Muhammad Ayub Betab, a Kashmiri poet, articulates the suffocation one experiences in a state of fear.
Yamraze chu nakhe hamsaaye,
me wunn az baaye be kithkani lekhe gazal
Yete preth kanh virivune naavi,
me wunn az baaye be kithkani lekhe gazal
When death breathes down your neck, tell me, can i breathe a word of my own
When everyone is lost, everyone bewildered, tell me, can i breathe a word of my own
This is not the opportune time to quote poets when things are to be addressed practically on the ground. Poetry is always a hyperbolic translation of the reality. It's not exactly so how it's articulated through a verse or through a piece of fiction. After all, that is what makes literature literature. Imagination at its highest means literature at its best.  An artist's allusion can have more than one meaning thereby giving him a room to mould it whichever way he likes it to be. All the same, it's not far beyond the reality too. It offers a good means to express yourself seriously, profoundly and above all – harmlessly.
In an atmos-fear like this, where everyone suspects everyone else practically explains the Betab verse. It's not only the fear of being killed that poet must be alluding to. The killing of an idea can be equally murderous an act. The fear of being mistaken or misapprehended can be as tumultuous an experience as the fright of getting imprisoned. In a condition like that, poets resort to allegories as safety valves. They release their steam through a safer route. Well, that is how a suppressed emotion finds way. But can poetry salvage us when we are trapped so badly, and so helplessly.
The state of affairs that obtains right now is too uncertain and too elusive to be actually scripted in plain terms. How much happens at once and how little can clearly be understood. A desire to break free, a compulsion of not causing a needless disquiet in our lives, an urge to see rivals kneel down and a parallel temptation to extract the maximum possible benefit as long as the relationship continues even if the bond is fragile or enforced. All these feelings are born simultaneously. Comfort of dependence and the joy of freedom play hide and seek. Now it depends on the specific setting which pulls one feeling at a time. That moment projects that particular part of the reality as the Reality. A month-long shutdown is being so naively construed by one group as referendum against India. A teen-age sensation of stone pelters is so gleefully interpreted as a mission to make Kashmir an Islamic republic. The same way a significant voter turn out is so shamelessly trumpeted as Kashmiris approval to the instrument of accession.  A single instance of defying a hartal call is pumped up  to snatch the sheen from the separatists. The story is not about binaries. In no case a specimen from Kashmir can be subjected to this hard, immutable and ultimate categorisation of `with me or against me'. What explains the phenomenon is `with you and against you'. And that is perhaps not particularly true about us only. Universalising the argument will make things a little easier for us to understand. In a mayhem, everyone is right and wrong.
All crave to be rescued from the chaos, but all have different perceptions of redemption. Some want to seek salvation by further pushing themselves to a morass from where not even a miracle can retrieve them. Some others wait and let their rivals reach the point of exhaustion. In this tussle victory and defeat are the two mental constructs. Who relents? If everything comes to normal without actually `gaining' anything, will it be a second failure in the row. If state shows some signs of compromise, does that mean giving up. What will actually do the trick is to give an impression that neither people have lost, nor state has won. Doing the doable can make a perceptible difference. And those who can do, very well know how to do it.
Once done, Betab will come alive and have a word of his own, a poem of his own, a feeling of his own.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
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