FJ Kashmir

inam ul rehman   The first time I heard the name of Dilip Kumar was in the early 90s when my father mentioned to me that the name of our adjacent Dilsoz Colony was kept by the former when he used to frequently visit the Valley. At the time I had no interest in him.    I was puzzled why of all actors Dilip Kumar’s name of the colony stuck with the people.  Those days Doordarshan used to telecast classic Bollywood movies once a weeknight. As a teen, I had no interest in black and white movies which langured on. But the puzzle of why Dilip’s name stuck with the place made me uncomfortable.  Internet was not yet to be midwifed, google was in clouds, and the only source was books. But a school-going kid reading books on film stars was taboo.    So, I started to read magazines, particularly Urdu film magazines and there was plenty written on him. His film Saudagar was then a runaway success, Urdu magazines went over the top to praise his acti...

Book: Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India Author: Suchitra Vijayan Publisher: Context     inam ul rehman     God made men, and what did men do? Men made borders, divided humans in mine and thine country, created a humanitarian crisis in which humans are at each other's throat all in the sham faith of protecting the country at the expense of human lives.   Suchitra’s seven-year research brings her to the same conclusion that man-made borders have wreaked havoc on the earth and created a rift between humans in which a human being is judged from the place s/he comes from.      “No human being is illegal. Existing is not illegal.” These two sentences sum up the author’s motive for writing this book. The book is a drift from the normal readings we generally like to have. It is about the borderlands of India with Bangladesh , Afghanistan , Myanmar , and Pakistan to a lesser extent. These disfranchised people are living on Indian...

 inam ul rehman Book: Rumours of spring: A girlhood in Kashmir Author: Farah Bashir Publisher: HarperCollins     “On the deserted streets of my neighbourhood, in the presence of so many military bunkers and the gaze of the unknown men inside them,” writes Farah Bashir, in her refreshing memoir, ‘ Rumours of Spring ’ “I suddenly became aware of my body and its contours. (I) felt naked. I tried to fold into the school bag clutched in front of me.” It resulted a perennial hunch in her back, the author says.    “Rumours of spring” is an intriguing title, already a novel of the same name has been published in the late 80s. It is a title that does justice because there is no spring ahead only the rumour of it.    Bobeh epitomises Kashmir of yore   Farah crafts her memoir around Bobeh, her grandmother epitomises the Kashmir that stood for syncretism until 1994, that is where she ends her book. The year 1994 marked the secular, independence seeking the J...

Book: The plague upon us Author: Shabir Ahmad Mir Publisher: Hatchette India     inam ul rehman     Anyone familiar with the writing as a craft, not as a talent, will vouch that writing is spine bending work. You give up your cherished things for the craft of writing. But what matters for all writers is how public receives their product.     “The plague upon us”, a debut novel of Shabir Ahmad Mir, is a complex story of Kashmiri characters. It is as complex as the Kashmir situation is in itself. An average reader has to have his attention span stretched to understand this book. It is a thinking man’s book where the author lets his readers to form their own opinions, and judge the characters on their own experiences.     Set in the 90s when Kashmir saw massive armed uprising against the Indian state , all the characters in the book go through many transformations. Be it Oubaid ­–the narrator of stories­– an intriguing person who goes thro...

inam ul rehman  We are a strange race in Kashmir . Constructing houses is our first priority. But we design our roofs, and ramps for the vehicles in such a way that we make sure that rainwater, snow should fall on the road because road belongs to the public. We eat number of things then dump their wrappers on the road. We are so proud of it that in the morning, instead of doing walk, we take the garbage of our houses and throw it on the roadside and then swagger as if we have conquered the Mt Everest . We don’t care because the road belongs to the public. Whatever is public it is the responsibility of the government to fix it. Isn’t it how we think?    So goes our argument. Because over the years we have learnt that only two persons are responsible for all the mess that we are in: God, and government.   The snow that accumulates during winters in our backyards we push that out on the roads. All our neighbours, shopkeepers compete in this. In civilised nations people...

  Every year it pockets more than Rs 50 lakh , but does not answer where it spends it!   inam ul rehman    Many of you must have seen Bollywood movies where gangsters , policemen demand “ hafta ”. It is a “protection” money that every businessman from a billionaire to roadside vendor has to pay for smooth functioning of his/her business. This  “hafta”  money is never accountable to the people, and is demanded according to whims of the gang leader.    The University of Kashmir has a few employees’ unions . One of them, and the largest, is the Kashmir University ministerial staff association , known as KUMSA . Now, don’t ask me why the word “ministerial” is put here. I became a permanent employee (permanence has a great value in government service) 6 years ago, but came to know recently that a sum of Rs 255, is deducted every month from the salaries of all non-teaching employees, including me. And this is done without our consent. Although the pl...