Preface

Kashmiri, in spite of its richness and its significance as a repository of common human experience and accumulated social wisdom, has not received the attention and recognition which other regional languages have deservedly and quite abundantly received. This balance is to be redressed precisely because the valley inhabited by its speakers has become a test case for preserving, strengthening and consolidating the values which are sought to be validated. No amount of economic amelioration, tinkering mechanical measures and efforts at face-lifting shall strike the chords if the deeper cravings of the people's soul are not hearkened to and there is no communication and interaction with the throbbing hearts of a wider public. This effort is all the more necessary and relevant when the people speaking this language are undergoing a harrowing and chastening experience; perhaps no cynic the world over is so irremediably cynical as to ask the proverbial old-man to make the donkey ride him after all his efforts at being responsive to the behests of others made him only a butt of ridicule his shocked and the lacerated soul is not a spectacle for the sadists to gloat over. His trials and tribulations have left him mature, wiser and mellower, and he is to be received as such, not as the 'prodigal son' received out of pity by the pitying father as an act of noblesse oblige; that will be abhorrent to a proud soul. Nobody for that matter is wiser than wisdom itself. He has given and is capable of giving more.

This modest effort of presenting the English translation of selected Kashmiri short stories has been inspired with this end in view.

The short story writers need no introduction as they stand in their own rights as the men who love their people they treat of and share their grief’s and sorrows. They would deem their lives lived fully, meaningfully, and well, if the human being comes to his own.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Shafi Shauq of the University of Kashmir for his unstinted assistance in making the maternal available, its compilation and other tiring details. I am thankful to my friend Mr. Mohammad Maqbool for his help in preparing the type script of a part of the manuscript

Finally, I would like to my wife Saleema, my son Shahnawaz and my daughter Sabba whose loving assistance has enabled me to complete the Book.

April 1995
M Siddiq Beig
Gulab Bagh, Srinagar-6