Shamim Ahmad Shamim is an unforgettable name in the folklore of journalism in Kashmir. I put him alongside my two chief inspirations in writing. Orwell and Manto. One I love for his clarity, second for his rawness and both for their courage. Shamim offers me the meeting point.
For me – he is too distant and too close. Distant as I have not seen him. But close as when I grew up I fell in love with those who destroyed the false gods of the time. And given the slavery, the flattery we have nourished as a trait if someone stands up and says it clearly, boldly – I get closer. And that defines my intimacy with Shamim.
We either eulogise or denigrate and both ways the truth is lost. Death doesn’t make us great. The only difference it should make is the difference of tense. Alive I am `is’, dead I will be `was’. The rest is unchanged. Neither the persons, nor the places are sacred. Well that never means we treat each other with contempt. That means we treat each other respectfully but realistically.
As write on Shamim, which principles should guide me. Reverence when dead or familiarity when alive. After a bit of thinking and given the stuff Shamim was made of, I confidently choose the second. I am inspired by him, but I don’t idealise him. I hold no reverence for him as he held no reverence for others. I can call his bluff as he called others’. I see him the man next door. Loved, admired, haloed, hated, dismissed and – if need be – demolished. And if I get a chance to see Shamim in a dream I am sure he would like my starting off with an irreverent note. He will choose this as homage to himself and like it far more than an embarrassingly fulsome praise which hides his real person under an attractive but false cover.
The first reason of his being important is his power of writing. Writing is a plain act of saying something clearly. If you want to half-say it, don’t say it. Silence is safer than ambiguity. Don’t edit your soul (as Fanon captures the essence of honesty). Shamim wouldn’t keep you guessing as to whom is he training his guns at. Shamim’s prose, like Manto’s, was naked. He wrote what he meant without hiding behind a bogus politeness which takes the sheen off your words. He was unlike many of his contemporaries whose writings were (as Shakespeare says) `full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’. Shamim’s pen was a firearm and his words bullets that hit hard the target. He would identify a problem or a place or a person or an idea and go on shooting left, right and centre. Some call it arrogance, some courage and some a mix of both. Whatever but his style is murderous. As a writer he was a savage. But was that savagery a principle he applied irrespective of the mood of the time and irrespective of the loyalty he held towards a leader or a habit reversed when the situation reversed for him. If first is the case, then it’s uprightness, if second then it’s sadism. I leave it as a question only for Shamim biographers to attempt an answer.
(Part of author’s speech delivered at Shamim memorial function held this week in Srinagar)