She was talaqshuda, a beauty, and, above all, a poet and singer who could stand her ground, debating with men whose swords did the talking. Zoon, whose songs resonate in Kashmir even today, advocated love as an antidote to war. This was way back in the 16th century when women were not encouraged to express their opinion. More than 400 years later, when writer-theatre director Purva Naresh visited the trouble-prone state, she found that Zoon’s voice was as relevant as ever. “Everybody I met there had Zoon in their hearts; and insisted I narrate her naghma,” she reveals.
“When I came back to Mumbai I felt Zoon’s story could be a powerful tale, touching upon many things: the idea of expansion and power emerging from patriarchy, with rebel artistes like Zoon rejecting these ideas, the relationship of artistes with the state et al.” And so, Purva wrote Zoon: Noor Kashmir Ka, which she staged, initially, in Mumbai, for Aadyam Theatre, and then on her own in Delhi and Bhopal before Covid-19 put the brakes on a tale that is worth recounting repeatedly, especially at a time when guns continue to do the talking in what is now a Union Territory.
Tempering aggression
Kashmir has had powerful men down the ages, lusting for its possession.
Whether it was emperor Akbar in the 16th century, or the Afghans, the Sikhs, the English thereafter, or warring nations and infiltrators in the 21st century, many have wanted to gain control over its awesome mountains, sparkling rivers, orchards and gardens.
Zoon was like Kashmir, immensely desirable. But she preferred to engage her suitors in debates on war and poetry, rather than succumb to their desire. So, when, in 1570, the warrior king Yousuf Shah Chak woos her, she agrees to marry him only after she succeeds in tempering his aggression with lyricism.
As wife of the king, Zoon continues to advise Yousuf Chak against war; and as an ardent proponent of Kashmiriyat, she warns courtiers not to foment trouble between the Shia and Sunni sects, to desist using watan as an excuse to spread quam. Purva explains, “She warned them against confusing patriotism with the idea of a nation defined by racial supremacy.”
A sane voice
The writer-director tells her story through two time zones, moving back and forth between the 1570s and 2019.
2019 has a group of Kashmiri schoolgirls giggling over a book that has raunchy details of Zoon’s beauty. “I am sure this book was written by a man,” pronounces one of them.
An old peasant woman, planting graveyard berries, overhears them, and, wanting to rectify the impression created by the book, takes the girls back to a time when Zoon was known more for her voice, her intellect and her patriotism, than the size of her breasts.
Simultaneously, Purva introduces a soldier on duty into the plot. We see him through the eyes of one of the girls, Raziya, who gazes at him, fascinated, wondering how he could stand for so many hours, gun in hand, without even a water or loo break. Putting her thoughts to paper, Raziya sketches him, leaving the gun out of the picture. “Now your hand is free to be given to a girl,” she decides, with youthful innocence.
Both Raziya and Zoon are played, marvellously, by Ipshita Chakraborty Singh, and soon the parallels of their life become obvious. If Zoon refuses to follow her husband Yousuf Chak to Akbar’s court, Raziya decides to do higher studies in Kashmir instead of seeking more fertile pastures in Delhi, Chandigarh or Bengaluru.
If Zoon succeeds in preventing her husband from going to war, Raziya acts as a peace-maker between the soldier and Zahoor, a boatman who wants to put a bullet through the soldier’s head. While Zoon sensitises her warrior husband through lyrics to make him think with his heart rather than his mind, Raziya encourages the boatman and the soldier to talk to each other and clear misgivings between them.
Egged on, the boatman shares with the soldier the constant fear he lives in, while the soldier breaks down, weeping; and explains why he killed an innocent, unarmed man. “I was told he had a bomb and the instructions were to ‘Fire, fire, fire’! I did as I was told but the man had only a milk packet in his hand.” At this point, the azan is heard and the boatman drops the gun. Misunderstandings cleared, the boatman and the soldier hug each other in a warm embrace.