how did the bond of friendship between shahid and the author grew?
From chapter "The Ghat of the Only World" (Ncert Hornbill)
Answers
Although Shahid and I had talked a great deal over the last many weeks, I had never before heard him touch on the subject of death. I did not know how to respond: his voice was completely at odds with the content of what he had just said, light to the point of jocularity. I mumbled something inocuous: “No Shahid – of course not. You’ll be fine.” He cut me short. In a tone of voice that was at once quizzical and direct, he said: “When it happens I hope you’ll write something about me.”
I was shocked into silence and a long moment passed before I could bring myself to say the things that people say on such occasions: “Shahid you’ll be fine; you have to be strong…”
From the window of my study I could see a corner of the building in which he lived, some eight blocks away. It was just a few months since he moved there: he had been living a few miles away, in Manhattan, when he had a sudden blackout in February 2000. After tests revealed that he had a malignant brain tumour, he decided to move to Brooklyn, to be close to his youngest sister, Sameetah, who teaches at the Pratt Institute - a few blocks, from the street where I live.
Shahid ignored my reassurances. He began to laugh and it was then that I realized that he was dead serious. I understood that he was entrusting me with a quite specific charge: he wanted me to remember him not through the spoken recitatives of memory and friendship, but through the written word. Shahid was unerring in his intuitions about people and he probably knew that my instincts would have led me to search for reasons to avoid writing about his death: I would have told myself that I was not a poet; that our friendship was of recent date; that there were many others who knew him much better and would be writing from greater understanding and knowledge. Shahid had decided to shut off these routes while there was still time.
“You must write about me.”
Clear though it was that this imperative would have to be acknowledged, I could think of nothing to say: what are the words in which one promises a friend that one will write about him after his death? Finally, I said: “Shahid, I will; I’ll do the best I can.”
By the end of the conversation I knew exactly what I had to do. I picked up my pen, noted the date, and wrote down everything I remembered of that conversation. This I continued to do for the next few months: it is this record that has made it possible for me to fulfill the pledge I made that day.
I knew Shahid’s work long before I met him. His 1997 Collection, The Country Without a Post Office, had made a powerful impression on me. His voice was like none I had ever heard before, at once lyrical and fiercely disciplined, engaged and yet deeply inward. Not for him, the mock-casual almost-prose of so much contemporary poetry: his was a voice that was not ashamed to speak in a bardic register. I could think of no one else who would even conceive of publishing a line like: ‘Mad heart, be brave.’
In 1998, I quoted a line from The Country Without a Post Office in an article that touched briefly on Kashmir. At the time all I knew about Shahid was that he was from Srinagar and had studied in Delhi. I had been at Delhi University myself, but although our time there had briefly overlapped, we had never met. We had friends in common however, and one of them put me in touch with Shahid. In 1998 and 1999 we had several conversations on the phone and even met a couple of times. But we were no more than acquaintances until he moved to Brooklyn the next year. Once we were in the same neighbourhood, we began to meet for occasional meals and quickly discovered that we had a great deal in common. By this time of course Shahid’s condition was already serious, yet his illness did not impede the progress of our friendship. We found that we had a huge roster of common friends, in India, America, and elsewhere; we discovered a shared love of rogan josh, Roshanara Begun and Kishore Kumar; a mutual indifference to cricket and an equal attachment to old Bombay films. Because of Shahid’s condition even the most trivial exchanges had a special charge and urgenc
The Ghat of the only World by Amitav Ghosh is a story about Agha Shahid who was a friend of the writer. The writer knew that his friend won't live long therefore, Shahid asks his friend to write about him when he will be dead. The author ought to keep his promise towards Shahid. Both the writer and Shahid studied in the same university that is in Delhi University. As Shahid belonged to Kashmir, in 1975 he moved to America and later Shahid's two sisters also joined later. The writer was impressed by the poems that were written by Shahid. Since then writer never met Shahid. Later from 1998 to 1999 they had frequent conversations and met sometimes. Suddenly one fine day in February 2000 Shahid faces a blackout. The reason of blackout was suggested to be due to cancer. Later in order to be close to his sisters, Shahid moved to Brooklyn and so writer also lived in Brooklyn few blocks away. In April the writer calls Shahid and reminds him about the lunch invitation they had from a friend.
Shahid spoke to the writer about his death that was approaching and asks the writer to write about him when he will be no more. Since then the writer kept track of all calls, meetings, and talks he had with Shahid. The writer became very close to Shahid since then. Shahid was admitted to hospital on 21 May 2001.
He became very weak and could hardly stand. The writer met Shahid last on 27 October and Shahid died on 8 December 2001. The writer feels the void without Shahid. While the writer walks into the living room he feels Shahid's presence.