Dareechah-e-Nigaarish

    Ahmed Shamim (1927 - 1982) was an Urdu poet with a modern voice and a style born from experimentation with new ways of expression. He wrote poems, long poems as well as ghazals but is recognized primarily as a strong, innovative voice for his Urdu poems.

     Shamim was a young, peaceful activist struggling for Kashmir region’s independence from the Republic of India in 1948. He was viciously beaten up and imprisoned numerous times. Frustrated with this constant “Operation Condor” style unrelenting persecution from the Indian security and intelligence agencies which may have made him into the thousands of other “Missing Persons” and had all the potential of killing him, he decided to leave his hometown of Sri Nagar (capital of Indian Occupied Kashmir), his beloved mother whom he loved with all the strength of his existence and his father, brother and sister. He crossed the India-Pakistan border and continued his struggle for Kashmir’s liberation in the Liberated Kashmir region protected by the Pakistan Government. He freelanced as a journalist and broadcaster for Liberated Kashmir Radio for some years before getting a job as an Assistant Information Officer in the Liberated Kashmir government’s Department of Information. As the years passed, he progressed and eventually became Director of this department. 

     Fifteen years after his 1948 migration to Pakistan, his mother passed away (1963).  Shamim could never go back to his Sri Nagar family and visit his mother.  His life was brutally affected by this separation. As the years progressed, he slowly realized the many herculean obstacles in the path of Kashmir’s liberation and he felt that a strong and united Pakistan was the only hope for the Kashmir people’s struggle for independence.  When there was civil war in Pakistan and the eastern region of the country separated and became an independent nation (Bangladesh) in 1971, Shamim perceived this to be a huge setback for the Kashmir cause and suffered his first heart attack on the night that Bangladesh was created. He began to feel that his sacrifices, his struggle, his leaving his mother, his family and hometown were all futile  … a journey through sand which leaves no footprints behind, no heritage, no sense of accomplishment.

    Shamim wrote the poem “The Moment of Embarking on a Journey Through Sand” about his mother and also about his childhood days spent with his mother and about how his inner drive had pushed him to leave the nest and go forth on an epic journey … a journey that eventually became futile.  This free verse poem became his crowning achievement and a symbol of his poetic identity.



The Moment of Embarking on a Journey Through Sand

We were beautiful … were adored once …

Our breath transfixed

Like fragrance nestled within books

We would draw pictures

Using many unsaid words

Would write poems

On the wings of migrant birds

Reciting them to kinfolk

Who dwelt near distant lakes

And were separated from us

But were always near ...

As the new day’s quest descended

Into our courtyard

Accompanied by the first ray from the sun

We used to say “Mother !

Butterfly wings are so, so pretty !”

“Bless our foreheads with your lips !

We have to leave

For the land of butterflies and fireflies

Fireflies of color, butterflies of light beckon us !”

“The new day’s quest

And the color drenched air

Call out to us from the window …”

“Bless our foreheads with your lips!”

Modern Urdu Poet:  Ahmed Shamim

English translation from the original Urdu text: 

Talat Afroze, April 2nd, 2012.

Translator’s Note:  In the title of his  poem, Ahmed Shamim uses “sand” as a metaphor of futility.  In his interpretation (interview with Nisar Nasik of Radio Pakistan recorded in 1982, the year Shamim passed away due to cardiac arrest; page 179, “Ahmed Shamim: the Man and his Poetry,” published by Akaadmee Adabiyaat, Islamabad, Pakistan), a journey through sand leaves no footprints for posterity… the winds of change erase all footprints from the sand with passing time and so a quest through sand leaves no heritage and cannot contribute to one’s people in the future.