet Rahman Rahi would also be a victim of this chosen silence. Our talented film makers have largely ignored Rahi and Rahi in turn has cared little to break his silence and till date there is much of him and about him that is either obscure or silenced. Bilal Jan’s recently released documentary "The Poet of Silence" scripted by Shafi Shoaq (arguably best qualified encyclopaedic scholar who could write on Rahi and an institution in himself who has gifted us Dictionary of Kashmiri language, standard work on Kashmiri Grammar and co-authored most...

Because Rahi is to Kashmir what Sartre is to France Muhammmad Yusuf Taing, one of the frontline critics of Kashmiri literature and culture, believes  that it will require another 500 years to produce second Rahi. Why? Let us seek to investigate today. How it is possible,for any critic, to say that “Rahi is Kashmir”, as Charles de Gaule, the famous French President, said about Sartre: “Sartre is France.” “What do you like from Rahi’s poetry?” “All of it is dear to me,” replied one of the meticulous readers, and critics of Kashmiri poetry. If we ask this question regarding even the great Kashmiri Sufi poets, not to speak of other poets, none of our important critics can go to this extent.  Rahi giving us, in captivating and sublime language, the best of Persian Masters in (post)modern idiom,. He has expressed the best of Indio-Persian Kashmiri literary heritage in the (post)modern or contemporary idiom, it is he who has distilled in local idiom,  certain important eleme...