Meem's Reviews > The Country Without a Post Office

When I flew to Kashmir this winter, I made it a point to learn more about the region. My first encounter with Kashmir was at the age of 10, when I visited the Pakistan side with my father, Azad Kashmir. Now, at 28, I had the opportunity to visit from the India side, Jammu and Kashmir. Armed with only a faint awareness of its history and politics (neither of which have held much appeal for me as avenues of comprehension) I turned to literature instead: non-fiction with 'Territory of Desire: Representing the Valley of Kashmir,' fiction with 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories,' and the space in between with 'The Country Without A Post Office.' As I walked through the snow of Pahalgam and Gulmarg, was rowed across Dal Lake in Srinagar, Agha Shahid Ali's deliberately fragmented imagery of cracked portraits, flickering oil lamps, the saffron hue of the sun, and the picture-perfect yet hauntingly distant half-inch Himalayas, captured within a postcard from Kashmir, starkly contrasted with the stark reality of 'blood sheer rubies on Himalayan snow' unfolded Kashmir before me, weaving together beauty and brutality in a manner that was inescapable. I'm grateful to have found his poetry, as it has permanently shaped how I see Kashmir.