Tha-rah tha-rah chham ma-rah sha-yad

shar meh ji-gu-rook drav-nai

Khosh yi-von nunda-bon, ve-si-yae

Myon dil-bar aav nai

I am all ashake, I may die/my heart’s wish has seen no fulfillment/that lovely, pleasing, my heart throb/he hasn’t come, ah Dear!

For the rest, there is his poetic legacy, and, ah again oral traditions. Oral traditions say, Rasul Mir was tall, handsome fair complexioned person, and sported moustaches that tapered far into the face. He was graceful, fashionable fellow, with a youthful heart that throbbed with love, love, and lots of love.

Yi chho Rasul Mir Shahabad Doo-rey

Tami chho trov-mut lo-la du-kaan

Yi-vu aash-qow che-vu tor-re tor-rey

Mai chho moor-rey la-la-vun naar.

Love, is the waft and whoop, the craft and creed of Rasul Mir(He lived love, sang love, and lives for his love-ful passion). Love, the first strings of human heart that present the whole universe as an undulating poem. Love is the creed, beloved is the god and lyrics rush forth in bubbling streams to worship the deity. Singing, sighing and singing again they cascade over the expanses of life, in undating it in its fervor.

Ze-h posha tu-l-i maeni aashq-a mas-jid

husn imam ta-th

Tsa-ae bae-ng-i shu-baan mokh-ta-e da-ae

Ch-e-i yous-faen-i chae-lee

My Loves’ mosque, is an edifice of just two petals, Love is the preist there, Ye pearly one art the caller there, Ye, who hath the Yousef’s grace. Mir’s beloved is grace personi fied Zeh posha tu-l (two petals, mere) the being of his, object of love, is characteristic of Rasul Mir’s’ dainty love.

Love, flowers, passion and fragrance, the eternal inciters of life and beauty, are a recurring motiff in his poetry.

Posha mal chham posh-a tu-l dda-ae lo-lo

Rinda posh-a-mal gin-da-ney dra-yi lo-lo

My beloved (Posh-a-mal) is but two and a half petals; lo, the gay love goes out to frolic.

Go ye my friend, fetch my lover here, A Jasmine, I have woven garlands for him

Veer-nag, I’ll go to usher thee,/Thy brow I’ll deck in flowers of Acha-bal/Yeh, vine I’ll twins thee to my breast/come ye kasturi, don’t roam the meadows free

Gani was a gifted poet, a master versifier, in love with Persian. His bequeath was distilled by Rasul Mir, who loved with heart, lived with heart, and sang from a love-ful heart. To a notority’

Rasul, even though you are infamous for your love of tulip lips, be happy, for seldom do the lovers complain of thy in-attention

Love was the task to which Rasul applied himself with abandon. Love, and beloved, a total world, with neither time nor space for the mundane.

For her hennaed naib I’ll give, pot-fuls of blood from under my throat, that tall beloved of mine, is attired in robes of scent Rasul. Mir is crying his heart, away, far in Dooru, oh love

My heart is not the love one, caged in that love/This is way, the path through which, not one but two worlds’ve gone

That face is the kaaba of beauty, her lashes layered over and over. In the path of love, it is meet to bow to those two brows

Ye tulip faced, thee I’d hold, by neck to heal my pain/sans thee, Rasul the flower bed, is a thorny seat for me

White are the robes, my Kamdev wears. His brow is adorned in flowers red, His path, I’d take in drunken stupor, go, tell my love of my pangs

Bride’s robes, would suit thee well, Ye, my beloved of short years/Thy braids of hair, thy ear rings/peep from beneath the gossamer cover

Come let us be friends, ye lovely beauty, listen to my laments, oh Henzi, come to see the mela and, we shall roam through Telbal)

The object of Rasul’s love is said to have been a Hindu belle of his village. Tales of their having gone to the same mak-tab, and fallen in love have been woven. His poems of love, will yield a thousand tales of prolicy dalliance and passionate love, with little effort. Probably, such soul-full poetry is not possible without a passionate love. You have only to read Mahmood Gani, to know the bubbling heart in Rasul Mir’s lyrics. Henzi-yani, Hindu girl, is an unmistakable refrain in Rasul Mir’s Poems.

How graceful the swans neck of henziyani looks, spare her from evil eyes, my Lord, Thy bounty, that won’t lessen, O God, Lo, the love goes on a frolicly outing

Whether the love was reciprocated or not is lost, like the details of Rasul Mir’s life, in the depths of past lost to us. It is also not clear whether the mentions would point to a specific person or an idealization of female beauty in the form of a Hindu-maiden (God lenons, they are beauty itself) Raza Henz-yan, passes into Kongi, into Poshmal, Soundermal, Padmaeni, Kostouri, Kongi Padmani, take the primal place, for full lyric ‘Kongi

I’ll look for you at Veernag, in the garb of an unknown mendicent, at Pooli, cheeni-gund, Drengi. Give me a glimpse, Kongi

This is a virtual topographical map of the area, where Rasul Mir lived. The compiler of Q. Kulyati Rasul Mir has avered that Poshmaal too is a probable name of the Henziyaen. Rightly so. And so are Sondermaal, Kastour, Padmaan, Shama, which repeatedly occur in his verses.

Like a tulip, my robe I’ll rent, and come forth; O Padmani, I’m thy loved, infamed by my love

My love, spurn not this Padmani, now for another occasion is not meet. My primal mate, my word I won’t break. How much shall I bear, ye pretender

My heart you’ve taken, trap not my body, O beautiful Shama, expose me not to..... I look for you at Veernag through Ram Nagri

Of course, all these proper nouns can be interpreted in adjectival sense, which every name in reality is Shama Sundri, can be dusky, Soundri, beautiful Shama, or a dusky beauty. And that point needs be made about, about Rasul Mir. For Rasul Mir is a poet of love, a poet par excellance even without any enchanting tales appended to him. He lives his heart out in love-ful lyrics, weaving patterns of beauty in the nunees of emale form and adornments, wringing out a resonance from every listening heart.

You stay away, my angry love, and here I sink from senses dear; My tears flow and wash all kajal from my eyes dear

Thee I’ll hold by neck, and squeuster away in heart like robe I’ll cling

My wise lover is enchanted; whence gone, how’d I know’ He is Yousef, himself is Zulaikhah; a lover he is undo his self, my dear.

Rasul Mir’s object of love, is an idealization rooted in the world of sights, smells and tastes. His flowery aspect is as enticing as the exuded fragrance is invigorating.

Jasmine, Iris narcissus too, looking at thee have withered away/Thine eyes are black, face is red and robes are of the whitest hue

Loves fire bored into the poppy, the moment they he-nnaed hands it saw. The wild rose is nursing its boils from burning, dear

The beloved is seen in a floral mien, or else as an ethereal beauty fashioned of the most sublime things around. It is a portraiture that’d brook no reservation for love, because it is formed of a bubbling love, seeking an end and fulfillment in form. Beauty reaches divinity as it progresses to perfection.

Like an Ivy caught in violets, a full moon trapped by pythons two; or a beauty of China wearing the sacred thread

Kari ro-gun dur-dan.

Like dew on a flower, are the drops of sweat on her face, or else starswalking over moon, that my high-necked love

The sun spied thy...Chandan face, and lost color/the moon there upon has been jaded and looks pale

You are talllike alif, thy locks are long like laam, and thy mouth is meem itself; from thy form came all knowledge, in shape of alif-laam

Some where these heady portraits of the lover and beloved mingle into one whole. Kashmiri Gazal, says Abdul Ahad Azad, is a female seeking the lover, who is male. In Persian from where Kashmiri gazal derives its inspiration, the object of love is a male sought by a male singer. In Rasul Mir, the singer changes from woman to man, the poems, and the elements of female beauty get mixed with distinctly male attributes producing a bivalent image. Azad calls it a defect of conception. This defected concept,’ runs in the Kashmiri gazals from Mahmood to Gani to Mahjoor. It certainly mars a distinctive characteristic of Kashmiri gazals, that set it apart from Persian and its offspring Urdu gazal. This trait has been preserved in female poetesses alone, like Habba and Arnimaal where there is no confusion. Rasul also gets into the gazal a boldness that is characteristically masculine. Thus:

The (door-) chain clanged the door was pushed  my heart leapt, was my lover come’ His chest he proffered and I my arms. Tell my friend, why didn’;t he come

Would he grace in the balcony, or sit in the painted room’ Arise, my friend, spread his bed. I ask for little, but to lay be his side. Tell, my friend why didn’t he come

He is angry, him I’ll chase, by collor I’ll catch hold of him/on dooms day, I’ll hold thee by thy robe; without thee, here I die

It is a practice in Kashmir, for every poet even a singer, to have a spiritual preceptor, a peer. Rasul Mir is said to have had any peers. Rasul Mir sported majestic moustaches, which went tapering across the lip ending in a flowish. Some devotees, it is said, raised some religious objection to Rasul Mir’s moustaches ‘well ask him on the morrow’ said the peer. At night, the devotees, it is said, saw in their dreams the peer himself with similar moustaches. Tuswof, does not alloy Rasul Mir’s’ poetry, Unless, of course, you twist and tear it out of context and ‘discover’ ‘hidden meanings’. But Rasul Mir is an ardent lover, and on that plane, love becomes devotion, godhead.

Rasuls, knows thy locks and looks is a fine faith.How’d he know what is kufur, and what Islam, dear

That is Rasul Mir bold beautiful poet of exquisite love. Singer of fervent lyrics. The breath of vibrant air, that sent its freshness over cobwebs of cloistered verses. Almost single handedly, he turned Kashmiri poetry into a bubbling love, gushing forth helplessly, sincerely, fervently. As it should in a vale of beauty

When count is taken of thy braids, lacs of fortnights it’ll take. Once begun there is no escape from there. Lo, the gay love goes out to frolic

Poetry is, needlessly, harangued by analysis and postmortems, split as under to gorge out philosophies, burdened with the weights of duty and messages. Poetry is a communion of hearts. Pure andsimple with or without the appeals and advocacy’s, philosophies or campaigns. There reigns Rasul Mir Supreme unmatched. A master singer of heart

This new volume Rasul has sung in thy pang, who’ dare to rebut come,hand me another cup’.