Agha Ali Shahid's poetic journey started from the mesmerising Kashmir valley. He re-imagined and re-employed the tradition of Urdu ghazal and successfully mixed it with the English poetic forms. He is responsible for not only enriching English language with his poetic sensibility, but also for creating favourable circumstances in the 'Transatlantic Diaspora' traditions, so that it re-introduced ghazal to the English eyes and ears.

Shahid relocated himself in American landscape, using ghazal as a conduit for his literary identity. As a natural corollary to this effort, the poet is inspired to write 'Urduised' English ghazals. Shahid transmutes the poetic consciousness of Urdu language and juxtaposes it with postcolonial American-Asian immigrant consciousness. This endeavour is a homage to the creative ego of the poet and a service to the international body of poetry.

Inarguably, Shahid's sensibility was shaped and stamped by an interminable wave of violence in Kashmir. The daily pangs of a common Kashmiri and the politician's indifference stands in contrast to the bewitching splendour of the valley. Far from being an essentialist observer, Shahid also speaks in subtle ironies and sustained metaphors as he translates the political predicament of Kashmir. Induced by other international geographical and racial conflicts, he wistfully recalls his absence from his homeland while living in the urban environ of Massachusetts.

Since Shahid is well-steeped in the tradition of Urdu ghazal and language, writing ghazal in English becomes not only an experimental feat, but also an exercise in dual literary traditions. He merges the inherent spontaneity in ghazal with the realism of the Western poetry. His approach is unique, comprising a subjective love for romantic detailing and adroitly, followed by figurative flourishes like epigrams and synecdoche -- a quintessential characteristic of English poetry.

Shahid's first few volumes -- In Memory of Begum Akhtar and Other Poems (1979), and Bone Sculpture (1972) -- were published in India. In his early poems. the speaker is a naive and confessional observer of reality anticipating a space for re-location. Though the poet has not yet left his native land, the imagery is reflective of a mind prepared to use a range of languages and forms:

"I am a dealer in words

That mix cultures

And leave me rootless:

This is an excellent trade

I swear

Dear Editor

I have hopes

Hopes which assume shapes in

Alien territories."

It is not surprising that once Shahid left India and relocated in the United States, the desire for reclaiming roots became more obvious and ghazal swayed over his imagination both as a reminder and reference to the past. He revisits ghazal as if he is receding into his past. Once personified as the rich poetic tradition in the decadent centres of Urdu poetry in the subcontinent, ghazal is now garbled in English Language for American and international audience. Often the poet captures the daily trivia of life in the US through ghazals, but in Urdu the same form is used for dramatising the romantic poetics of the lovers.

Shahid observes all the technical rules of ghazal, such as qafia (mid line rhyme) and radif (end line refrain), even in English. He also names himself in the last line (maqta). The poet usually uses his name in second or third person and includes the reader in his imagined world. References to one's own self is the formalistic centre of the ghazal. Shahid says:"Ghazals are first and foremost about my feelings, whether from a distant past or from yesterday, that I need to put into form with special meaning to me." Such is the devotion and love for the form that Shahid remained committed to infusing ghazal with English language. By writing ghazals in English, he demonstrated the incontestable and monolithic form of ghazal. Western writers, on the other hand, were only able to produce accidental moderate imitations:

"Ghazal, that death-sustaining

widow

Sobs in dingy archives, hooked to you.

She wears her grief, a

moon-soaked white,

Corners the sky in disbelief."

The poet not only laments the slow death of a once most cherished form, but also uses the same form for the contemporary reality, as bloodshed continues in the Valley after the subcontinent's partition. Urdu language is 'owned' by Pakistan, but Urdu poetry remains suspended among the poets across the border. Ghazal suffered little at the hands of the partition, but inchoated the ethnic and religious strife. In the poem Learning Urdu, Shahid tells the story of his mother tongue divided between India and Pakistan: "Across the line of blood my friends dissolved." "The line of blood" is the political line dividing Kashmir. The poet empathises with his fellow Urdu poets writing ghazals across the border.

In 1975, Shahid came to the US and lived there until his death by cancer on Dec 8, 2001. During his sojourn in the US, he wrote his most poignant poems, frequently narrating human predicaments, dilemmas and new associations, and dwindling past acquaintances. Amid the whirlwinds of multiculturalism, ghazal remains intact and the poet re-invigorates himself by recalling the native places. Postcard from Kashmir is the token poem of the first volume, titled The Half-Inch Himalayas and published in the US in 1987. The title informs of the poet's recent geographical dislocation, while India's topography is rock solid and cordoned by imperious and colossal Himalayas.

"Kashmir shrinks in my

mailbox

My home a neat four by six

inches."

Urdu ghazal is not a pliant genre that can easily be translated into other languages. The form of ghazal is intrinsically unified and the inherent structural coherence is likely to dissipate in the translation. Orientalists Sir William Jones, EG Brown and Ralph Russell translated the classical Urdu ghazals for the English-speaking readers. Ghazal, it has been discovered, cannot breathe in an alien language unless the creative writer is aesthetically acquainted with the genre.

Therefore, Shahid adhered to the formalistic rules faithfully, because he could identify the audience, tuned for the cadences of ghazal. It is in the mushaira that the ultimate destiny of ghazal is decided. Shahid is conscious of the fact that by writing ghazal, he is indeed forging links with the greater Eastern, Oriental and Arabic tradition:

"The only language of loss left

in the world is Arabic

These words were said to me

in a language not Arabic.

Ancestors,you've left me a

plot in the family graveyard

Why must I look,in your eyes,

for prayers in Arabic?"

Music, like poetry, can communicate before it is understood. Love of music is not contingent upon our understanding it. The intricacies of our classical music take years of study before we can grasp them, but you don't have to be a connoisseur of the technical subtleties of a musical system to savour it.

Johnny Patrick, a highly respected name amongst British musical arrangers once told me that it takes a violinist at least a year to be able to play the instrument by reading notes, five more years to qualify for a professional orchestra and six hours a day, minimum, for the rest of his life to play well.

When I mentioned to him that our musicians spent just as many years (if not more) in training before they were allowed to perform publicly by their mentor, he said, rather patronisingly, "Ah, but they don't have a score to study." What he implied was that our music was a medley of meandering melodies that could, in no way, match the eloquence of Western classical music.

It was mainly due to Yehudi Munuhin's strenuous efforts in the 50s of the last century that our music, performed by the two stalwarts, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, came to be taken seriously by the Western musical critics. Until that time the audiences in England still carried the hang-over of the colonisers who abhorred our music and talked about it in derisory terms. In all the accounts, journals, diaries and dispatches of the British colonisers you find that while there is a degree of charitableness shown towards local customs, traditions and manners, there is no tolerance for the music of India. It was sometimes described as a cacophony, not even fit for cats and dogs.

Times have changed. Our musicians now visit Europe and America regularly and their concerts (no longer relegated to drafty YMCA halls) are now not only well-attended by lovers of music but are reviewed by notable music critics in the 'Arts' pages of posh newspapers. Does it mean that these critics have now understood and absorbed the essence of our music? I am not entirely sure.

In vocal performance of a raga the rhythm of the composition and its tempo, pitch of the tonic, quality of the composition, calibre of the singer make all the difference in the aura that a raga creates. I do not agree with the musicologists who stipulate that any given raga is, inherently, either jolly or sad. "Ustad Abdul Karim Khan will sadden, and any raga sung by Ustad Nisar Hussain khan will gladden," writes Daud Rahbar.

Seriously though, every performance of a raga is a unique attempt. Gorukh Kalian is a raga which, for me, evokes an ineffable wistfulness, but when I listen to that estimable violinist, Dr Rajam's rendition, it makes me feel like skipping, barefooted, on a grassy lawn.

There is a curious myth that a classical recital (vocal or instrumental) must last at least an hour and a half to be meaningful. This has nothing to do with, our music. It is, if anything, a social custom, like marriages. The ritual of a marriage in our country takes hours to conclude. (Judging from the trend in the last few years the marriage ceremony between two well-off families lasts four to five days) while a Latvian or a Swiss is married in half an hour or less. Both live long and happy -- or miserable -- lives according to their lights.

Bare Ghulam Ali Khan once told his son, Munawar Ali Khan ( who mentioned this during a concert) that he did not believe that a performance had to last as long as it often did just as he did not believe that a human being had to live until he was eighty four to have lived at all. A performance could be meaningful and conclude only in twenty five minutes as in two hours. The musical experience is a timeless experience. Its timelessness is its chief contribution.

The notion, therefore, that a concert should last nearly two hours is not borne out by the nature of music. The length of a concert depends on the singer's attitude towards his art. If, pre-occupied mainly by the form of his art rather than the content, he could take hours. But this would be like a guide describing the history of every stone in a monument so that the tourist does not see the monument but is filled with its chronicles.

Among our classical musicians there are very few who make a break through into contemplative utterance. Most musicians reside on the flats and marshes of creation. Our musical performance is sublime only when a musician is inspired to make a note instantly redolent and personal. When a singer or an instrumentalist acquires the knack of commanding inspiration to be at his beck and call, the music he creates is connected to his internal universe. If that universe is fertile, the music becomes unique.

Music transports me to the realm of beyond. Some years ago I wrote an essay on my relationship with music in which I said that the two ragas which move me tremendously are Abhogi Kanra and Shree. Daud Rahbar, having read that piece in Florida, wrote to me, "Shree raga is sung during the twilight hour at the end of the day. According to Hindu musicologists the raga celebrates the victory of good over evil allegorised in the myth of victory of the God Ramchandra over the demon-king Ravana...The most resonant note of Abhogi, also a deeply devotional raga, is the fourth, aptly known among musicians as the moonlight (maternal) note in sharp contrast to the fifth which is the sunshine (masculine) note. True to the effeminate softness of Hindu devotions, it is best emulated by female singers."

Daud Rahbar is one of the most discerning musician-musicologists. What he doesn't know about our music is not worth knowing. It amused him to note that the two ragas suitable for Hindu devotions were loved by me.

I admit that I was embarrassingly superficial in my understanding of the theory of our music when I wrote about my abiding fondness for the two 'devotional' ragas. Until then I had not heard any female singer (or instrumentalist) perform these ragas. Having now heard the Mudgals of this world, I still contend that the definitive Abhogi Kanra that I have ever heard was rendered by the late Ustad Salamat Ali Khan and the definitive Shree By Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

Shree and Abhogi Kanra appeal to me not for their devotional undertones but for their sonority and sobriety, and for the stillness that hovers over their melodic structure. I know that this is a highly whimsical appraisal but the effect that a raga transpires in an individual is always subjective.