Shalimar the Clown

In loving memory of my Kashmiri grandparents

Dr. Ataullah and Amir un nissa Butt

(Babajan and Ammaji)

I am being rowed through Paradise on a river of Hell: Exquisite ghost, it is night.

The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves…

I’m everything you lost. You won’t forgive me.

My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.

There is nothing to forgive. You won’t forgive me.

I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself.

There is everything to forgive. You can’t forgive me.

If only somehow you could have been mine,

what would not have been possible in the world?

– AGHA SHAHID ALI,

The Country Without a Post Office

A plague on both your houses.

– MERCUTIO, IN Romeo and Juliet,

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE