I am at the Dal Lake shore,
\nWanting to put a garland round your neck,
\nI have come to see you, Mother,
\nFriends beseeched me not to visit you,
\nAs there were many militants hiding in your folds,
\nWaiting to harm visitors, to be on the headlines,
\nTo bring attention to their cause,
\nTo pry justice from the \u201coccupying\u201d country.
\nKasheer, the footprint of my life,
\nThe cradle of my being,
\nHere I formed the first atoms of my consciousness,
\nDreamt the first unpretentious dream,
\nHad the first rounds of my battles with the world,
\nSuffered the first heartbreak.<\/p>\n
But I could not care less for the blood-drenched anarchists,
\nWho want to turn Kasheer into a theocracy,
\nCatering essentially to one faith,
\nBut being unfaithful to democracy,
\nThey have written their will across the stars,
\nBut here on earth they fight dirty in the trenches,
\nI could not but come to see you Mother,
\nIt is beyond politics, fear, and rationality.<\/p>\n
There are two Kasheers:
\nOne in the mountains, meadows, and lakes,
\nThe other in the cities,
towns, and villages where people live,
\nThere are two faiths that are available here:
\nOne preaches peace, beauty, and equality,
\nThe other: war, hatred, and insanity.
\nIt is a duel between God and man,
\nWho will win any fool can answer.<\/p>\n
I am not interested in man\u2019s follies and lust,
\nI want to touch the corner of time,
\nI want to be an element of universe,
\nI love not man less,
\nBut I trust nature more,
\nMy umbilical cord with Maej Kasheer,
\nPulls me to her, unmindful of fear and sneer.<\/p>\n
I went to Shalimar, Nishat, and Chashma Shahi,
\nI skimmed on Dal Lake endlessly,
\nAnd saw fish and lotuses pink and yellow,
\nAnd their round green shawls,
\nThey greeted me with pregnant silences,
\nThey wanted to say a lot to me but the lack of privacy hindered.<\/p>\n
In Pahalgam there is a thin veil of a stream,
\nStreaming vigorously in spite of the boulders trying to impede it,
\nLiddar has frothed and frolicked for a thousand years,
\nDefying the authority and foolishness of man,
\nThe ring of the mountains with choreographed undulations
\nCircle Liddar with easy majesty,
\nThe utterly graceful pine trees dot them in an ethereal needlepoint design,
\nUnmindful of the flow of time.<\/p>\n
Have you seen the different moods of Dal Lake:
\nScintillating, serene, sublime, sad, saucy,
\nWe think we understand her but the foolishness of that claim
\nIs apparent to anyone knowing even a little,
\nMan makes big of his understanding and achievements,
\nTalents and unquestioned authority,
\nBut gods laugh at his littleness and silliness,
\nAnd do not know where to begin removing the veil of ignorance over him.<\/p>\n
In Zethyar I apologized to Shesta Devi for coming to her for the first time,
\nShe eyed me with a compelling serenity that sent shivers down my spine,
\nI was reminded of my sinful past and irresolute stance to do better in future,
\nI lingered in the compound yearning to have a spiritual outlook,
\nBut my reverie was broken by the thought that even sinners can find life valuable,
\nIf they are truthful, work hard, and keep their mouth shut.<\/p>\n
The meadow of Gulmarg looks to be a transition to something heavenly,
\nWhat has man done to embellish it, nothing, but scattered a cluster of hotels?
\nThe central part of Gulmarg,
its face, is so natural that it lacks any worldly sophistication,
\nAn incredible opportunity to adorn it has been squandered,
\nUnder the starry-skies of Gulmarg one feels that God is eavesdropping,
\nHappiness is a worldly concept,
\nPine-suffused mountains of Gulmarg create an aura beyond happiness.<\/p>\n
Nowhere in the mist over Dal Lake is written Azadi,
\nAs Dal Lake is eternally free, no one can imprison it,
\nWithout inner freedom there can be no outer freedom,
\nFreedom is a state of mind, not a political contract or a religious ecstasy,
\nGod is freedom, to be contemplated, meditated on,
and lived,
\nMan was born free but politics and organized religions have chained him,
\nLet\u2019s break these chains, we have nothing to lose but our sorrows.<\/p>\n
In the folds of Kashmir mountains resides the solemnity of gods,
\nIn the swirls of its breezes plays the music of the universe,
\nKashmir is the eternal enigmatic smile of God,
\nDisturbed now by some selfish and rude outsiders and insiders,
\nA dagger thrust in the grand design,
\nMy tears flow to wash its wounds.<\/p>\n
Today I have snuffed out all my fears,
\nTrampled all the taboos,
\nDiscarded all the customs,
\nBroken all the worldly chains,
\nI have come to see Kasheer, my Mother.<\/p>\n
Suffern,
New York,
October 2, 2011. Rev. Oct. 4, 2011
www.kaulscorner.com maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am at the Dal Lake shore, Wanting to put a garland round your neck, I have come to see you, Mother, Friends beseeched me not to visit you, As…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-poems"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}