Syeda Daniyah Ali, Grade 11
UWCEA (Moshi)
When you lose someone or something meaningful to you, all that is left behind are the memories. Some distinct, some faint. It is all these memories that make us want to accomplish the impossible: go back in time. Perhaps mothers want to relive their children’s first steps, daughters to lie down on their father’s chest and sisters to be caught with chocolate all over again.
My mother was born and raised in India, the epitome of a nation with a deeply rooted culture. With Mughals, nawabs, and Rajputs, my mother’s Dil ka raja (heart’s king) was her father, Sakhawat Hussain. A man as rich as his motherland, filled to his core with culture and tradition. With the literal meaning of his name being, gratuity, he was exactly that but so much more. Thinking about culture, especially the subcontinent’s, one thing instantly pops up: art. Poetry, music, and paintings are the three things you can find in a museum as well as on a truck. Growing up in a family of artists and not scientists, my whole childhood is a sonnet in my head. Remembering my grandfather talk about Mir Anees, Mirza Ghalib, and palmistry, the nostalgia creeps through my bones. I would give anything in a heartbeat to feel his doddery yet soft hands under my cheeks again. But I can’t, so I live through the memories. I read his favourite poems, listen to his favourite songs, and hug my parents a little more.
My mother was born and raised in India, the epitome of a nation with a deeply rooted culture. With Mughals, nawabs, and Rajputs, my mother’s Dil ka raja (heart’s king) was her father, Sakhawat Hussain. A man as rich as his motherland, filled to his core with culture and tradition. With the literal meaning of his name being, gratuity, he was exactly that but so much more. Thinking about culture, especially the subcontinent’s, one thing instantly pops up: art. Poetry, music, and paintings are the three things you can find in a museum as well as on a truck. Growing up in a family of artists and not scientists, my whole childhood is a sonnet in my head. Remembering my grandfather talk about Mir Anees, Mirza Ghalib, and palmistry, the nostalgia creeps through my bones. I would give anything in a heartbeat to feel his doddery yet soft hands under my cheeks again. But I can’t, so I live through the memories. I read his favourite poems, listen to his favourite songs, and hug my parents a little more.
“God caused signs or seals on the hands of all the sons of men, that the sons of men might know their works.” - The Book of Jobs.
Every time I visited my grandfather, we did two things together as our little tradition, compared our eras, and read each other’s hands. And each time he told me the same story about how he met an old man in the early thirties at the side of a road, who read his hand. According to him, that changed his life, and he continued meeting up with that man after that incident. But he never told me what that man said to him. Palmistry ever since then has meant a lot to me. I don’t think I believe in it completely, but I think it’s something worth writing about. Palmistry is defined as the art or practice of reading a person’s character or future from the lines on the palms. Palmistry is believed to have originated from India or China. It is said that Alexander the Great followed Aristotle’s belief about the lines of the palms being a reflection of a person’s soul. As his empire expanded to India and Persia, so did his beliefs and knowledge. However, even if it hasn’t originated from India, it was practiced on a large scale throughout the country. Perhaps that is why my grandfather stumbled upon a man with expertise in palmistry. Not knowing how that man changed the life of the man, who changed mine every time we talked, keeps my mind in a constant state of curiosity. This is undoubtedly a memory that I want to longingly relive.
Mir Babar Ali Anees was an Urdu poet and is still of the most read and beloved ones across the globe. He was born in 1803, with command over the language, poetry in his blood, and roots from Lucknow, the cultural center of India. He mainly wrote in Urdu but used Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic as well. Anees was born with command over language and poetry in his blood. He came from a family of renowned writers and poets. Rubaiyat Mir (quatrains by Mir) are one of his most eminent works to date. His compelling poetry always makes me want to go back in time to witness the beautiful journey that gave us a perpetually heartwarming result: his poems. My grandfather did a thesis on Mir Anees and perhaps witnessing that can make me understand what made him indulge in Mir Anees’ work to such an extent. Here is an untranslated quatrain from one of his sonnets, because as in Paterson the Japanese poet said, “Poetry in translation is like having a shower with a raincoat on”:
Mir Babar Ali Anees was an Urdu poet and is still of the most read and beloved ones across the globe. He was born in 1803, with command over the language, poetry in his blood, and roots from Lucknow, the cultural center of India. He mainly wrote in Urdu but used Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic as well. Anees was born with command over language and poetry in his blood. He came from a family of renowned writers and poets. Rubaiyat Mir (quatrains by Mir) are one of his most eminent works to date. His compelling poetry always makes me want to go back in time to witness the beautiful journey that gave us a perpetually heartwarming result: his poems. My grandfather did a thesis on Mir Anees and perhaps witnessing that can make me understand what made him indulge in Mir Anees’ work to such an extent. Here is an untranslated quatrain from one of his sonnets, because as in Paterson the Japanese poet said, “Poetry in translation is like having a shower with a raincoat on”:
Kuch aaj shaam se chehra hai faq shahar ki tarah
Dhala hi jaata hoon furqat mein dopahar ki tarah
Anees yoon hua haal-e-javani-o-piri
Barhe thay nakhl ki surat giray samar ki tarah
Dhala hi jaata hoon furqat mein dopahar ki tarah
Anees yoon hua haal-e-javani-o-piri
Barhe thay nakhl ki surat giray samar ki tarah
Bibliography
https://palmreadings.online/the-history-of-palmistry/
https://www.rekhta.org/Poets/meer-anees/profile?gclid=CjwKCAjw1K75BRAEEiwAd41h1J3R3TWZdgtibCbT9Mj7UkxJGBEsZFRWgOKVmCMBU3UE36N-wKhhKBoCeqoQAvD_BwE
https://www.rekhta.org/ghazals/shahiid-e-ishq-hue-qais-naamvar-kii-tarah-meer-anees-ghazals
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5247022/characters/nm0619185
https://palmreadings.online/the-history-of-palmistry/
https://www.rekhta.org/Poets/meer-anees/profile?gclid=CjwKCAjw1K75BRAEEiwAd41h1J3R3TWZdgtibCbT9Mj7UkxJGBEsZFRWgOKVmCMBU3UE36N-wKhhKBoCeqoQAvD_BwE
https://www.rekhta.org/ghazals/shahiid-e-ishq-hue-qais-naamvar-kii-tarah-meer-anees-ghazals
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5247022/characters/nm0619185
www.unitedworldwide.co