Nighat Hafiz

In the second part of the book, the author switches now to Habba Khatun; the most celebrated Muslim independent poet of Kashmiri language; here we do not find verse by verse translation with the original pieces in the beginning but at the end in nutshell; poem by poem. Writes Neerja Mattoo,------ “With Habba Khatun we are in the realm of pure lyricism, which delights in celebrating the world of the senses. Her words are occasionally a lament, sometimes they are seductive, sometimes they invite and at others they are complaints.” Habba Khatoon was not a mystical poet like Lal Ded but her themes and motifs have a profound presence in oral tradition. A poet and an innovative musician, Zoon was beautiful; learned and educated; like lunar light, her poetry keeps on shinning beam by beam, era after era with a timeless quality to survive. She may not find a place in spiritual tradition of Kashmiri literature but some shades present in her poetry connect her to the age- old Rishi-Sufi tradition in a far but distant way. Rah Bakkhstum parverdaigaro Tche kyoho waatiyo myani marina Separ Trehmar parma kiano Pher na kuni gom zare zabre Ashqun khat kansi porn a yakhbaro Rejects the author by saying, “As if this was not confusion enough, she has also acquired the reputation of being a saintly person------but there is hardly any evidence of this in the poems themselves.” Further, she adds, “There is no sense of so called “womanly modesty or shame in demanding sexual fulfillment.---“ Is it because she was trained to be a professional musician, a courtesan----or was it that she was outside the pale of social norm.” Whatever be the cause, the statement creates clash of the image that is carried in the oral tradition of Kashmir literature by a common Kashmiri. Tradition carries in it the force of public opinion which cannot be ignored; it breeds and nourishes sentimental attachment and becomes a superior living testimony to the feeble historical evidence. There is no doubt that we find less reference to Habba Khatun and her poetry in Sixteenth and seventeenth century. “An analysis of the representations of Habba Khatun and Yusuf Shah Chak shows that Habba Khantun was excluded from the dominant narratives because of the patriarchal and gendered attitudes and marginalization of Kashmiri language in which she composed her songs. It would be highly erroneous to state that since the seventeenth and eighteenth century Persian tarikhs (which had their own concerns and motives for recording history) did not record her name, she did not exist at all, for, the oral tradition is brimming with her songs and stories about her early life and also that of her romance with Yusuf Shah Chak”. While accepting her poetry as part of the collective memory of Kashmiris, no reference is made by the author to the narrative of expulsion and marginalization. Habba Khatun finds less space in the book than Rupa Bhavani; an unsung poet of Kashmir.