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The family is a tissue of relationships and conventions, which provides a poet with a rich store of human feeling and a structure against which to trace and analyze it. As post Independence Indian English poets write about their families, they make for themselves an inner history and give a name to their past. The re-telling of ones own family story becomes an act of faith and sometimes, an act of exorcism. Writing after Independence, and at a time when the nation was becoming more pluralistic one of the reasons for the family becoming a primary site of personal identity for a poet could be the consciousness of the fact that their place in the cosmos is determined (at least partially) by their paternity. In the poems of Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001), his family has a very important place and is closely tied in with his memories of home. Because this is a home to which he cannot return, the memories take on an added poignancy and death becomes his adolescent password and a recurrent motif in the poems. The legacy that he inherits is heirlooms of sorrow/left in wills of ancestors and a plot in the family graveyard. Through a close reading of his poems, this paper will look at Agha Shahid Alis poetic quests of being and belonging and also in the process, arrive at an understanding of the contours of his home and homeland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long before the idea of India as a political entity emerged, multiculturalism began to be seen as an aspect of its core culture, of which now studies are being made on a wider scale during the last half a century. One can say India's multiculturalism mainly stems from the multiple forms in which its ancient texts were perceived in its different and distinct regions. But this is only one side of the story. Traditions of vastly different hues have also emerged from the historical and at times accidental interactions that have occurred in its long history with invading armies, emigrant tribes, contributing to its diverse traditions. This paper attempts to mainly focus on the English Ghazals of Agha Shahid Ali. In an attempt to understand his fascination for this unique literary genre with its roots in Persian and Arabic, an attempt is also made to trace briefly the emergence of the Ghazal as an art form in India and its evolution in the hands of geniuses like Khusro, Ghalib and Faiz. The blossoming of this art into myriad forms has been accompanied by a concern of the poets about not only the craft but also the language of poetic expression and the changes it is undergoing. Urdu itself is one such language that has taken shape and got rooted in India's cultural history. Ghazals in their various literatures are one such genre which Urdu literature popularized. In India today Ghazals are written mainly in Urdu in the northern region, but we see that ghazal writing has also become popular in regions and domains where the Islamic rule and cultures have flourished. We also see how a form like the ghazal changes the often taken for granted relationship between a language and a religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will look at three dimensions of culture, in addition to religion, in the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali and try to arrive at an understanding of the nature of the poet's attitudes towards his past and present milieu and his inheritance. The first dimension is that of the relationship of the writer to the past and to Indian culture with reference to rituals and traditions and the location of these in the poet's familial environment. The next dimension is that of myths, legends and folklore. The focus will be on the use of mythology, made by the poet, which he recasts to reflect contemporary concerns and explore personal dilemmas. Finally, this paper will try and understand the role of religion in the life of the poet and the extent to which religious affiliation and belief impacts on his identity. Does the poet display an attitude of acceptance or does he use moribund practices as a tool of protest and in the spirit of reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]