‘One cannot crossexamine the dead’
The author looks at the life of the Kashmiri-American poet, who was a prominent voice against injustice
1 When did you fall in love with Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry?
I must have been around 15 when I first read Shahid. I instantly fell in love with his poetry. I remember reading poems like A Rehearsal of Loss and The Dacca Gauzes and before I knew it, Shahid had taken a hold of me. There was something ineffable about his language, something indescribable. Although I started recognising the political content in his poetry only in my late teens, it shaped my understanding of the world in so many ways. I think I responded to his poetry, particularly to The Country Without a Post Office, so viscerally not just because of the politics but the aesthetic beauty and what his language evoked.
2 Tell us about the events that led to you taking on the role of his biographer?
The first time the thought crossed my mind was around 2016. I’d just moved to Delhi for my Master’s degree in English literature at Ambedkar University. That was the period when I started reading beyond Shahid’s poetry because my research papers, my dissertation, all of it was about his poetry. I discovered this witty, interesting and often irreverent person behind all those poems, and in a week, I ended up reading everything there was about him. I soon realised that here you had this world-renowned poet who had lived an extremely interesting life, who had died long ago but apart from some essays and interviews, there wasn’t much about him. It was very strange. The more I discovered about Shahid, the clearer it became to me that, along with his poetry, his life too deserved to be celebrated. I wanted to know more about Shahid, to understand him better, to explore how his life had shaped his works. This book was a result of curiosity and in a way, I simply wrote the book that I wanted to read all those years ago.
3 Your book describes Shahid as a tough taskmaster when it came to giving feedback to his students on their writing. What do you think he might have said about your book?
I’m fairly certain I would have received my manuscript from him highlighted all over with bright red markings, along with a furious but well-spirited note asking me to rewrite the manuscript, work on the language. Shahid was an incredibly warm person, but he never minced words or compromised when it came to writing.
4 Shahid is usually described as a Kashmiri-American poet and not as a gay poet or a Muslim poet. Would it be appropriate to read this as an act of erasure?
It certainly wasn’t an act of erasure. Shahid chose to call himself a Kashmiri-American. That’s how he placed himself geographically and culturally. I don’t think he even wanted to highlight this particular identity as a poet. In fact, he once said that all designations were fine because, one way or another, they were all true. He had no objections if such designations were “used in larger ways”, but he did say that if they were being used to pigeonhole him, then he wasn’t interested in them.
Mount Everest is a very personal expedition in many ways. The battle is personal!