'CALL ME ISHMAEL TONIGHT': A READING OF AGHA SHAHID ALI’S BOOK OF GHAZALS (Pages 104-113) by Ms. Fatima Noori in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Agha Shahid Ali’s last volume, Call Me Ishmael Tonight (2003) combines the western theoretical models of Existentialism, especially Kierkegaard and the Kashmiri Sufi poetic theosophy of Nund Rishi, Habba Khatun and others, to find an explanation to his own postmodern diasporic position. The anticipation of death makes him identify with Ishmael, the self-scarifying prophet who stood for faith. And yet the majesty and mercy of the God is questioned time and again for the ‘All-Powerful’ exists only through a continuous dialogue, though negative, with His true lover, Satan. The book of ghazals deals with ontological and existential questions of loving, living and believing as seen through Shahid unique ‘Witness’ position of a diaspora and of a cultural ambassador. The present paper tries to explore Shahid Ali’s position of in-between’s among different lands, languages and cultures which provides him the vision and the voice of a cynic-seer and show how his last volume of the poems reveal him oscillating between the two! Shahid Ali seems to be caught between doubt and faith in ‘King Allah’ and finds it difficult to believe in the ‘great nothing signifying God’.gha Shahid Ali’s last volume, Call Me Ishmael Tonight (2003) combines the western theoretical models of Existentialism, especially Kierkegaard and the Kashmiri Sufi poetic theosophy of Nund Rishi, Habba Khatun and others, to find an explanation to his own postmodern diasporic position. The anticipation of death makes him identify with Ishmael, the self-scarifying prophet who stood for faith. And yet the majesty and mercy of the God is questioned time and again for the ‘All-Powerful’ exists only through a continuous dialogue, though negative, with His true lover, Satan. The book of ghazals deals with ontological and existential questions of loving, living and believing as seen through Shahid unique ‘Witness’ position of a diaspora and of a cultural ambassador. The present paper tries to explore Shahid Ali’s position of in-between’s among different lands, languages and cultures which provides him the vision and the voice of a cynic-seer and show how his last volume of the poems reveal him oscillating between the two! Shahid Ali seems to be caught between doubt and faith in ‘King Allah’ and finds it difficult to believe in the ‘great nothing signifying God’.Keywords: Guerrillero Heroico, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, contemporary political milieu, ments etc.