Question

Note making of the chapter "the ghat of the only world"

Answer 1

The Ghat of the only world is a friend’s tribute to a friend almost in the manner of the Romantic Essayists in which the writer Amitav Ghosh recollects all the memories of his beloved friend namely Aga Shahid Ali.
Shahid was suffering from a malignant brain tumor at the beginning of the story. When he could see nothing, his words appeared to be a moving epitaph, “I hope this doesn’t mean that I’m dying…” And a few words later, his wish moved his friend too, “When it happens I hope you’ll write something about me.”Agha Shahid Ali, an expatriate from Kashmir asks Amitav Gosh to write something about him and his poetry when he dies. The unusual request shocks and pains Amitav. He could think of nothing to say for a while. He searches the words in which one promises a friend that one will write about him after his death. Finally, he agrees and expresses his mind that he will definitely write about him. Shahid leaves this world December 8, 2001. An indomitable emptiness fills the author’s mind.“So brief a friendship” results in “so vast a void”.Both Shahid and Shahid -“witness and martyr”- mingled and melted into eternity. Now, in order to fulfill his pledge, Amitav Gosh responds with this beautifully warm piece of writing in which he talks not only about the world of Agha Shahid Ali’s verse but also about his personal experience of shared moments with him. Thus, it is a homage to Aga Shahid; a poignant obituary that presents to us a very poignant vision of this is a deeply emotional response to respect a friend’s desire to write something about him after his death.
“The Ghat of the Only World” is actually the title of the famous poem written by Aga Shahid Ali The Country Without Post-office in the collection of his poems Rooms are Never Finished. In this poem, the poet remembers all his beloved ones who have journeyed into another world. He remembers his mother, the famous Gazal singer, Begins Akhter, his friend, Iqbal Ahmad and James Merrill, a famous poet. Basically, the poem is written in response to the poet’s knowledge of his approaching death. He feels that his beloved ones Hospitalare calling him from the other world. Ghat is an Urdu word also used in Hindi which means a place at a river bank from where the boats depart with passengers to the other side. Ghat is used as a metaphor for death and the only world symbolizes the man’s life on this earth and Ghat is the bank ( point of death) which takes the man to the other world.

Answer 2

note making of the chapter the ghat of the only world