The Five Wounds: newyorker.com

The Five Wounds: newyorker.com

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The national pride is more important than the nation itself.

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The national capital recently witnessed a spectacle designed and performed for the western audience.I know, I am not telling you the complete story, at least the advertisements shown in the intervals were aimed at the western tourists. So, my dear country men the incredible India image is not for you, it’s for the foreign guests. The exhibition went well,I preferred to overlook all the hiccups in the preparations and aftermaths including scrutiny of few officials on the home turf for making money and using it for their own benefits.These obvious byproducts did hurt the national pride of a country desperate for declaring its emergence.However,even the bad publicity couldn’t take the sheen out of ever growing self pride.The TV commentator in the gala ceremony couldn’t hide his pride for the nation either,while proclaiming that it was a proud movement for the largest democracy of the world.India did declare its prominence in the emerging world(that’s what burgeoning middle class still li
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                                                                                         The fire of angst burnt my city, Jammu Pico Iyer lost everything he had—and nearly his life in one of the worst man-made fires in California. While recounting the tragedy to lose something that you call home, he says “I always had that sense that home was not where I lived but what lived inside me,"  "When our house burned down in the forest fire that became literal." I also lost my home in an angst of fire that slowly killed my desire to call Jammu my home. I am in mid-thirties, an age where realities of life are too stark to be ignored and the haze of idealism turns too thin to cover the nakedness. No matter whether you love it or hate it, home is where you return to. Somebody would guide you back or as they say, ‘will show you your place’. Recently, I was reminded again of the place where I was born and raised. In the outskirts of a town near Jammu, an eight year
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I Meander again.

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I Meander again. I am sipping my coffee at ‘Coffea Arabica ‘ Tracy Chapman is singing ‘Fast car’ I have a feeling I belong, And then I meander again. The best place here is reserved for smokers, I can see snow on mountains. The vale has sun after ages of ‘rood’**, The mountains return my stare, untouched by blood, * I am acting Kashmiri, reading Agha Shahid. A beauteous girl from west climbs up the stairs, Wearing a tawdry traditional Muslim suit. I tell myself Mad heart, be brave. * She lights a cigarette, Bono start singing ‘I still haven’t found what I am looking for’ And then I meander again………………… **Rood:Kashmiri word for rain *:Lines from Agha Shahid Ali’s “ the veiled suite “
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