Rumi Remixed

Published March 13, 2011 / by Jehangir

Would you believe that the 13th century Sufi mystic Jalal-ud-din Rumi is the best-selling poet in the U.S.A today?

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a hundred times.
Come, yet again, come, come.

These days a video featuring Rumi's poems translated and recited by Coleman Barks is trending on Facebook. Coleman Barks does not speak Persian, yet manages to translate Rumi's quatrains into free verse based entirely on English translations by John Moyne, A. J. Arberry, and Reynold Nicholson. Barks' translations are like modern day remixes of Rumi's poems, rather than translations.

I believe that one should enjoy these “creative versions” of Rumi’s verses with an open mind. I am sure the Great Master himself would surely frown upon any narrow-mindedness on part of the reader. While Rumi purists rather compellingly maintain that it is impossible to “translate” spiritual poetry into English without knowing the original language, I feel that this way his message of love reaches millions of souls who would otherwise be ignorant of Rumi.

It is famed about the late Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan that he would happily sing for any one who approached him with the justification that any recording, even if pirated, would help spread the Sufi message of universal peace and love.

I am still concerned, however, about attempts to separate Sufism from Islam. As happens with me all too often, a real scholar expresses the message – one I have to strain to get across – with breathtaking simplicity:

'We cannot steal the fire. We must enter it.'
– Kabir Helminski, Sufi and Rumi translator.

Kabir was commenting to Time Magazine on attempts to 'siphon off the insights of Rumi and other Sufi sages without addressing their Islamic context'.

Now for a little taste of the Rumi-Barks method:

Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it,
then at night I say it.
Where did I come from,
and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere,
I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness
began in some other tavern.
When I get back around
to that place,
I'll be completely sober.
Meanwhile, I'm like a bird
from another continent,
sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear
who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes?
What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste
one sip of an answer,
I could break out
of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord,
and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here
will have to take me home.
This poetry,
I never know
what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet
and rarely speak at all.

Guest House

Being human is like
a guest house.
Each morning a new arrival.
A joy,
a depression,
a meanness,
some momentary awareness
comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought,
the shame,
the malice,
meet them at the door
laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Click these links for free downloads of Rumi's Masnawi and Fihi-ma-Fihi.

Happy Soul Searching !

My Neck Of The Woods

Published February 27, 2011 / by Jehangir

Here is a series of images from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that focus on the the southern part of Srinagar city. The total absence of any kind of human settlement is striking.

Photograph taken from the Takht-e-Suleman (Shankracharya Hill) circa 1865

An engraving in 'Letters from India and Kashmir' by J. Duguid, 1870. The caption in the book reads ' The curves of the Jehlum, the inspiration for the shawl or pine pattern…'

From a stereoscopic photograph taken by James Ricalton in 1903. The caption reads 'An earthly paradise, famous Vale of Cashmere, watered by the winding Jhelum, India'

The area in the centre of the images, enclosed almost fully by a loop of the Jehlum, is the locality of Shivpora – my neck of the woods.

The first house built in Shivpora was 'The Chenars'. As the name would suggest it was built on the banks of the Jehlum, under a row of enormous chinar trees.

A hundred years later…

The population of Srinagar has exploded from 1,18,960 at the start of the twentieth century to 10,81,562 at the present time.

To illustrate the frenetic pace of construction in and around Srinagar:

My home in 2005, surrounded by a veritable forest of trees.

The same area in 2010. A colony exists where only a couple of houses stood a few years ago.

It is painfully evident that, even allowing for the change in seasons, trees have borne the brunt of our insatiable desire for construction. Maybe I should reconsider the title of this post. My Neck of the 'Woods' seems a bit ironic when the woods are vanishing at an alarming rate.

Unfortunately my old home had to be demolished due to age-related structural damage compounded by the devastating earthquake that struck Kashmir in 2005.

The house in the centre of the colony is my new home. It is still under construction. Here's a sneak peek:

P.S: The low quality of the photographs is due to the fact that cameras are no longer allowed on the Shankracharya Hill.

Motorsport in Kashmir – I

Published February 20, 2011 / by Jehangir

The Jhelum Valley Cart Road from Kohala to Baramulla, described at the time as 'the most wonderful mountain road in the world', was completed in 1889 and was extended to Srinagar in 1897.

Prior to the advent of the automobile in Kashmir, circa 1915, travellers to Kashmir made the journey in a two-horse four-seater tonga or a single-horse two-seater ekka.

In 1922, public transport was allowed on the Banihal Cart Road, which connected Srinagar with Jammu.

Traffic across the Banihal Cart Road

It was the Maharaja's of Kashmir (surprise, surprise) who owned the first cars in the Valley. During the 1920's Maharaja Hari Singh put together a collection of custom-made Rolls-Royce cars including a 1925 Barker Tourer, 1927 Windovers Limousine and a 1929 Thrupp & Maberly Tourer.

In the late 1920s, the Northern Motor Company, headquartered in Rawalpindi, started selling small four-cylinder Chevrolet tourers from a showroom in the Ganda Singh Building in Lal Chowk.

Chevrolet Tourer on the Jhelum Valley Cart Road

From an endurance point of view the greatest motor adventure of the Pre-war era was the 1931 Citroën-Haardt Trans-Asiatic Expedition. The achievement of crossing the Himalayas between Srinagar and Gilgit over a pony track across the Burzil Pass (13775 ft) will probably never be surpassed.

Georges-Marie Haardt and his team set out for China from Srinagar on the 12th of July 1931 in specially designed Citroën Kegresse half-tracks. This expedition marked the first motorised crossing of the Greater Himalaya range.