summary on the ghats of the only world.
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Writer Amitav Ghosh and poet Shahid Ali were friends for a little while.Shahid was dying with blood cancer and their friendship bloomed when one of them was dying.One day Shahid asked Amitav to write about him, his poetry and about his Kashmir after his death.It was an unusual request and quite confused pained, Amitav agreed.Shahid died, better say, his soul left his body at 2 A.M. on December 8.An unbridgeable emptiness filled the author’s mind.“So brief a friendship” resulted in “so vast a void”.Both Sháhid and Shahid – “witness and martyr” – mingled and melted into eternity.The author kept his promise. He wrote this article on Shahid Ali – “Ghat of the Only World.”
Starting – Shahid As a Poet
Shahid or Shahid Ali was a poet. Through his poems, through his melodious words and stunning sentences, he gave liberty to life to shake hands with death.Knowing the fact very well that time was limited, Ali opened his treasure-trove of enormous life force and tied Ghosh with the ropes of nostalgia.
Shahid’s Love for Kashmir
His words revealed the heat of the political lava during his stay in Kashmir.During this short period of their friendship Shahid had left some fabulous brushstrokes of an unambiguously different Kashmir.Even being a firm believer in the separation of politics and religious practice, he set apart the separatism, atrocities and violence that had already led the paradise to a paradise lost.When his childhood loitered about in the room of Srinagar, he fervently placed a desire of desires to his parents. It was but to establish a small Hindu temple inside his room.He was no pharisaic at all, even at the time of his standing on the burning atlas of Kashmir.With the passage of time, idols and other trappings were bought by his mother, and the innermost part of their house became the holiest place a temple.In this way, his house became a religious confluence of Hinduism and Islam.
Shahid’s love for Food
Even during his last stage of cancer with everything confirming his death, Shahid was able to enjoy food and talked about food.Whenever there was a party around, he attended it without failure.Was it to please his hunger or was it to please his companions, we do not know.
Shahid and Cancer
For Shahid Ali cancer was like a joke. He admitted it but never admitted his defeat to cancer.“Almost to the very end, even as his life was being consumed by his disease, he was the centre of a perpetual carnival, an endless mela of talk, laughter, food and of course, poetry.”He celebrated life that anybody could think he was defeating death day by day. But death builds no paradox.Shahid was suffering from cancer, some fourteen months at the beginning of the account.When he could see nothing, his words appeared to be a moving epitaph, “I hope this doesn’t mean that I’m dying…”
Shahid and Amitav
Amitav kept his promise, and opening into painful and tender memories with concealed skill, which hid his pain even from himself.Agha Shahid Ali was everything Amitav Ghosh lost and hence The Ghat of the Only World has been written to reincarnate him – to breathe life into their unbroken friendship.
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Summary Ghat of the Only World
‘The Ghat of the Only World’ written by Amitav Ghosh. The author has dedicated this chapter to commemorate Shaid’s greatness as a human being. Shahid wanted the narrator to write something about him after his fast approaching death.
Shahid had been diagnosed with brain tumor; his medication was going on. He had been operated a few times to relieve him of the consequences of the tumor; after the operations chemotherapy had been started. However, Shahid was not responding to chemotherapy positively and as per doctors’ expectations. So doctors decided to stop all medications. They clearly said Shahid had only a year to live. This news saddened all Shahid’s relatives and friends. The narrator was sad also.
Author, Amitav Ghosh had come in contact with Shahid through a common friend. Shahid and the author had studied at Delhi University. Their studying at the university had overlapped, but yet they had not been able to meet each other. Then in 1998 and 1999 author talked to Shahid on phone. However, he was able to meet him only after he moved to Brooklyn in 2000. There were many things common between Amitav Ghosh and Shahid Ali. They both had studied in the same university. Both of them liked rogan josh, Bombay films, Roshanara Begum, and Kishore Kumar; both of them did not like cricket. Besides, they had many common friends in India and America. Owing to these common tastes they were naturally drawn to each other.
Shahid decided to live the remaining numbered days of his life in the best possible manner. Quite frequently half-dozen or more people would gather at his apartment. There would be poetry, talks, singing, and discourses. Shahid would have delicious dishes cooked for his friends. Thus, there was always carnival at his apartment; and he was the center of this carnival.
Shahid was immensely fond of life’s all beautiful things, food included. As visitors would approach his door, aroma of rogan josh and haak would greet them. He loved cooking Kashmiri dishes and made them tasty by adding all the spices. He would often give directions to the cook in the kitchen to make the food tastier. Until the end of life, he enjoyed food and its fragrance. Shahid had a sorcerer’s ability to transmute the mundane into magical. Shahid was a very strong man. He had found a way out to keep himself alive in spite of the physical and mental pain of his illness. There was never an evening when there was not a party in his living room. He loved to be surrounded by people and friends. He loved that spirit of festivity as it meant he did not have any time to be depressed.
Contrary to general belief of people about the Muslim fanaticism, Shahid and his parents had quite secular ecumenical outlook on life. In his childhood Shahid’s parents not only allowed him to set up a small Hindu temple in his home, but his mother also bought him idols and other needed things to do the Pooja.
He loved Kashmir and wrote passionately about the issues related to Kashmir. He was content to be called a national poet but not an extreme nationalist. He had his own moderate views, which were not extreme at all. He believed in inclusion and pluralism. He liked other cultures and religions also.
It was his ardent desire to return to Kashmir and be buried there. However, owing to logistical reasons his wish remained unfulfilled.
Since Shahid’s malignant tumor was not responding to therapies and medications; doctors decided to stop all medication. Doctors gave him a few months’ time.
This great soul breathed his last on December 8, 2001, creating a void in his near and dear ones’ life.