coshur

Our culture projects a heritage of vivid description of prose and poetry filled with stories of ordinary tales of everyday living and injustice. Unwritten history of sufferings , tragedies and some crushed triumphs - the valor which kept our ancestors moving forward .These stories , poems , riddles, children tales and prose are the foundations of our culture and need to be passed on to future generations.

The vested interests , with their overwhelming power , systematically and energetically have decried our language , culture and heritage. Increasingly we have only a little knowledge of our own self. We are forced to inherit a system which is devoid of the vision and culture of our ancestors. I am not here to bemoan learning , growth and intellectual development, but mourn the impending decay of my culture , heritage and history. The future remains bleak to those who cherish their own cultural history including linguistic ancestry, this is demoralizing.

Our literary abilities are derived from what we learn as we grow. Imaginations are being filled with images created from an unrelated history and heritage thrust upon us. Although in the confines of our heart the image of what we grew up in - our own language , people, culture and history are deep rooted. Unfortunately the system is twisted out of shape were Tagore is preferred over Mahjoor, Tulsidas over Sheikh ul Alam , Mira over laala Ded and many moreover Rasul Mir . This is an attempted integration at its worse , where joining together is downplaying our past and promoting a false unification. I would like to pause and bestow upon the Kashmiri teachers, poets , historians and artists my praise. They are my heroes though un lauded , having careers fraught with uncertainty and anxiety. Nevertheless they move forward with valor. It is time the bystanders like us raise our voices and cheer these unsung heroes of Kashmir.

If we aim to cherish and own our culture , language and history we might ward off its death, or else we will perish .Language and culture does not only portray our lives, it is a human experience, with every word having a story behind it .These stories do form our own history. If we want these stories to live , we need to pass them on in Coshur, the way they were passed on , and have been experienced by our ancestors.

Remember Ladi Shah ? I used to hear them as a kid in my village. The old man would gaze directly at us with hope in his eyes that one of us would carry the message on from him. Something tells me that those men were not ignorant. It will remind so many of us of a home front anecdote, frozen frame of a moment of nostalgic Kashmir.

Ah ! hope not lost forever.