Zoon of Chandra Hara

The Lady of Love
The Life and Work of Habba Khatoon

HABBA Khatoon was born in 1553,about two centuries after Lal Ded. Shegave to Kashmiri poetry a new art form—the vacan or short lyric which wasprobably influenced by folk songs as wellas by the Persian ghazal. The vacan is ashort poem set to music. Habba also invented the Raast-i-Kashmiri, the raga of Kashmiri classical music.

The songs that are attributed to Habba Khatoon have come down to us either through musical compositions, in whichthey are interspersed, or through the oraltradition. A collection of her lyrics has been published by the Jammu and KashmirAcademy of Languages, Art and Culture,but the authenticity of some of theseverses is disputed.

Overflowing Sorrow
No historical chronicle before the 19thcentury refers to Habba Khatoon. Manylegends about her iire prevalent in Kashmir.From these, and from her poetry, scholarshave tried to reconstruct the details of herlife.
It is generally believed that she wasborn in village Chandahar, in Pamporeregion, south of Srinagar. Lal Ded was alsoborn in this region. In one lyric, Habbarefers tocher parents sending her to adistant place for education and the teacher beating her with a switch.

On the evidence of the lyrics, it is alsobelieved that she was named Zoon (meaning moon) by her parents, and that the name Habba Khatoon (meaning ladyof love) was assumed by her later. It issaid that the saint Khwaja Masood

Bestowed this name on her when she visited him to ask his advice on how tohandle her marital problems.

She explicitly describes her suff-eringsin her in-laws’ house. It is believed that she married a man named Aziz. This belief seems to be based on the fact that some ofher love lyrics are addressed to an unresponsive person called “Aziz.”However, as the word “Aziz” means beloved, and the songs do not state thatthe person addressed is her husband, thisi nterpretation seems far from certain.

According to the legend, her husband disapproved of her composing songs and singing them in public. In one of her most famous and popular lyrics,  Chaara’ KarMyon Maalinyo , she looks to her natal family to help her in a predica-ment common to many women :

All is not well with me at my
husband’s house

Rid me of my troubles, my father’s
clan

I left home to fetch water from the
stream

My tender parents, the waterpot
broke

Either replace the broken pot or
Pay for it, I beseech you

All is not well with me at my
husband’s house

My youthful frame is wasting

Mounting the uplands has become
backbreaking

My feet are blistered, gathering
herbs

Salt is spreading over my wounds

All is not well with me at my
husband’s house

Falling exhausted on the spinning
wheel
I broke the shaft.

My mother-in-law seized me by the
hair
Worse than death was it to me

All is not well with me at my
husband’s house

I am uneasy with the smart of the
loved one

My sorrow overflows the brim

Habba Khatoon has passed on the
hint

Be alerted, father’s clan all-
watchful

All is not well with me at my
husband’s house

It is interesting that other women poetsof Kashmir, such as Lal Ded, the 17th century mystic Rupa Bhawani who retired to the wilder-ness, and the 18th century Arnimal who returned to her parentalhome, all suffered similarly in their in-laws’homes.

The Wounded Heart

Most of Habba’s lyrics express the sufferings of unrequited love. One critic,S. Sadhu, attributes this melancholy to her unfufilled  “dream of wedded life”  but, inthe absence of other evidence, it would seem that it is attributable more to the expresses a longing for an ever elusive? tradition of the romantic lyric which expresses a longing for an ever elusive
emotions expressed in the songs with the events of her life would seem misplaced.

Not a single lyric expresses fulfil mentor happiness in love. All of them are variations on the theme of separation from an unresponsive beloved. One of her most famous songs in this strain is Wolo

MyaaniPoshey Madano :

Having snatched my heart, you have
gone far off

Come, my love, my  flowery  Cupid
Let us go, friend, to gather jasmine
Once dead, none can enjoy life
I crave for your prosperity, love
Come, O come, my flowefy Cupid

Let us go, friend, to gather basil
Wounding my heart with the axe
He disdains even to enquire of me
Come, O come, my flowery Cupid

Let us go, friend, to gather herbs
Heartless people make fun of me
Would that they were in a similar
plight

Come, O come my flowery Cupid
Let us go, friend, to the woods
People poison his ears against me
Naively he gives credence to these
tales

Come, O come my flowery Cupid
Let us go, friend, to fetch water
The world is fast asleep, my love
I yearn for a response from you
Come, O come, my flowery Cupid
Come, give up this loathing of me
I have been longing for none but you
This life is all too short
Come, O come, my flowery Cupid

In voicing the feelings of the female lover addressed to the male ‘beloved,Habba’s lyrics were at variance with the dominant and established Persiantradition of love poetry, where the malelover addresses a male or female beloved.
Her lyrics also depart from the ghazal tradition of extolling the beauty of the beloved, and concentrate solely on her own emotion :

Say, friend, when will fate smile on

me
And my love come to me again, say
when ?
I’ve waited long and patiently
My heart is numb and idle and
empty of hopes.
Sweet is the ritual of love.
I would deck my love with ornaments
And in henna dye his hands.
I would anoint his body with
fragrant kisses
And offer him wine in golden goblets.
The lotus of love blooms in the lake
of my heart.
Say, friend, when will fate smile on
me
Go forth and call him, friend,
I’ve made posies of flowers for him
Over passes high I carried him wine
But he is roaming mid distant glades.
O why is he roaming mid distant
glades?
O where is he drunk with my rice
wine?
In his absence like jasmine I will
fade.

The Wheel Of Fortune

According to the legend, Yusuf ShahChak, heir to the throne of the Sultanate ofKashmir, was riding through Habba’svillage when he heard her singing ChaaraKar My on… while she was picking saffronflowers in a field. He was enchanted byher and proposed that she go and live in his palace. In 1570 AD she is said to have entered the palace.

Scholars differ on the issue of her status in Yusuf’s palace. Some believe thathe got her divorced from her husband andmade her his queen. Oral tradition supports this view. However, many others, includingthe 19th century chroniclers, believe thatshe was a member of his harem.

Habba is believed to have been happy with Yusuf and to have found the atmosphere of the court congenial to her art. Legends are related about their pleasure trips to different parts of Kashmir and their lovers’ tiffs and reconciliations.

In 1579, Yusuf ascended the throne but internal feuds took a turn for the worse
and he was unseated in 1580. He approached the emperor Akbar for help.Akbar gave him asylum and attached himto the Mughal army. For 11 months, Akbar did not provide any armed assistance.When he finally deputed Raja Man Singhas an escort, Yusuf gave him the slip andre-covered the kingdom on his own in 1581after a series of manoeuvres at Sopore.

But the disturbances continued. In1585, the Mughal army marched intoKashmir and brought pressure on Yusuf till he made submission, against the advice of his son Yaqub. He did not return toKashmir again and died in exile in Basok,Bihar, seven years later.

Handful Of Grain

No reliable details are known of the last phase of Habba’s life. According to the dominant tradition, she could not accompany Yusuf because of the hostilityof her stepson Yaqub, so she lived inKashmir for about 20 years more,wandering about without attachments orpossessions. She is said to be buried at Paanta Chhokh, at Srinagar, overlooking the river Jhelum. Others believe that she followed Yusuf to Basok and lies buried there in a grave next to him.

Some critics, like Ghulam Nabi Khayal,have related the despair and melancholy of her lyrics to this separation from Yusuf.Akhtar Mohi-ud-din goes further and says “Her apparent yearning for her be-lovedwas, in effect, the voice of the people for freedom from the yoke of Mughal slavery”—a rather far fetched explanation.

One of her lyrics, said to date from this period of her life, seems to sum up her life experiences :

Let no one lose the opportunities of youth

My parents showered love on me
A bevy of maids stood in waiting

Never did I dream the mansion
would crumble to dust

Let no one lose the opportunities of
youth—

When my parents gave me in
marriage

My friends sang for me in joy

The love songs they chanted never
came true

Let no one lose the opportunities of
youth

Calling me the daughter of fortune,
“Your in-laws are waiting for you”
they said

The bright painted palanquin was
decked with silver

Let no one lose the opportunities of
youth

I am here while you are so far away
Both were so fond of each other

Who dared imagine my world would
come to dust and rubble

Let no one lose the opportunities of
youth

If god withholds and destiny favours
not

Can anyone feed on a handful of
grain ?

Habba Kkatoon drank deep of love

Let no one lose the opportunities of
youth

Her Contribution

In Habba’s time, Persian influence was very strong in the Kashmiri court. In the14th century, hundreds of Syeds fleeing persecution by Timur in the Middle Eastand Central Asia had settled in Kashmir
the development of the Kashmiri language and also on many poets of succeeding generations down to our own day. Several contemporary Kashmiri lyricists have acknowledged the influence of Habba’swork on their own.

She invented a captivating stanza oft hree lines, followed by a refrain. The firstand third lines rhyme while the second line is unrhymed. She also frequently uses a medial rhyme.
Her songs also continue to be sungby village women in Kashmir. She depicts the everyday experiences of rural women,for instance, panting while climbing hillscarrying a headload, meeting each of theron the banks of a stream where they go tofetch water, which she terms “friends’gathering” (yaaraba’Ii kaakni).

In an atmosphere permeated with mystical traditions of various kinds, fromPersian sufi poetry to bhakti poetry from different parts of India, Habba Khatoon remained firmly rooted in a  non mystical tradition. For this reason, critics like S.Shah have called her the first secular and humanist poet in Kashmiri, while nothing that her weaving of references to flowering shrubs and birds into the fabric of her song does convey an impression of all life being one. Habba Khatoon emphasises the importance and meaning of the individual’s emotional experience, of personal relationships, and of love that is human, not divine.

Even when she does dwell on the transitory nature of fame and honour, she does not draw a moral regarding the need to detach oneself from the world. Her songis expressive, never hortatory, and represents an important tradition which celebrates human experience:

1 left home to play and was absorbed
in it
Till the day sank in the west
I came of a noble family which gave
me
Dignity and name
Many a lover was drawn towards me
Till the day sank in the west.
Within the house I stayed hidden
from view
Once outside, my name was on every
tongue,
Hermits, in their urge to see me
gave up their penance in the
woods.
My shop was loaded with stock.
And the world was keen to see it,
My precious wares exposed, (lost)
the prices crashed
As the day, alack, sank in the
west.

Bibliography
S.L. Sadhu, Haba Khatoon, Sahitya Akademi Makers of Indian Literature Series, 1983.

M. A. Kamil, Haba Khatoon J.L.KauI,Studies in Kashmiri, Kapoou Brothers,Srinagar, 1968 M.Y.

Taing, Haba Khatoon,3 & K Academy of Languages, Art and Culture J N Wali, Zoon

Akhtar Mohi-ud-Din, “Social Idealsand Patriotism in Kashmiri Literature”,Indian Literature, May-June

1977 GhulamNabi Khayal, Some Women Poets in Kashmiri” Indian Literature, May-June1982

(We presented an account of the life and work of Kashmiri mystic poet, Lal Ded. This account of another important woman poet of Kashmir has been prepared by Ruth Vanita from material in S.L. Sadhu’s biography and essays by Akhtar Mohi-ud-Din and Ghulam Nabi Khayal.)

Habba Khatoon
Philomela of Medieval Kashmir

By Prof. Kashi Nath Dar

THE cultural heritage of Kashmir is as rich as it is varied. This mental child of  ‘Kashyapa’  has been the recipient of fondest love and bountiful benevolence from Nature and has consequently enthralled the whole world by its superb physical charm from times immemorial. To crown all, this physical grandeur has been very usefully groomed by Kashmiris in weaving the rainbow. Coloured texture of mental and spiritual attainments. In many respects they have been pioneers in evolving a cult of philosophy in tune with their environment and called it as ‘Shaivism’. A galaxy of rhetoricians have taken pains in prescribing norms and standards for making the literature in general and poetry in particular more acceptable and representative. To say squarely, not a single branch of literature has been left out by these savants without their impress and alchemic touch.

Not only this, Kashmir has been the testing-ground of three universal religions of the world-Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. The traits of all these religions have fused into the attitude of a Kashmiri like milk and candy; and it is no surprise that though bearing Hindu or Muslim or even Buddhist names, a Kashmiti even to-day in actual practice is a living embodiment of Buddhist compassion, Hindu tolerance and Muslim zest for life. Therefore with such a Catholic background, secularism to a Kashiniri is not a political expedient but an article of faith ingrained in his blood from the hoary times to the present day. ‘Kalhana’ in his monumental History of Kashmir ‘River of Kings’ has not mentioned even one Communal trouble between the Buddhists and the Hindus when a voracious race was in progress between their respective adherents to make theire own tenets popular and thus steal march over other faiths. In contrast to this, Buddhist Kings have donated large sums for the erection of Hindu temples and shrines and vice versa. Religious battles have always been fought here on paper, in a more rational way, or through dialogues which never left bad taste in the mouths. During the Islamic period Sultan Zain-ul-ab-Din Badshah in an admirable way and forsooth like a Kashmiri to his marrow renovated demolished Hindu places of worship and even started ‘Langars’ at Places of pilgrimages for feeding the hungry and the devout. ‘ShriVara’ in his ‘ZainaTarangini’ has mentioned such ‘Satr’ or Langars, one of which was located at the foot of Mahadeva mountain.

In this way, when in the 14th-15th century an alien culture knocked at the mountain-doors of Kashmir for being shown in, the values cherished by Kashmiris all along had already prepared a hospitable ground for its happy welcome. The puritanic prosletyzing tenacity of Islam in the absence of any mentionable reaction on the part of Kashmiris compellingly changed to more logical and rational methods. In this political and religious upheaval, long-cherished secular outlook of the faith of the people would have received a jolt, but at this juncture literature came to our succour.

At the confluence of Hindu and Muslim cultures ‘Laileshwari’ or ‘Lalla- Deda’ stands like a collossus beckoning people to eschew differences of colour, creed or faith and yoke themselves to attain Identity with Him– the All-pervasive Transcendental Force called God as such, Therein all are equal, the worldly appellations drop down like slough from a snake. The pursuit of mundane is an exercise in futility; Therefore the goal should be beyond mundane-materiality; It is no use counting mile-posts of material gains or losses and getting lost in its maze; the eye should be on the destination– the real and permanent.

For reasons obvious, the social fibre of the Kashmiris was also undergoing transformation at that time and the present could not have been in any way palatable to the denizens of Kashmir at large; so like an awake artist ‘Lalla’ dismissed the present as trash and ushered in spirituality in its all shades ‘Being’ was replaced by ‘to be’. By borrowing sweetness from the ‘unknown’ ‘Lalla’ virtually transformed the frustration or people into the hope to live with ever -appetising gusto. ‘Lalla’ could not help striking a happy compromise between Kashmiri shaivism and Islamic sufism. It was in tune with the times. To quote Dr. Sufi ‘Even long before the formal conversion to Islam, Islamic sufism had already entered tho valley.” Cultural conquest is always a pre-requisite to any other kind of conquest. A Kashmiri by nature tolerant and catholic kept his windows open for inhaling the fresh air of sufism. He even assimilated and owned much of it what was good and rejuvenvating.

But, by the time Habba Khatoon’s inebriating imagination began to find words, this climate of spirituality and mental drill had become suffocating and even stale in the context of fast changing economic conditions and human values; emphasis on individnal instead of on the society had become the accepted norm of public relations and thinking. The extrovert attitude yielded place to introspection. So, the poet in these changed environs harnessed his imaginative faculty to interpret his or her own feelings; Hence, Habba at the very outset of her poetic career rebelled against the prevalent standards of poetry-writing. Textbook idealism is not found in the dictionary of her pulsating emotions. She did not also try to bridge the distance between the ideal and the real. Her substantial contribution in this domain is to interpret her life as it was and not what it should be. Total absence of didactic content in her poetry (what ever is available to us) lends support to our belief, that she always believed in translating her feelings without any redundant appendages of ideal, faithfully and with sincerity of purpose. Her poetry consequently is a happy blend of sweetness and pathos. She has preferred to live in the present, past was beyond her reach and future out of her comprehension.

Kashmiri nation at that time was groaning under internal exploitation and external aggression. The last indigenous ruler of Kashmir Yusaf Shah Chak personified in himself levity and depravation in every sense of the word. “His own Subjects being fed up with his way-ward conduct had to invite the mughals to get rid of such an incapable and debauche ruler,” Writes Dr. Sufi in his ‘Kasheer’. His regal writ could not run outside his palace where passion and carnality were reigning supreme. This trait of inviting aliens to redress their troubles is not new to Kashmiri character at all. Kalhana has alluded to this many times when the natives falling foul with their rulers invited the neighboring Kings of Lohara (Lorin) and Parantosa (Poonch) to sit on the throne of Kashmir. The great queen ‘Dida’ herself belonged to Lorin and installed her brother Jayasimha as the king of Kashmir just before her death. So, the Mughals who had vulturous eyes on Kashmir already, but their incursions bad been thwarted by Kashmiri twice before, exploited such a situation to their fill. This was a welcome addition to their diplomatic bag of conquests. Yusuf Shah at last awoke to find his own people arrayed against him. The Mughals arrested him and forced him to live a life of solitary confinement at a remote village in Bihar outside Kashmir, where he ate his heart away in sole distress and breathed his last. It has been contended by some overzealous Kashmiris lately that uprising of Yusuf Shah against the Mughals symbolized the urge of Kashmiris to fight external domination. Unfortunately, the contemporary historical evidence of this period does not, in any way, confirm this view, however laudable it may seem to be.

Moreover, the famine of 1576 A.D. due to the untimely snowfall multiplied the miseries of the people. The devastating effects of this unprecedented famine persisted for full three years and Kashmiris passed their days on starvation level more or less. To this injury insult in the shape of ‘Shia-Sunni’ troubles was added. Sectarianism became pronounced and it let loose all the evils which nurture and sustain it. In such a disappoioting state of affairs, the poet naturally has to close his eyes against all that is happening around and in self-deceit revels in the fanciful panorama of his heart. Habba could not afford to be an exception to this Universal truth. Hence her love-poems do breathe an atmosphere of total self-absorption being blind and deaf to the environmental vissicitudes. These may well be labelled as throbbing vibrations of self-immersion but not self forgetfulness. Her ego is always pronounced in each line of her verse.

Unfortunately for us we are actually at sea about the life of this Nightingale of Kashmir. No authoritative contemporary record has been unearthed so far to test the veracity of the popular tradition which associates Habba with Yusuf Shah Chak. Moreover, we have no hesitation in doubting the credence of the contemporary records as the History writing even to-day is not free from strings of pressures and pulls. During the rule of the English the events of 1857 have been mentioned as Mutiny, and those very events under the Indian rule have been treated as war of Independence; A dispassionate account of historical events devoid of personal projections is rare even to-day when every man proclaims that he is free and has been given every opportunity for independent thinking and expression of opinion thereof. In those hoary days, when history was compiled at the behest of the king, perhaps in proportion to the munificence the ruler lavished on such mercenaries, distortion of historical facts has always come in handy for the rating clique and its sycophants. In the same way, there is a thin line between aggression and liberation; In such a dilemma the verdict of people should have been the guiding principle for us all, but wherefrom it is to be made available?

Moreover, the evidence of the historical data which is still in manuscript form and has not undergone the acid test of public opinion cannot be relied upon. In Kashmir even to-day people who enjoy leisure and have aptitude are given to record their own experiences in which casual references to rulers have also been made in Sanskrit, Persian or Urdu; but for reasons obvious these cannot be termed as histories as such. Perhaps every Kashmiri house-hold having mentionable literary background of any order can boast of such perional record. By no stretch of imagination these can be treated as historical evidence worth quoting. Therefore, the chronicles written to order or as a product of personal caprice have no place in literary or purely historical criticism, Kalhana has not mentioned the great Shaiva philosopher Abhinavagupta even once. Does it follow from it that Abhinavagupta was not a historical personality at all?

In the face of such scanty historical material at our disposal, we have perforee to fall back upon the popular tradition which in unequivocal and unambiguous terms has all long associated Habba with Yusuf Shah. In the reconstruction of histories of literature the tradition has played no mean part. This kind of unbroken evidence casnot be dismissed as cheap and unreliable altogether. The tradition passes from generation to generation by word of mouth. If in literary criticism this had not been taken cognizance of, then the religious lore of entire humanity would pass on as forged; Actually the case is reverse of it. Tradition has all along held the vedas, the Bible and the Koran as the most respected and the most genuine of all the available literature that has come down to us by the word of mouth. Tradition embraces in its ambit the force of public opinion which cannot be disregarded at any cost. Public opinion in its turn breeds sentimental attachment, and this sort of living testimony is far superior to other media of evidence. Perhaps this irresistible public opinion forced the later Persian chroniclers to make a mention of Habba though two centuries or more after her death. The reasons for maintaining Sphinx-like silence regarding ‘Habba’ by the contemporary chronilcers may be attributed to the aversion Sunni scholars bad for the wayward behaviour of a sunni girl in consenting to become a ‘Keep” to Shia Yusuf Shah. The Shias on the contrary did not like to tarnish the image of the shia king Yusuf by making a mention of his licentious disposition towards Habba. The Hindu Historian could not afford to offend these both sects hence sat on the fence. Therefore, instead of adopting an iconoclastic attitude a critic should own a positive outlook and respect the tradition and the sentiments of people from which he cannot alienate himself. Later skt chroniclers i.e JonaRaja or Shrivara have not mentioned ‘Lalla’ at all though being her contemporaries, yet the popular tradition has had her day in as much as ‘Lalla’ lives before our mental eyes even to-day. Historicity in ordinary and unsophisticated parlance connotes systematisation of facts, values, tradition and outlook. Therefore, the role of tradition can in no way be under estimated.

When the dust of such controvercy had settled down, Birbal Kachru and Hassan Khohyami, the first chroniclers in this field, thought it fit to mention her by name. Both these historians have given an account of ‘Habba’ though in a slip-shod manner; but piecing the incidents together we can build her personality without any fear of contradiction or historical irrelevance. According to them “Habba” was the scion of a well-to-do peasant family living at Chandrahara, a village near the famous Saffron fields of Pampur. She had been married to Aziz Lone one of her collaterals. The proverbial animosity between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law dampened the marital relations between Habba and her spouse. She was forced to live with her parents. ‘Habba’ at such a tender and impressionably age could not recover from the rebuff she received at the very threshold of her conjugal life. Her despondency flowed out in the form of poetry pulsating with unartificial fusion of sound and sense. He fame reached the amorous ears of Yusuf Shah, who admitted her to his harem as a ‘Keep’, and did not allow her the status of a queen.

Further, Mohammed Din ‘Fauq’ and Abdul Ahad Azad have provided us with her actual name ‘Zoon’, as faultless as the moon. Mahjoor has also accepted this name without a murmur. ‘Habba Khatoon’ presumably a more respectable mode of address than ‘Zoon’ must have been bestowed upon her when she joined the harem of Yusuf Sbab in keeping with the royal ettiquette. There should be no surprise, or eybrows need not be raised when a Kashmiri lady is supposed to have two names. In olden days, Kashmiri girls after their wedlock earned a new name in their inlaw’s house. This custom has persisted with Kashmiri Pandits even now.

A section of popular belief ascribes her home to Gurez where a contiguous mountain and a spring are named after her.

Internal evidence as culled from her verses confirms the first view:-

“My parental home is situated at the tableland of Chandra Hara.”

Her another name can be inferred from this:-

“I am bemoaning my lot in Plaintive cries, the Moon (Kashmiri Zoon) has been devoured by an eclipse.”

Shri Amin Kamil’s well-edited booklet containing only twenty songs is the only authentic source material available to us for commenting upon Habba- Khatoon’s poetry; however, in addition to these, Kashmiris ascribe many more poems to her and these have been printed. As long as an anthology of all her available songs is not compiled and given the seal of an authoritative edition, we have to confine our comments to these twenty songs only. Interpolations will be there, more essentially so, her extraordinary popularity has been a bane for the original texts composed by her. The more popular a poet, the more danger is there of interpolations creeping into his compositions and after the mischief has been done it seems very dificult to distinguish gold from dross, and often dross passes on for gold.

‘Habba’ is very proud of her lineage:-

“My parents brought me up with fondest possible care; A host of maid- servants was at my beck and call. I could not fore-see that the dreams nourished by me would be shattered to the ground. No body’s youth with childlike innocence should go unrewarded like that of mine.”

‘Habba’ testifies to her being very well-read:-

“My parents sent me to a distant school for receiving tuition. The teacher there beat me with a tender stick mercilessly and ignited a fire within me; No body’s youth with child- like innocence should go unrewarded like that of mine.”

She did not ignore the religious education also:-

“I committed thirty ‘Siparas’ of the Holy Quran to memory in a single sitting, faithfully adhering to the diacritical intonations; yet the valentine punctuated with love could not be read with such facile speed. What will you gain by my passing away.”

She has woven the scene of her marriage in these words:

“My parents blessed me as a fortunate daughter, and beckoned to me that the in law’s were waiting in the compound for taking me away. My silver- studded palanquin had golden ear-rings hangingdown on all sides. Alas ! innocent youth of any body, with child-like innocence should not go unrewarded as that of mine.”

But all this pomp and splendour could not pacify the wrath of her mother-in-law :-

“The mother-in law grabbed me by my hair, which stung me more than the pangs of death. I fell asleep on the supporting plank of the spinning wheel, and in this way, the circular wheel got damaged. I cannot reconcile myself with the atrocities of the inlaws, O! my parents, please come to my rescue.”

Habba unfolds her love for her husband like this:-

“I have been waiting for long with extreme patience for you – O! my love (or Aziz) do not be cross with your moon (zoon)! I have adorned myself lusciously from top to toe; so enjoy my youth as lively and inviting as a pomegranate flower.”

But Aziz did not relent and Habba bad to experience the pangs of forced widowbood:-

“I am on pin-pricks for want of an avid response to my love; my bubbling youth is on its ebb. My awake parents, do read in to the hint I have dropped.”

The stings of separation from her husband in her prime-youth can better be imagined than described. Perhaps her being on the brink of human patience can justify her consenting to give company to Yusuf Shah Chak. She could not wait for legal or other formalities involved in sharing his bed. This might seem not very laudable, yet it is true of every maiden who is a slave to her senses and whose warmth of love has all along remained unrequitted, moreso, it is all the more pronounced in the case of a lady who would like to wreak venegance on tbe callous society not reciprocating her sentiments, no matter if she loses ber identity in this bargain.

For the span of years in which Habba lived, no cogent authority is available. Mohd Din ‘Fauq’ and in his foot- steps Abdul Ahad Azad have given her life span from 1641 to 1552 A.D. on the authority of ‘Tarikh Baharistan Shahi.’ But on close examination Shri Amin Kamil refutes this and says that these dates are nowhere found in this chronicle. However, her association with Yusuf Shah can give us a clue as to the years in which she was still alive. The reign of Yusuf Shah has been determined as 1579-1585 A.D.; so we can safely assume that during these years at least Habba was living. Akbar annexed Kashmir in 1585 A.D. imprisoned Yusuf Shah and externed him to Bihar; so, when her paramour Yusuf tell on bad stars, Habba must have eaten her heart away in disgust and dismay. This was the second rebuff she received at the bands of the Destiny, and this impulsive Lady unresponsive in love, unaccepted by the society still did not own defeat. She created an exuberant world of her own, punctuated it with her emotions resonant with the dirge of what she had got and what she lost. She lived in her thoughts, so to say.

Such a state of mind is a fertile ground for the induction of Romanticism. Habba deliberately ignoring the less pleasant side of her life indulged in dreamy habit of mind. Romanticism is the acme of poet’s independence of feelings; under its spell he refuses to be bound by conventional restraints. A romantic poet has either the nerve to rebel nor the will to compromise with his environment. Unmindful of what is happening around him, he delves deep into the inner most recesses of his heart and without fear or malice pours out his felings as they ooze forth. Such a poet is incapable of clothing his emotions with artificial adorations. Romanticism may thus he called the highest water-mark of poet’s individual thinking.

Habba may be called the harbinger of such kind of poetry in Kashmiri. She is the originator of popular love-lyrics in Kashmiri literature. However, her love is earthly; she could not rise above it; Her passionate love has its source in the enjoyment or senses and not their denial in any case. She does not feel fed-up with sensual pleasures, but at times would like to revert to these with ever-increasing appetite. She cannot reconcile herself with the sour-truth of being a widow who has perforce to abjure sensuality. She would not like to show herself off as a pious lady either, under the cover of so-called piety myriad sins do thrive when a woman is not mentally ready to own a salutary course of life for herself. Her poetry, therefore, is a candid expression of her feelings which has immenseley contributed to her popularity. She does not like to play hide and seek. Her appeal is straight and unsophisticated.

Habba’s forte is love-in-separation. She has not sung even a single verse eulogizing the munificence of Yusuf Shah when she was in her company. In the words of Kalidasa ‘Separation chastenes love,’ Hence, Habba like a born-poet selected ‘separation’ for her treatment of love. Her verses throughout waft an air of restlessness and not contentment; Calm Composure and resignation to be in turmoil to fate are absent in her poetry. She seems sit cross-legged, She believes in winning love by bodily excellence alone:-

“I will apply on my body of spotless silvery sheen, the greasy whiteness of milky creams; I am imnmensely enamoured of thee; I will anoint myself with scented sandal-water. MY love! I will relish to be your slave.”

Even though Habba has repeatedly and even lustily made a call to flesh only, yet her songs reverberate an aroma of lasting flavour; though these songs may sound as sensual to a moralist, yet ‘Habba’ has made no secret of her sensuous attitude to life. She has all along wanted to drink deep at the fountain of life without any saintly pretensions. Therein her moral-courage shines the best. Her voracious hunger in this respect seems unsatiated. To her present holds the mirror to what she lost and what she had gained. Her songs are a lament in every sense of the term. She is firm-footed in her convictions and does not vacillate. This is perhaps the most glaring trait of her poetry. She has no concern for morality or ethics in the sense that she would not elect to be a preacher: She revels in being always loud. She revels in being immersed in her imagination only, yet her ego is always loud. She is not shy of parading her beauty and is rather conscious of it also. Even though she has paid a heavy price for it, still she has no regrets in this behalf.

Habba’s refrain is love wedded to pathos; consequently she has kept the windows of her mind shut and her heart is only wide-awake in emitting and receiving images from her fancied dreams. The pathetic content of her poetery is all the more aggravated by the elusive nature of her ideal which has consequently earned for her the epithet ‘Nightingale’ of Kashmir most squarely. She does not subscribe to the view that “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” In the absence of any appropriate and meaningful response to her simmering emotions, she has opted for self- suffering, telling beads of her tear-drops. Be it Heemal, Arnimaal or Habba Khatoon, it is the Kashmiri woman bemoaning her lot in pathetic plaintives, the common subject with all these, the victims of the conspiracy of circumstances. Habba Khatoon essentially is a typical example of such a woman who cannot make any kind of compromise with life. In this predicament she could have turned a rebel, but, she instead of it, becomes a martyr by consent. This is exactly the most salient feature of Kashmiri womanhood. Towards the closing years of her life, Habba does express her remorse for not compromising with the life as it is, but fashioning it according to her imagination; none the less in the same breath she admits that missed opportunities need not be recalled. She does indicate the ‘Achilles Heel’ of her personality-to rule only and not to get ruled:-

“I, Habba Khatoon, is definitely sorry for not adapting myself submissively to the moonish caprices or my lover. I do recaptulate those missed opportunities, but it is now too late to atone for these; therefore, You, my lover! should not be cross with me.”

A sense of guilt seems to haunt this love-lorn lady, but at the same time her self-willed nature dismisses this weight on her heart by taking refuge under the excuse that race is already run. This subdued expression of penitence does portray her loud thinking in unguarded moments, but like a wakeful artist, she cancels it in the second breath. She does not flop, as the idiom goes.

Habba’s songs are musical in essence and pathetic in spirit. She has also been acclaimed as a melody-queen of Kashmiri poetry. Her popularity is also due to the fact that her songs are not only a replica of Kashmiri sentiments but also a potent vehicle of Kashmiri music. Her originality in this sphere is undisputed. Even though she has appropriated a sizable chunk of Persian words and Persian similes, yet she has refrained from owning Persian code on metres. She has in their place introduced home-spun Kashmiri melodies pertaining to rhyme and rhythm in her quartrains.

Therefore, her songs self-contained in each quartrain can be more profitably compared with the ‘Vaks’ of Lalleshwari or ‘Shruks’ of Nund- Reshi from the style-point of view only. These cannot be classed under ‘Gazal’ or ‘Nazam’ of Persian metries, despite the fact that Habba has a tendency to repeat refrains.

Therefore, it is not without reason that ‘Mahjoor’- the doyen of Kashmiri romantic poets, has dealt a dig at one of his celebrated predecessors- Rasul Mir in this pregnent verse, for not paying well-deserved compliment to Habba Khatoon.

“Rasul Mir of Shahabad has profusely alluded to the moon of Qandhar; Why has he been averse to the moon (Zoon, Kashmiri) of Chandrahar?”

(coutesy of  Prof. K. N. Dhar
Shri Parmanand Research Institute
Srinagar, Kashmir )

Below A  biographical note on Prof. Kashi Nath Dar

Prof. Kashi Nath Dhar (1923-1984)

Prof. Kashi Nath Dhar was born on 24th November, 1923 in the Rahbaba-Sahib locality in Srinagar, to Pt. Sarvanand Dhar and Shrimati Kamlavati Dhar. He did his initial schooling and B.A. from Srinagar, after which he went to Lahore (Pakistan) to pursue higher education. He completed his M.A. (Sanskrit) from D.A.V. College, Lahore alongwith the famous Hindi writer Shri Mohan Rakesh.

After returning from Lahore in 1946, he joined as a Lecturer in the Sanskrit Department at the the Govt. College, Poonch. However Pooch was under siege by the Pakistani forces in 1947 Indo-Pak war, and this was a period of great difficulty for him. After the war ended he resumed his teaching and research as a lecturer at S.P. College, Srinagar. Here he also completed his M.A. (Hindi) privately from Punjab University. After working at the Govt. College, Sopore for a while, he was transferred to Amar Singh College, Srinagar, where he served till his retirement.

Prof. Dhar was actively involved in numerous literary and social organizations from his early years as a student. Late Shri T. N. Kaul, sub-editor of The Times of India and his close friend since childhood revealed that Prof. Dhar wrote short stories in Urdu and published a handwritten magazine called “Torchlight” during his early days. He edited a number of magazines during his college period and was the Chief Editor of “Kashyap”, a magazine published by the Kashmir Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, for which he wrote sharp and insightful editorials during his stint there. He was also in the editorial team of another magazine called “Neelja”, published by the J&K National Language Promotion Organisation. He acted as a director of the Shardapeeth Parmanand Research Centre in Srinagar, and published various research works upon the important historical literary works. His contributions regularly featured on Radio and Doordarshan also.

He had an equal command on Hindi and Sanskrit as on Kashmiri, Urdu and English. His collective literary works in the alluded languages bear testimony to the fact. He had an interest in poetry also and liked to participate in debates. He also served in the editorial board of the Kashmiri-Hindi-English dictionary commissioned by the Central Govt. of India.

His contribution in the research in the cultural heritage of Kashmir alongwith various translations and commentaries on Kashmiri and Sanskrit ancient texts and historical works is exemplary and a constant source of inspiration for all. He left his mortal remains on 11 April, 1984 at the age of 61.

Literary Works

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Shrivar’s Jain Rajtarangini (English)
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Nilmat Puran (Hindi Translation)
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NundRishi-A Rosary of Hundred Beads(English)
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Nund Rishi Influence On Kashmiri Mysticism(English)
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Vasugupt ShivSUtras(English)
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Abhinavgupt’s Parmarth Sar (English Translation)
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Panchstavi (A commentary in English)
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Kashmir- Sanskriti aur Sahitya Ke parivesh Mein (Hindi)
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Sanskrit Chronicals and Sultans Of Kashmir (English)
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Saint Of All Times- Bhagwaan Gopinaath Ji (English)

Publications

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Hinduism In Kashmir
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Mysticism In Kashmiri Poetry
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Rishi Cult Of Kashmir

J&K Academy of Art, Culture  and Languages published many of his works in Kashinath Dhar Rachnavali under the aegis of Prof. Chaman Lal Sapru.

(Courtesy: Sh. Vishakh Bhan)