Window to Gilgit-Baltistan

By  Syed Jamiluddin   REGARDLESS of pertinence or relevance to the subject matter, the great inspiration drawn from Abdul Khaliq Taj’s sterling composition with the haunting refrain ‘kachak bosomet’ – an impassioned utterances ejaculating from his seething heart – as true and faithful indices of his furtive and feeling heart – makes something one cannot help referring to. The poem literally enthrals all lovers of peace and those staunchly believing in pluralism, prompts its particular mention. In this composition, he poured out his aching heart on feeling jolted, tossed and unnerved to the very fiber, by the unsavory happenings, cried out thus, a couple of years back. Remarkably marvelous and marvelously vivid, the poem vibrates with the feeling of longing. The poet was seen reciting this at the residence of Ghulam Abbas poetically surnamed Nasim, at Danyore couple of years ago which was instantly aired by local cablenetwork. As abhorrent all poets are of the disruptive an...

By  Syed Jamiluddin   CULTURALLY SPEAKING, Chitral and Kohistan form parts of Gilgit-Baltistan whilst intra-regionally, the people living here in G-B, despite ostensible dialectic difference, are of the same origin in strict ethnological context. As becoming very well discernible from a piece containing research of Abdul Khaliq Taj, famous poet of Gilgit adept in both Shina and Urdu poetry, some people from Kohistan, Chilas and Gilgit migrated to Chitral from their permanent abodes for one reason or the other and eventually got settled there. Likewise, a few from the latter emigrated to Chilas, Ghizar and Gilgit taking their abode in these parts. Thus this diasporas in Chitral came to speak Gilgiti-Khowar while the migrant Chitralis of Gilgit, Chilas and Ghizar speak what is called Chitrali-Shina or both. Significantly, there is commonality or to put it, identity among all of them in terms of poetry, music, dance and other allied customs and conventions as the enlightening ...

By  Syed J amiluddin   UNLIKE all other contemporary researches assiduously undertaking to unearth origin of Shina language, Mazhar Ali – a Gilgit-based intellectual of great acumen, poet and lexicographer – has embarked on a stupendous work that justifiably brings him to the limelight virtually singling him out for the sublimity of thought and uniqueness of style in an attempt to traces the origin of this language to the very fiber dating as far back as times immemorial – something heretofore remained adumbrated. As also portrayed continually through the brain-storming sessions being held, he aptly thrashes out and extrapolates in a very much convincing credible manner that Shina is not at all a language drawing on or borrowing from others and instead, it has the attributes if having a firm base of its own from an ancient era on which all other linguistic groups have all along been squarely dependent. Thus he is truly boastful of Shina as mother-language in terms of its ...