My Brief Meeting with Kashmir’s Iconic Woman Poet
Peerzada Masarat Shah
It was a quiet summer day in June 2024 when I first met her. The sun hung high over Srinagar, casting a warm glow over the bustling streets. I had come to Lal Chowk—the heart of the city—waiting near a café, hoping to catch a glimpse of her or perhaps buy one of her poetry collections from a nearby bookstore. I had admired her work for years: raw, unfiltered verses that speak of women’s resilience amid Kashmir’s endless turmoil. Little did I know that fate had something more personal in store.
She arrived unexpectedly, driving herself, her face marked with the exhaustion of routine duties at a school somewhere in Anantnag district. With her was her adorable young son—a lively bundle of energy, bouncing in his seat and chattering away. She parked nearby, and as she stepped out, our eyes met by chance. I recognized her instantly: Nighat Sahiba, the poet whose words have stirred souls far beyond Kashmir. She was simple and unassuming, dressed modestly, her face reflecting the quiet strength that permeates her poetry.
We ended up sharing a table at a café in Lal Chowk over coffee. It was an accidental meeting, lasting barely 30 to 45 minutes, yet it felt profound. Our conversation drifted through everyday concerns—domestic issues, household routines, the constant balancing act of being a working mother and a teacher. She spoke softly, her attention often returning to her son, who remained playfully restless, anchoring her firmly to the present. Throughout our conversation, she tended to him with gentle patience, a living embodiment of the themes that run through her book Zard Panike Dair (A Pile of Autumn Leaves). Here was the same woman from a rural Kashmiri village, navigating patriarchy and conflict, yet radiating quiet defiance.
It was difficult to reconcile this unpretentious woman—so immersed in the ordinary rhythms of family life—with the poet who won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2017 for a groundbreaking collection. Her poetry, acclaimed globally for its humanistic depth and feminist fire, confronts gender inequality, loss, and the scars of militarization in Kashmir. In that brief meeting, I saw no trace of celebrity—only a devoted mother and teacher, still rooted in the very patriarchal patterns she critiques so powerfully in her verses.
One couplet from her work echoes this resilience:
“Dohy qatl karinem//Dohy zinde’h wuchhnem”
“Let them slay me every day,
Every day they shall find me born again.”
From Barren Land, it captures the unyielding spirit of women like her—reborn amid oppression.
Later, I learned that she is the sister of my editor friend, I. Ahmad. She is altogether different from her brother—more introspective, fiercely independent, yet warmly familial. Reflecting on our encounter, I began to understand that the struggles her family endured were beyond imagination: growing up in a conservative household during the radicalized 1990s, when silence was imposed and voices like hers were barely allowed to exist.
I asked I. Ahmad about her childhood. He told me:
“She was very dear to me, but our early childhood was shaped by a radicalized period. Our mother strictly enforced religious rules, especially on her. At just five or six years old, she was made to wear a scarf like a hijab. Her voice was so weak within the family that hardly anyone heard it. She was bright, always curious, always searching for books, yet she was often not prioritized over me and my other brothers. The forced silence of early terrorism affected all of us. Parents lived in constant fear for our safety; forces and militants roamed freely in villages. That reality shaped our struggles. Our father, however, was a freedom-loving man and a strong advocate for girls’ education. His values ultimately shaped our future.”
Nighat’s journey from that silenced child to a revolutionary literary voice is nothing short of inspiring. Born around 1986 in Achabal village of Anantnag, she grew up under a double burden: patriarchal control within the home and armed conflict outside it. In a conservative family, she hid her early love poems from her brothers, fearing misunderstanding. Books became her refuge. Despite household responsibilities consuming her time, she pursued education—earning master’s degrees in History and Education—eventually becoming a schoolteacher while continuing to pour her soul into poetry.
Her debut Kashmiri-language collection filled a glaring void in women’s representation within the region’s literary tradition, extending a lineage shaped by figures like Habba Khatoon and Lal Ded. Recognition followed: the Akbar Jaipuri Memorial Award in 2014, the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2017, and the Mallika Sengupta Award in 2018. Her verses—fervent, intimate, and often unsettling—grapple with grief, existential despair, and the unseen labour of women.
Another poignant couplet from Whose Houses Are These? reads:
“Akh gareh oas su yus chanew mosum athaw banov//akh garreh oas su yus maanzi athaw chanew paerow”
One house was built by your infant hands,
One designed by your hennaed hands
It mourns the erasure of women’s contributions—a theme deeply rooted in her lived experience.
In male-dominated literary spaces, her public recitations have sparked uproar—earning admiration from elders while unsettling peers. Yet she persists, mentoring young women poets and advocating courage in a society where feminism is often misunderstood or resisted.
That brief coffee in Lal Chowk revealed the woman behind the icon: simple, disarmingly warm in her maternal devotion, yet profoundly revolutionary. Her son’s restless energy mirrored the vitality she channels into her words, transforming personal pain into collective strength. Nighat Sahiba remains a beacon—proof that even a voice born in silence can echo endlessly.
