Omair Bhat

“everything left to lose is already lost” — Three Poems by Omair Bhat

“everything left to lose is already lost” — Three Poems by Omair Bhat

In an intellectual space where phrases like “indigeneity”, “collective memory” and “erasure” resound within contemporary conversations, Omair Bhat presents three poems about the current times, the disturbed past and the impending future.

If It Were for Evenings to Search for the Lost Boys — by Omair Bhat

If It Were for Evenings to Search for the Lost Boys — by Omair Bhat

Omair Bhat presents his poem “If It Were for Evenings to Search for the Lost Boys” that binds the present time with the past in a continuum of killing and disappearance that has exasperated even Kashmir’s evenings into screaming out the name of freedom. Featured earlier in our poetry special "Verses

Write — A Poem by Omair Bhat

Write — A Poem by Omair Bhat

A poem by Omair Bhat for the times, that is for all the times where war, love, separation, longing, struggle, death, life and resilience have marked human existence. A poem such that it flows from other such poems by the greats celebrated in verses that are alluded to herein, perhaps by compulsion o

Growing tulips: A Poem by Omair Bhat (in dialogue with artwork by Suhail Naqshbandi)

Growing tulips: A Poem by Omair Bhat (in dialogue with artwork by Suhail Naqshbandi)

In the contemporary Kashmir of the artist and the poet, a counter-aesthetic has been developed to resist against the glamorous and synthetically beautified portrayal of the land as an idyllic Bollywood destination for tourists. One of the precursors has been a series of works (“There is more to…[‘pa

Memory, a Poem by Omair Bhat

Memory, a Poem by Omair Bhat

In this poem, Omair Bhat explores the elusive nature of memory, envisioning it as a thing of two, the one who fights to remember and the one who withers with time and forgetfulness. The poem is presented as a monologue in search of a dialogue with the one who is absent and fading. The struggle for r