Remembering Rasool Mir

On World Poetry Day, as UNESCO's call to honour poets and preserve linguistic heritage echoes globally, my mind drifts to the immortal poet of my area-Rasool Mir Shahabadi, a poet whose name is whispered with reverence. Born around 1840 in the Mir Mohalla of Mirmaidan, Dooru Shahabad, Anantnag Rasool Mir's life-though tragically brief, ending around 1870-burned with a creative fire that forever altered Kashmiri literature. Misattributed by many that he lived near Khanqahi Faiz Panah shrine, the truth is different, his true roots lie in the Mir clan of Mirmaidan, Doru, a fact etched into the weathered wooden homes and cobbled paths of his ancestral neighbourhood, where his clan still reside today.

My earliest memories of Rasool Mir are painted in the vibrant hues of childhood wonder. Each year, our school celebrated Rasool Mir Day with a zeal and zest that transformed classrooms into stages. Debates crackled with energy, quizzes tested our knowledge of his couplets, and rehearsals of his poems filled the air. I was in the class 2^nd when I first stumbled upon his verse “Rinde Poosh Maal Gindenay Draee Lolo”. The rhythmic cadence of the words, sung by a group of girl students, captivated me.“Who wrote this?” I asked my teacher, expecting a living name.“Rasool Mir!” she replied, as though invoking a saint. After returning from the school that evening, I sprinted home to my father, who, with a playful wink without telling the truth, declared,“Rasool Mir is our neighbour!” He even recited one of his famous couplet.

Yi Chu Rasool Mir Shahabad Dooray

Tami Chu Trovmut Ashiqeh Dukaan

Yeveh Aashqow Cheveh Tor-Re Tor-Ray

Meh Chu Mooray Lalvun Naar

Here stands Rasool Mir at Shahabad Dooru,
Where a tavern of love he opens anew.
Come, O lovers, drink deep from the chalice,
For the fiery flames of love burn through me, true.

The next morning, during rehearsals, an elderly man arrived, Ghulam Jeelani Mir Sahab, a descendant of the poet and former village head. He corrected a misrecited line and I, wide-eyed, believed I'd witnessed Rasool Mir himself as last night my father had told me that Mir is our neighbour. Racing home, I breathlessly announced,“Rasool Mir visited our school!” My mother, with tender amusement, shattered the illusion:“He died 127 years before you were born.” The revelation struck like a summer storm. When my mother gently explained that Rasool Mir had passed away long before I was born, my young heart shattered. Tears streamed down my cheeks-a blend of betrayal and grief-as I grappled with the idea that the poet I believed was my neighbour existed only in whispers of the past. Sensing my anguish, my father, with his quiet wisdom, took my hand and led me on a tour to Mir Mohalla, a mere 50 meters from our home.

There, time folded into itself. Before me stood a weathered building of creaking wooden planks which belong to the clan of Rasool Mir, its facade etched with decades of sun and rain. The ground floor buzzed with the hum of shops-tailors stitching, bakers kneading, vendors calling and barbers trimming-while one wing housed the Government Middle School Mirmaidan famously known as“Muqdam School”. My father guided me deeper into the labyrinth of the Mohalla, through narrow lanes where sunlight filtered like gold dust.“This,” he murmured,“is where Rasool Mir walked, wrote, and dreamed.”

The air felt heavy with ghosts of poetry. I traced my fingers over the grooves of ancient wood, imagining the poet's hand on the same beams. In that moment, the boundary between past and present blurred. Though just seven years old, I felt the weight of legacy settle on my small shoulders. By the time we returned home, my tears had dried into awe.

The next morning, I marched to school, chest puffed with pride. To my wide-eyed classmates, I became a storyteller-a keeper of secrets.“I've seen his house!” I declared, recounting the wooden planks, the school's chalk-dusted windows, the very air that once held his breath. For a fleeting moment, Rasool Mir lived again-not in verses or textbooks, but in the wide-eyed wonder of children.

Years melted into decades, but Rasool Mir's presence never faded. As I grew older, his name blossomed from a local tale into a cultural monument. He is celebrated as the“Keats of Kashmir”-a title that mirrors his lyrical intensity-and revered as“Imam-e-Ishqiya Shayri” (the sage of romantic verse), a beacon for generations of Kashmiri poets who've dipped their pens in the ink of his influence. His verses, once confined to recitals, now echo in academic corridors, Sufi gatherings, and the quiet hum of lovers' whispers.

Driven by pride and curiosity, I plunged into the labyrinth of his life. Maturity had sharpened my questions. Who was Rasool Mir beyond the myths? Did his bloodline still pulse through our neighbourhood? I interviewed elders with memories as fragile as autumn leaves, and traced oral histories that twisted like village alleys. Yet, the poet's descendants remained phantoms. A neighbour claimed Mir's two sons had migrated to Banihal long ago, vanishing into the mist of time. No records, no graves, just rumours, fragile as cobwebs. The irony stung, the man who immortalized love in Kashmir's soul left no tangible thread to his own lineage. His legacy, like the Jhelum River, flows unseen in some places, surges boldly in others but never truly dries.

Rasool Mir carved his name into the annals of Kashmiri poetry not merely through verses, but by forging a linguistic alchemy uniquely his own. His genius lay in the meticulous selection and fusion of words-Persian elegance woven into Kashmiri earthiness; mystic abstraction tethered to visceral emotion. To read him is to navigate a labyrinth: his poems, dense with layered metaphors and philosophical depth, challenge even seasoned scholars. Yet this very complexity rendered his work inimitable. While many poets borrowed from tradition, Rasool Mir became tradition-a standard against which Kashmiri lyricism is measured.

Celebrated as the“Keats of Kashmir”, the title transcends mere comparison. Like Keats, Mir possessed an almost supernatural insight into human frailty and desire. His exploration of romance was not monochromatic; it spanned the spectrum from earthly passion to divine yearning. He is the first Kashmiri poet who introduced Kashmiri Gazals. In his ghazals, love is a paradox-a destructive flame and a redemptive force, a personal ache and a universal truth. This multidimensionality, coupled with his psychological acuity, cemented his place as“Imam-e-Ishqiya Shayri”-the master/pioneer of romantic verse.

A defining chapter of his legend unfolded in his youth, during a fateful encounter with Mehmood Gami, the towering poet-sage of the era. Drawn by Gami's renown, young Rasool Mir ventured into a mehfil (poetic gathering), where the air thrummed with reverence. Gami, seated like a mystic monarch amidst disciples, was immersed in meditation as singers performed. Mir, the unassuming newcomer, sat transfixed, his soul swaying to the rhythm of the ghazals.

When the song ended, Gami's gaze fell on the unfamiliar face glowing with silent intensity. Summoning the boy, he asked,“Who are you?” Rasool Mir, trembling yet resolute, introduced himself. Gami, intrigued, invited him to recite. Hesitation gripped Mir-here was a colossus of poetry, and he, a sapling. But courage prevailed. He recited his verses, each word a brushstroke painting world.

The room stilled. Gami, renowned for his stoicism, sat wide-eyed. The verses-crafted with a maturity belying Mir's youth-were flawless. Thematic depth, structural precision, emotional resonance-all hallmarks of a master. Gami, uncharacteristically speechless, finally murmured to his disciples: “Amis Cheh Jaaneh Margi Hind Kairan” (This boy will not live long). The prophecy, chilling yet poetic, stemmed from a belief that such perfection, achieved in boyhood, defied nature's balance. A soul so luminous, he implied, was destined to burn briefly. This encounter, etched into oral histories, reveals Rasool Mir's duality: a prodigy who mastered life's profundities in a handful of years, yet remained tethered to mortality. His early death, as Gami foresaw, transformed him from a poet into a myth-a comet whose fleeting blaze still illuminates Kashmir's literary sky.

While Rasool Mir's romantic poetry earned him the title“Imam-e-Ishqiya Shayri”, his true genius lies in the mystic undercurrents that ripple through his verses-a dimension often overshadowed yet radiant with spiritual profundity. Beyond the sighs of earthly lovers, Mir's pen danced with divine longing, crafting poems that transcend time and dogma. His Sufi ethos, steeped in the quest for union with the Infinite, pulses through lines where love is not merely human passion but a sacred dialogue with the cosmos.

Sufis and scholars alike regard his mystic verses as masterpieces of Kashmiri literature, believing Mir attained a spiritual zenith few poets ever reach. His work is not just art; it is a revelation-a mirror reflecting the soul's journey from mortal confines to eternal truth. Two couplets, inscribed on his tombstone, encapsulate this transcendent vision:

Kad Choon Alif, Laam Zulf, Meem Dahaan Tchuie,
Pur Aqaleh Sabak Shakleh Alim Laam Nigaroo.

Your stature is like Alif, your locks resemble Laam, and your lips are as beautiful as Meem.
O beloved, your form is a divine script, and my soul has witnessed its sacred essence.

Here, Mir merges the Arabic alphabet with celestial metaphor. Alif , the first letter, symbolizes the upright, God-conscious human; Laam mirrors cascading locks, embodying worldly beauty; Meem evokes the curve of a lover's lips. Together, they spell Alif laam -“the Knower” or Divine-a sublime play on script and spirit. Together, this first couplet speaks of divine beauty, the sacred allure of the beloved, and the wisdom of recognizing this beauty on a higher, spiritual level. The poet uses the Arabic alphabet as metaphors to evoke the divine and the connection between spirituality and physical beauty.

Rasul Tchu Zaenith Deen-o-Mazhab Rukh Ti Zulf Cheen

Kaw Zaani Kya Gow Kufur Tie Islam Nigaroo.

My faith is captivated by your face and hair, leaving me in awe.
What is disbelief, and what is Islam, when your presence transcends all understanding?

In these lines, Mir dismantles the binaries of religion. The beloved's beauty-both face (rukh) and curls (zulf)-obliterates the boundaries between kufr (disbelief) and Islam (faith). For Mir, divine love exists beyond labels; it is a force that renders dogma meaningless. To the Sufi, this is fanaa-the annihilation of self in the Beloved-where rituals dissolve into rapture. It discusses the intense spiritual and emotional struggle of the lover who is so deeply enamored by the beloved (who symbolizes the divine or spiritual truth) that it confounds religious distinctions. The poet implies that such intense love might transcend the boundaries of religious practice, where the beloved represents the ultimate spiritual attraction, and the lover feels caught between devotion to the beloved and the question of spiritual purity.

These verses are not mere poetry; they are portals. Mir's mysticism challenges readers to see the sacred in the sensuous, the eternal in the ephemeral. His words echo the Sufi credo:“Wherever you turn, there is the Face of God.” Yet, as he warns,“every eye may not be perceptible”-only those attuned to the unseen can grasp the layers beneath his metaphors.

It is a harsh but prevailing misconception that all Sufi poets are illiterate, yet this is far from the truth. In the case of Rasool Mir, his adept use of metaphors in poetry clearly illustrates that he was an educated individual, well-versed in the literary traditions and intellectual currents of his time. His poetry is rich with intricate metaphors, such as the “Kandhar Zoon” (moon of Kandhar), which not only reflect his deep understanding of Persian and Kashmiri poetic traditions but also show his awareness of global cultural and literary influences. The moon, often symbolizing divine beauty and unattainable perfection, is a metaphor widely used in Sufi poetry across regions. Rasool Mir's use of such imagery demonstrates that he was not only familiar with the local literary landscape but was also attuned to the intellectual currents of the wider world. Due to space constraints, I could not include specific couplets, but these metaphors reveal that Rasool Mir's education and knowledge were far-reaching, integrating both regional and global literary influences into his work.

It is a bitter irony that Rasool Mir, Kashmir's poetic titan, remains a stranger in his own land. The bulk of literature celebrating his genius has been penned by outsiders-scholars from distant cities, historians in ivory towers-while his hometown, Dooru Shahabad, has watched in silence. Despite being home to educators and intellectuals, the village has failed to honour its prodigal son beyond token gestures. A tombstone stands as a mute relic, and annual cultural programs-flashy yet hollow-reduce his legacy to performative rituals. Children today, though bright-eyed and curious, know Rasool Mir as a name in textbooks, not as the heartbeat of their heritage.

UNESCO's World Poetry Day (March 21), established in 1999 to revive poetic traditions and safeguard linguistic diversity, offers a mirror to our neglect. While the world unites to celebrate verse, Shahabad's apathy reflects a broader malaise: we have outsourced our cultural memory. The poet who immortalized our valleys, rivers, and longing now belongs more to academia than to the soil that nurtured him. This is not just about Rasool Mir-it is about every local legend fading into oblivion. Festivals and tomb renovations are meaningless if children cannot recite a couplet, if parents cannot recount how his words once healed broken hearts, or if teachers reduce his mysticism to exam footnotes. Heritage is not preserved in marble; it lives in the stories we tell, the songs we sing, and the pride we instill.

On this World Poetry Day, let us pledge to rewrite this narrative. Parents: Replace bedtime screens with bedtime couplets. Teachers: Turn classrooms into mehfils where students dissect wisdom word of our ancestors. Institutions: Digitize oral histories, translate verses of local celebrated personalities into global tongues, and collaborate with artists to reimagine his work. The stakes are existential. In an age of algorithm-driven amnesia, we risk losing not just our legends, but a piece of our soul. To forget our ancestors is to surrender our identity; to celebrate him is to armour our future.

UNESCO's vision was clear: poetry is not a relic-it is resistance. Let people of Kashmir rise again and save their heritage this time particularly people of Shahabad should rise from its slumber. Let Rasool Mir's ghazals echo in kitchens, fields, and WhatsApp statuses. Let his tombstone be more than a photo op-let it be a pilgrimage for poets, a classroom under the sky. For in the end, heritage is not inherited-it is chosen. And on this day, we choose to say: No more. No more outsourcing our pride. No more reducing legends to hashtags. From Shahabad to Srinagar, let Rasool Mir's words become the anthem of a generation that refuses to let its roots wither.

Views expressed are the author's own

The Author is M.Tech Infrastructure Development & Management, Member IAENG and ASCE, Researcher Contracts & Planning belongs to Mirmaidan Anantnag which was the home place of Rasool Mir

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