Category: Excerpts

Agha Shahid Ali is widely regarded as one of the finest poets from the Indian subcontinent, and his works are read across the world, touching millions of lives.

In A Map of Longings, Manan Kapoor explores the concerns that shaped Shahid’s life and works, following in the footsteps of the ‘Beloved Witness’ from Kashmir to New Delhi and finally to the United States. Here is an excerpt from the introduction of the book.

My first formal encounter with poetry happened through my mother, who, looking at the lilies that bloomed in our garden each spring, quoted from T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’: ‘April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / memory and desire.’ But it could also very well have been through the renditions of the ghazals of Mirza Ghalib that my father played so often. I cannot recall which came first, but the magical presence of poetry during my formative years had caused a wound. This wound opened itself once again in my teenage years when I first read a poem by Agha Shahid Ali.

I vividly remember reading poems like ‘A Rehearsal for Loss’, ‘Stationery’ and his famous one-liners, ‘Suicide Note’ and ‘On Hearing a Lover Not Seen for Twenty Years Has Attempted Suicide’ (a poem whose title is longer than the body), and marvelling at the sheer simplicity and clarity—there was something ineffable about his language that instantly took a hold of me. Years later, I was informed by his brother, Agha Iqbal Ali, that Shahid had singled out some short poems like ‘Stationery’ as crowd-pleasers that he would open his readings with to charm the audience. The trick had worked on me, and over the next few years, the more I read, the more Shahid reeled me in.

I could also say, at the risk of romanticizing the past, that I became aware of Shahid at just the right moment, when I was ready for him. The years leading up to my first novel, The Lamentations of a Sombre Sky, were also the years of my political coming of age. Throughout my bachelor’s degree, I was working on a novel set in Srinagar in the early ’90s. Although I read numerous accounts of writers and journalists, I fell back, naturally, on Shahid’s collection The Country without a Post Office, only to realize that no one— absolutely no one—was a match for him. Eventually, I ended up using a couplet from Shahid’s ghazal ‘Of Light’ as the epigraph to a section of my novel. Although the political subject matter of the collection was important, it was the aesthetic sensibility, reflected in his language, that made it remarkable. Much later, I read in an interview that Shahid always placed the aesthetic value over the subject matter of his poems.2 For three years leading up to the publication of my novel, I had used Shahid’s works as a lens through which I saw and understood Kashmir. In time, however, the lens itself became the object, which I started looking at from a fresh set of eyes.

I suspect that one of the reasons I fell in love with Shahid was because his poems mapped all the languages, cultures and worlds that I believed I belonged to. Shahid was completely South Asian and completely cosmopolitan at the same time, and in his poems, I could sense the presence of both Ghalib and Eliot, of the West as well as the subcontinent. But as I delved into his work, I discovered that there were more layers than I could have ever imagined.

Shahid was a beneficiary of three cultures—Hindu, Muslim and Western—and at his home, poetry was recited in four languages—English, Urdu, Persian and Kashmiri. Although he wrote in English, his poems, in essence, captured the sensibilities of all these languages and traditions. His father, Agha Ashraf Ali, was an educationist with socialist inclinations and introduced him to the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Martin Buber, while his mother, Sufia Agha, a Sunni Muslim from Uttar Pradesh, sang bhajans to him and dressed him as Krishna for Janmashtami. While on the one hand his paternal grandmother, Begum Zafar Ali, was a devout Shia Muslim who taught him about Islam, on the other hand he went to a Catholic school and, throughout his formative years, was fascinated by Christ. I soon realized that Shahid was the sum total of these different cultures and learnt from all of them, that he never viewed them as contradictions but simply as different world views that later coalesced in his poetry.

This first definitive biography of Agha Shahid Ali offers a rich portrait of the poet and the world he inhabited.

The Tata Group, in the Indian imagination is far more than a corporate group, it is institution whose inception and growth mirrors that of the modern India and whose value systems are as legendary as its success. Dancing across more than a century of greatness are beautiful, astonishing #TATASTORIES, many of which can inspire and provoke us, even move us to meaningful action in our own lives. Harish Bhat’s vivid glimpses into some of the distinctive cultural legacy of the Tata Group bring to life the extraordinary longevity, vibrancy and success of Tata. But at their essence, they are simple, moving stories of great teams, men and women, which hold deep lessons for all of us.

Read on for one such truly poignant moment, when the great man who would go onto become The Father of the Nation visited Jamshedpur, the beating heart of the institution that shaped, and continues to shape the growth of a nation.

The steel city of Jamshedpur was teeming with excitement in August 1925. Mahatma Gandhi was coming to visit the town where India’s first integrated steel plant had been established by Jamsetji Tata. This would be a unique event—the man who was leading the charge for Indian independence visiting an industrial city which had taken a step towards economic independence. Mahatma Gandhi knew of Jamsetji Tata’s enterprise. Indeed, in 1905, soon after Jamsetji’s passing, he had written in the Indian Opinion newspaper, ‘In whatever he did, Mr Tata never looked to self-interest. He never cared for any titles from the Government, nor did he ever take distinctions of caste or race into consideration…His simplicity was remarkable. May India produce many Tatas!’

The Mahatma had been keen to visit the steel city himself, and now he was responding to a special invitation from Dinabandhu C.F. Andrews, who was at that time a labour leader in Jamshedpur. He had sought Gandhiji’s guidance to resolve some labour issues. Interestingly, many years later, Subhash Chandra Bose would also head the Tata Steel Workers’ Union in Jamshedpur, but that is the subject of another story. Gandhiji arrived in Jamshedpur and was shown around the steel factory. I can imagine how eagerly workers in the factory would have milled around to see the great man walk briskly by their furnaces that had begun proudly producing steel for the nation. He also visited the township and wrote later in his journal: ‘This town owes a debt of gratitude to the courage of Jamsetji Tata.’ But he went on to say: ‘However, what can one see of such a large factory in two days?’ At the Director’s Bungalow, he completed talks with R.D. Tata (father of J.R.D. Tata), and three outstanding labour matters were resolved after some discussion. It is remarkable that Gandhi took the time and effort to travel all the way to Jamshedpur to help bring these matters to a successful conclusion. Then, in the evening, he addressed a mass meeting on the maidan behind the TISCO Institute, now called the United Club. This was a huge gathering, attended by over 20,000 people. A sea of humanity stood waiting for the Mahatma to arrive, and he did not disappoint them. In fact, Gandhiji delivered a fine and spirited speech, which was both moving and inspiring. Here are some excerpts.

It was my ambition to see one of the greatest—if not the greatest—Indian enterprises in India, and study the conditions of work there. But none of my activities is onesided, and as my religion begins and ends with truth and non-violence, my identification with labour does not conflict with my friendship with capital. And believe me, throughout my public service of thirty-five years, though I have been obliged to range myself seemingly against capital, capitalists have in the end regarded me as their true friend. I am told that though so many Europeans and Indians live here (together), their relations are of a happy character . . . It is the privilege of both of you to be associated in this great enterprise, and it is possible for you to give Indians an object lesson in amity and goodwill . . . you will carry your amity outside your workshops and both of you will realize that you have come to live and work here as brothers and sisters, never regarding another as inferior, or oneself as inferior. And if you succeed in doing that, you will have a miniature Swaraj.

Gandhiji also narrated to the audience an anecdote about how his connection with the Tatas began.

In South Africa, when I was struggling with the Indians there, in the attempt to retain our self-respect and to vindicate our status, it was the late Sir Ratan Tata who first came forward with assistance. He wrote me a great letter, and sent a princely donation—a cheque for Rs 25,000 and a promise in the letter to send more, if necessary.

This was a reference to the spontaneous donation that Sir Ratan Tata, younger son of Jamsetji Tata, had made in the year 1909.