Agha Shahid Ali- Bridge Builder of Cultures and Poetic Forms
SRINAGAR: At three-day National Seminar Agha Shahid Ali: Tradition and Modernity, organised by Department of English, University of Kashmir there was almost a near total consensus on late poet being the bridge builder of cultures across continents.
While elucidating this point Prof Hameedah Nayeem of the Kashmir University said that Shahid seamlessly floats from one culture to another, from one continent to another with natural ease because of having been brought up in a rich multicultural ethos and having lived in various cultural spaces.
His translation of various cultural significations is assimilative as it generates cultural sympathy rather than clash. The co-mingling of various cultural strands and the resultant melange becomes a throbbing symbol of pristine and primal human culture and defies all the borders and boundaries on the landscape of mind and spirit which in its core is a sort of mystic attitude to the world without being a practising mystic, she observed.
She further said, Shahids celebration of difference does not stop him from having a controlling consciousness which time and again return s to a vibrant centre, his motherland for emotional sustenance, cultural capital and of course subject matter.
The seminar concluded with the resolve that the presentations will be brought out in a book form which could become an important reference point for future scholars working on multidimensional poetry of Agha Shahid Ali.
Around 20 papers were presented which carried out a critical inquiry into various aspects of Shahids poetry.
Besides academic presentations, glowing tributes were paid to the memory of Shahid in various art forms, poetry , music , painting , film and by playing the recorded conversation with Shahids brother, Agha Iqbal Ali about his childhood memories of Shahid and the reception of his poetry in America.
The film based on The Country Without A Post Office called Rizwan was screened which is made by Abeshek Majumdar and has already been shown in various European countries.
Most of the presenters focused on Agha Shahids articulation of a multicultural consciousness in addition to his chronicling the military and cultural onslaught on the people of his motherland put across in very difficult art forms.
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