Pantun of the Chinar Grove
A poem and report about Kashmir’s environmental and political struggles
Written above the gate of the Shalimar Gardens, Sri Nagar, Kashmir by the order of Emperor Jahangir (1542–1605):
Agar firdaus bar ru-ye zamin ast
Hamin ast-o hamin ast-o hamin ast
If there is Paradise on earth
It is this, it is this, it is this — ‘Orfi Shirazi
Someone has set a bomb off in a car
where tourist buses come from foreign cities.
Disturbed, the birds alight from a chinar
and now dark shadows run among the trees.
See each tourist bus from foreign cities
blown into oxblood dusk; and people scatter
from those dark shadows running through the trees.
Crack troops come with walkie-talkie chatter.
Blown into oxblood dusk, the people scatter
like bottle-bodies shattered in a movie,
and yet more troops and walkie-talkie chatter
counter threats behind Kashmir’s state tree.
