Madhosh Balhami: The poet of perseverance

On 15 March 2018, Kashmiri poet Ghulam Mohammad Bhat (Madhosh Balhami), lost his ancestral house and thirty years of poetry to a fire that broke out during a gun battle between Indian soldiers and rebels. Balhami poignantly sums up this loss in the couplet: “…Woh aatish-e-namroodh mera kuch bigaad na sake Mera qalam na le sake magar mera qalaam le liya” (Nimrod’s flames could not harm me, could not snatch my pen, but took away my words).