Azadi -- The Only way!

We may be different political beings but we are all human beings.
~Syed Ali Geelani
Delhi, October 21, 2010

The auditorium was filled to the rafters. Geelani sat calm as a mid-summer's sea. I don’t quite subscribe to the man’s politics but you can’t help grudgingly admire him. Apart from sounding total convincing, he is frighteningly intelligent. He speaks in a disciplined, clipped dialect and makes Haryanvi cops jostle with one another to pluck their cell phones out and click him. The Little Theater Group audi, next to DoorDarshan, located in the heart of Delhi, was Kashmir’s very own Broadway this Thursday. Syed Ali Shah Geelani was the sole protagonist.

Even before Geelani got up to speak, those perennial dorks from BJP’s student wing ABVP and their ideologically intolerant brothers-in-arms which go by fancy names like Panun-Kashmir (our Kashmir) and Roots in Kashmir began their distasteful sloganeering (Crude swear words, cusswords, expletives all). In the melee some buffoon attempted to throw paper missiles at Arundhati Roy, sitting next to Geelani. Something was hurled at the rostrum but it missed the 82 year old leader. Trespassers have such poor mental trestlework.

Kashmiri volunteers immediately threw themselves around Geelani. Students formed a human shield. The man betrayed no emotion. He continued to beam a beatific smile – in intervals -- as if scoffing at the frenzy subliminally. Eventually two men helped him to the lectern. Geelani began on a wispy note and just two minutes into his speech, given in flawless, genteel Urdu, interspersed with Kashmiri-accented English, everyone was in raptures. There was rapt attention. He constantly shook his head (could be age) and recalled historical dates like a farmer’s calendar. No wonder he churns those calendars with such ease back home.

Over the next few days the Kashmiri papers – and FaceBook videos -- are likely to shed light in some detail on what Geelani said at the convocation. The Indian TV has already given it a rotten spin: Kashmiri students heckle Geelani. That is such a cunning slant. The Hindi news channels in this country, and some English channels, their camerapersons (they look like car mechanics) and anchors (IQ levels seriously negative) should all be put on a bus without brakes and send on a paid-vacation (with free Samosas and Chai). The future generations will be grateful. With the kind of TV happening, India may soon be a nation of morons.

In dense Urdu Geelani talked about justice, basic human bonds and democracy. Ofcourse he repeated some of his standard fustian statistics but his speech was never drab. There is something uncomfortably scrupulous about him even if you tend to disagree. He looks injected with truth serum. The manner is uncharacteristically poetic. The inflections are fresh while the delivery is clear. I thought the top cops – revolver grips shining in holsters -- standing on the exit doors were so cued in to Geelani’s one hour long speech that their subordinates, who usually won’t dare stand near their bosses, shoved their way to catch a glimpse. ‘What democracy are you talking of, Geelani thundered? It was never exhibited in the valley. Before 1990’s if they caught you listening to Azad Kashmir radio, they would put you in jail, along with the culprit radio, he told a giggling crowd, which comprised of journalists, intellectuals, writers, students. And sulking badgerers.

I don’t know how big Geelani’s influence is in present day Kashmir or how to measure it in the competing narratives but he has for sure transcended into something big. He does not carry that Jamaati-chief tag any more. He has gone beyond the Hurriyet boss appellation now. I reckon Geelani defines Kashmir’s defiance.

You may loathe him, love him or harangue him, but there is no denying his indomitable spirit. As a parting shot, almost chokingly, Geelani said: You (India) could aspire to be a superpower, perhaps surpassing America some day but frankly we don’t care. Aspirations can’t be abolished. Even by a superpower.

Some spunk this old man has.

© Sameer

Bub, bunkers and beyond

There is an unseasoned mutiny in Mulk-e-Kashmir this summer. The boatsmen in Dal have revealed to intrepid journalists – clad in bullet proof vests – that the usually calm carp fish have been nibbling away at their oars of late. The defiance, it seems, has drained into the lake. A little ahead of the weed-infested Dal, an entire company of CRPF with chest-nut color guns in their hands, fingers on the trigger, chased a few hundred street urchins through a tulip garden, completely squishing the flowers in the process. As a result the Zabarwan foothills are stippled with mutli-colored floral boot-marks.

The only mills working in the city are the ubiquitous rumor mills and the word on street is that the Gregorian calendar would soon be replaced with a standard Geelani calendar. Heck that Gregory XIII was a pope anyway! Meantime the newest chairman of JK bank is mulling over the 2011 calendar with special green-color numeric for Hartal days and red color numeric for Curfew days. Parleys shall be held with Geelani sahib, when he is a little less angry and Omar, when Devinder, his chief of staff, goes on a sabbatical and leaves him alone, God willing, for a day or two. Besides there are chances that -- with autumn fast approaching -- the CM may finally take his sunglasses off. Eye to eye contact is always better than an eye for an eye.

Kids having a field day till end-September this year [three months of unlimited holidays] thought in their juvenile abandon that the summer holidays [locally, 15 dohan hinz garma-chutti ] might stretch forever. Alas it was not to be! Early October the education minister clad in an ill-fitting suit strode out of his Kokernag home to his Srinagar house and called the media men – who assemble quicker than you can say Jack Robinson – to cut short the forever vacations. Uniforms not washed for 100 days quickly went into buckets, much to the chagrin of teenagers, and lo and behold, the lawyer-minister from Kokernag was giving student attendance stats to media men – who assemble quicker than (okay the joke is stale now!) – the next evening. Only his son didn’t attend school, choosing instead to go by the now-famous Geelani calendar.

Apart from sad politics over body-bags in the last few months there are glad tidings too. Out of more than 1600 small and big bunkers located all over the province (mud and cement, brick and sand, trench and pillbox types – but all unanimously ugly) 16 bunkers shall be removed with immediate effect. Mostly unaesthetic these sandbagged formations pervade the mental landscape of people, apart from littering the stunningly beautiful (but seriously jinxed) geographic landscape of Kashmir. Called Bankers by most locals, these bunkers have a small slit for the gun barrel, serving a constant reminder to the hoi polloi that the Maginot line is not to be trodden upon in Kashmir.16 such monstrosities shall go now! We must smile!

A deadpan face-off is going on (which merits another blog, actually) between Gupkar and Hyderpora. Betwixt these two residential locales the destiny of five million people is calendared -- week after another week. These days the Blackberry Czar is at odds to break the deadlock set up by the Padre of Resistance. There have been numerous brainstorms and smear campaigns but nothing seems to be working. Be as it is, the government has now begun to fast forward Urs holidays, originally scheduled for later this month to Hartal days.

Talk of doing away with the Gregorian calendar, altogether.

© Sameer

Stone Age

A slapdash stone hit someone in Srinagar. The gent dropped dead. The mob dissipated. Newsmen rushed to the spot. There was hyper-activity on FaceBook. Boom was lowered. Syed Ali Shah Geelani was swiftly blamed, like an arrow that flies off a sharp archer’s bow. Omar Abdullah thought Geelani was solely responsible. His online devotees seemed to agree. Delhi-based television channels ran tickers that read: Geelani’s stone-throwers kill a man. Not the one to take it lying down Geelani came back with a quick explication: Job of Omar’s henchmen/India’s agents/elements bent to defame the freedom struggle. The verbal warfare was last continuing.

In reality Geelani – white as a druid – had called for a symbolic walk to the office of the meaningless United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan [UNMOG] in Gupkar. Bored military personnel from Chile, Croatia, Philippines, Korea and Uruguay are stationed at UNMOG. God knows, no one ever listens to these countries, leave alone, military observers on deputation from these countries. Kashmiris must have submitted a million memoranda in the last sixty years to the observers. The surprised blue-capped officers would step out of their sleepy office, over-hung by Chinar trees, and gingerly accept our pleas from inside the iron-grilled gate. No one knows what they did to our heart-felt epistles. That is still a multi-lateral mystery. Recycling can’t be ruled out.

The freshest march didn’t materialize. The separatists were arrested and released in the evening. These days no march is allowed. The million strong processions during the Amarnath land row were a chink in the armor, which exposed the state. Wary, the government does not permit more than four persons to assemble without reason, except for rented NC workers, who are ferried from Srinagar suburbs to wave little red plastic flags of the party – for example when Mrs Gandhi makes a sudden air-dash to Srinagar or when Omar wants to practice his Urdu-like Kashmiri. Democracy is very subjective. It does not ensure liberty to all. Or always.

Right now Madame Mufti sounds more separatist than the separatists themselves. Fearful that she may step on their sacred space, the pro-freedom blokes avoid her like bubonic plague. Over and over again they remind her that her dad as India’s home minister unleashed the hideous looking Jagmohan on Kashmir. With cold-calculated-cruelty governor Jagmohan went on to order the great purge that antagonized generations of Kashmiris. The year was 1989. Twenty one years later Kashmiris remember it like yesternight. The Muftis may be avowed adversaries of the Abdullahs, but for most plebeians, both are quislings.

Political divides aside the Kashmiri romance with stone throwing -- coming back to the latest frenzy – styled on the Palestinian Intifada has lost all its luster. True it used to be the weapon of the dispossessed – the oppressed – against the powerful, and hence lit upon huge symbolism in the conflict years. The defiance has now been sadly dented, notwithstanding what Geelani says. It is mobocracy. Random men, out on the streets on the drop of a hat, half-bricks, flints and cherts in hand, don’t seek instant-Azadi. They enjoy a field day. The adrenaline rush leads only to stone age.

© Sameer

What is my cure?

A Kashmiri, with a mushroom-like conical cap called soozun-dar toep in the local idiom, falls sick. It is a very strange condition – a mix of delirium and restlessness – which is particularly aggravated whenever gladiatorial jackboots kick him in the stomach or Kohl-eyes, filled with malevolence, stare at him. The man, sick as a secret, decides to seek cure. We call him a Koshur [Kashmiri] to respect his privacy.

Koshur: Jenab [Sir], what ails me? What is my cure?
Syed Ali Shah Geelani: You’ve got a condition called occupation-disorder. I’d recommend two tea-spoons of a wonder drug to you.
It is called audacity. Have it without fail. Every day. Also stop work on Fridays. I think you shall be just fine. Very soon.

Weeks blow past. No respite. Anxiety continues. He goes to a priest.

Koshur: Jenab, what makes me uneasy? What is my cure?
Mirwaiz: You have been walking middle of the road for too long.
The dust on your soozun-dar toep suggests so. Do you know dialogue drug? It works. I don’t have any samples left from my last foreign visit, or I’d have given you some. It works.

Days fly by. No help. Antsiness increases. He visits a star-gazer.

Koshur: Jenab, my pain is awful. What is my cure?
Yasin: Your internal romanticism is dead. Externally you look burnt-out. Give up on power-lamps in your home and instead burn a Mashaal [Torch-light]. Imagine if seven million people burn Mashaals at night. That would be infinitely symbolic.
The demons will leave.

Months elapse. The unrest remains. Koshur goes to see a doctor.

Koshur: Jenab, I’m sick. What is my cure?
Farooq Abdullah: Tsche chi Preh [You are possessed]. It is a green Jinn, the most mischievous of all gnomes. It guards a chest with no treasure in it. No medicine will fix you. There’s only one solution to this madness: counter-madness. So get up and dance. Dance with me.
Dance your worries away.

The Koshur exits the clinic and quietly walks in the rain swept city.
It has just been announced that Kashmiri blood is expensive.
It is not cheap now.

© Sameer
Filed under: Mini-blogs

Our street-fighting years

This has been a wrestling week of sorts. After years of fake bonhomie the swords were finally out. Yasin Malik’s little entourage was attacked in Sopore, purportedly by Syed Ali Geelani’s men, perhaps stoned with the one jungle/one lion theory. In a spirit of quick animus, JKLF workers promptly attacked Tehrek-Hurriyet office in Srinagar. Before things could go out of hand, in stepped the druid-like Geelani with a green olive branch. Yasin, always wise as a monk -- albeit in black – raised white flag. With the absence of an alibi for this sudden end-winter spite, an old fish story emerged: handiwork of Indian spooks.

How can the separatists hog all the limelight, all the time? Madame Mufti made her usual random wild accusations against Omar and his fellow clubbers. Since Omar is almost always politically correct and manages to make the opposition look plain silly, Madame has – by now -- perfected the art of instigating the young Chief Minister. And lo and behold: Omar was enraged as a Spanish matador in the state assembly. He spoke blazingly in clipped Urdu and bits of English, while Madame continued to give him that ‘wait-till-I-have-a-real-issue’ look. The mainstream in Kashmir has an uber-aversion of each other.

Angels of death never fail to descent in our neck of woods. Clad in dark, merciless cloaks. In Sopore and Srinagar. Both places there was a volley of tea-colored bullets followed by ugly body bags. Both places poor people got caught up in a mad frenzy. I’m sure justice is a concubine. The poor are like nutmeg. They are always crushed. One such boy, as he was being wheeled to the hospital, had this soupcon red in his eyes, like wanting to hold onto dear life. Moments later he shut them for ever. I cannot stop thinking about the little mole beneath his handsome brow.

In a matter of few minutes those boys became the latest statistics in Kashmir's murky tale. Both were poor: a vendor and a store assistant. The poor always die. Rich get away. Rich boys ski. They drink coffee in plush cafés. They wear au-de-perfume. They blog. They debate on intellectual constructs. They eat caviar. And Harisa. In Kashmir people are filthy rich [at least the ones I know are]. The concentration of wealth, like elsewhere, is so inequitable. And the less privileged, almost always, get killed. That is a given.

The separatist camp burns a lot of gas in trying to out-do each other to reach the families of those who get killed. The dead are often hailed as martyrs in presence of their un-dead folks, in a certain reassuring way so that their loss looks acceptable. It is strangely tragic that no one wants to die and yet when you get blown up, you become an instant martyr like Saint Sebastian. Redemption is attained in death at least, if not in life in the valley.

I often think of Kashmir as this distant Arcadia – inhabited by shepherds and antlered hanguls. Intrigued that I am with its pastoral simplicity, I dream of her virgin wilderness.

As if on a cue, I cut the blood part.

Sameer

A week in Srinagar

Text and images: Sameer

It was cold as St Andrews Day winds. From inside the plane the cops on the tarmac appeared pink-nosed. They had condensed necks. The paramilitary men, who quickly take positions along the aircraft as soon as it taxies, shriveled. The outside temperature was barely 6 degrees centigrade, which without any heating systems in Kashmir – barring Hamams that the well-heeled have -- is darn cold. As I deplaned, a light icy feeling of abandonment crossed me. There is always something bittersweet about home coming.

As a rule night comes early to Kashmir. I woke up to a nippy Eid morning. It gladdened me that Geelani was in town, and he, like me, had chosen home [read Sopore] for Eid. I mostly get to read his reactionary stuff in the online variants of Srinagar-based English dailies. Nothing beats the thrill of listening to him in person – all shrill and sound and fury. I know most of what he is says sounds dated and obsolete now but I love the finality with which he says it. Mirwaiz doesn’t even come close. Omar will take a lifetime to get there.

Our political leadership [separatist/mainstream], much on the lines of the Pakistani ruling class – and so unlike Indian politicians – are extremely well turned out. They dress smartly, like film stars. Geelani wears long chesterfield overcoats, paired with chequered mufflers, usually contrasted and a nice felt cap. His beard is nicely clipped and grey. Mirwaiz has a stunning collection of designer Pathani dresses and rug caps. Trendy eye-glasses often compliment his jaw line beard. Yasin, our homemade socialist, has a weakness for dark Kurta-pajamas. Embroidered shawls usually drape his frail frame. Not to be left behind most adjuncts and second rung leadership follows the fashion quotient.

And November welded into December and newspapers were suddenly replete with ads and stories in the run up to Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah’s birth anniversary. The Sheikh’s grandson – cover boy for December in the men’s fashion mag GQ – had promised government jobs and other fringe benefits to the natives on the occasion and everyone was eagerly expectant. In Srinagar, the old patriarch Sheikh smiled to his people from the life-size billboards patched across the city. Nearly three decades after his death, nothing much has changed.


[The patriarch laughs]

The night before Omar was to make the grand announcement, flanked by his party confreres [their highnesses, the ubiquitous duo Ali Sagar and Nasir Sogami], someone decided to attack a very fine gentleman, one who always wears a Pheran. Fazal Haq Quereshi, the original rebel and Al-Fatah founder in Kashmir [who made ‘underground’ a household term in the 1960’s] was hit/shot at/clubbed. I was sitting with a bunch of journalists amidst coffee and smoke when texts started to pour in. Suddenly everyone was animated. It was news-night.

On a balmy, cold morning NC workers were chart-wheeled to the tomb of Sheikh Abdullah at Hazratbal. The place looked like a Communist International, with the distinctly red NC flags strung on everything from iron grilling to lamp posts. There was much jostling. In other part of the city – Rajouri Kadal – protestors gathered outside the Mirwaiz manzil [old home of the Mirwaiz] to burn, yes you guessed it right, old bus tyres. Only God knows how many tyres have we burnt in the last two decades? Imagine the CO2 emission. In an era of intense global warming debate.


[Gangs assemble for Kani-jung]

I had Harisa with pals – at a stone's throw from the stone throwers. The intrepid Harisa-seller had very cleverly downed the greasy shutters and we had to literally slither into the mutton-fume-filled shop for a bite. Harisa is like Marijuana. The spices in the meat porridge come together [It tastes heaven] and explode in your head. You feel giddily replete. People speculate who shot Fazal Sahib. There are claps by the Dal bank, near the Sheikh’s concertina insulated mausoleum. Old city is sore. The contrasts stay. Have stayed forever.


[Concertina to protect the Sheikh's last abode]


[The dope den: Harisa shop]

Friends had invited Terra Naomi, an Alternative and rock star to perform in Srinagar. I sat through some of the ideation process. ‘Let’s print car bumper stickers, I opined’. She was to sing to draw the attention of world leaders towards the fast melting glaciers of Kashmir, a source of water to most of the sub-continent. Newspapers [Urdu as well as English] continued to call her YouTube sensation, irking me a great deal. An old man, with Chinese ear-muffs, clearly confused, was heard asking a passerby:

Ye Kahaz Gov you toop. [What’s you tube?]
He thought the government is asking people to switch over to tube-lights.

You killed the joke, tube light.

Sameer

Harisa Times

We shall meet again in Srinagar,
By the gates of the villa of Peace,
Our hands blossoming into fists,
Till the soldiers return the keys and disappear

Agha Shahid Ali (1949–2001)
Kashmiri-American poet and intellectual


Time makes mini memories of everything. Suddenly it is winters and a sprinkle of fine snow has already fallen on Srinagar. Upon zero bridge. Across freshly harvested meadows. On the empty civil secretariat. The old quarters of the city, I can tell from memory, are enveloped by an early morning tang of Harisa this time of the year. [Harisa is an Arabic word that means -- to break into pieces -- but they have a separate chilly paste called Harisa in Tunisia and Algeria]. Ours is traditional spicy meat porridge -- steamed, sautéed, simmered and served piping hot. The conversation in the Harisa pind [similar to a Kashmiri bakery] is mostly bawdy and fair to middling. Drivers of MLA’s along with domestic helps of the Hurriyet leadership can be seen jostling for space. We like it oven-hot.

With the ministers gone, their more ambitious sidekicks get the ‘real stuff’ packed for their big enchiladas in Jammu. There are daily flights to the winter capital. Oh, I forgot, come early November, each year the annual march of lemmings begins. The Durbar [court/seat of government] moves. It is an absurdly futile practice started by the second Dogra feudatory Ranbir Singh in 1872. [Ranbir was knighted by the Brits and he married all of five times. Famous for gifting a Kashmiri shawl, with an intricate street map of Srinagar, complete with its alleys and bridges to the Prince of Wales, recognizing the suzerainty of the British crown]. 137 years ago, upon Ranbir Singh’s orders men and mules moved the Durbar because he couldn’t take the winter chill of Srinagar. It is 2009 and we continue to be dyed-in-the-wool status quoists.

On the Durbar move eve Omar wore a Karakul [Kashmir’s national hat]. It was a rain swept morning and he took salutes from smartly turned out armed police guards in the Jammu civil secretariat [The estates department of the state government, worked overtime to have everything in place, fresh paint, face-lifts and all -- well before D-Day]. However the name plates of ministers in Urdu outside their spruced up rooms in the civil secretariat had to be suddenly taken off when someone realized that the word ‘Huzur-e-Aala’ [His Excellency] was prefixed to their names. [Imagine Huzur-e-Aala Ali Sagar/Huzur-e-Aala Pirzada Mohammad Sayeed]. Like the durbar, some of Omar’s men exist only due to gratuitous compulsion.

The chief minister spoke with media outside the ho-hum Jammu secretariat. Omar makes all the right noises. Always. Statements of leaders in present day Kashmir are often crisp and self-righteous since people watch them live, making it impossible for them to resort to multiplicity of faces at Delhi, in Jammu and in Srinagar. Sheikh Abdullah had this privilege; Omar Abdullah can’t avail of it. He ended up disagreeing with a top army General, chief of the Northern Command, who dubs all protestors agitational terrorists. Madame Mehbooba sure must be sulking. Not the one to be left behind, expect a sensational press statement in the next few weeks.

Meantime the resistance is kicking the bucket in Kashmir. It is being kept alive mainly by inexplicit but bold defiance -- by a frail man advanced in age, who passes his time between audacity and house arrest. Timeservers masquerade as Kashmir’s intellectual brigade and watch from the ringside, occasionally passing a verdict. There is too much hate, too little accord and loads of double-dealing. We may be not bad as a people but we flunk miserably as a nation.

Early snow is an agreeably beautiful thought. Darn the climate changers.

Sameer

Autumn Notes

It is the onset of autumn in Kashmir. Of all the seasons, I reminisce about fall, the most. In evenings, the Kangris [earthen pots, swathed in fine wickerwork] are out by now. We have historically been a lazy people. Kangri stands up for that tag. It warms the cockles of your heart. And keeps you glued to the carpet. Clutched inside a Pheran [another bliss cloak -- a loose, long, warm tunic], Kangri is to Kashmir what radiators and electric storage heaters are to Britain in winters. It can also be used as a projectile in case the powers-that-be show any disrespect. A million Sur-Kangris [Kangris, filled with hot, dark-teal ash] have been hurled at the army in the Kashmir edition of Jihad. Who dares call us unimaginative?

Around this time of the year in Kashmir the Oriental plane -- Chinar -- looks its best. Naked, it sheds its rusty foliage. The crisp orange leaves cover the landscape like one continuous Oriental rug. Amidst these settings envoys from New Delhi visited last week. India’s interior minister [Home minister] – the stern sounding PC, hair dyed and gaze flinty, too descended. Omar, the boarding-school educated CM played the perfect host. Many feasts and forethoughts later, the natives were informed that peace shall soon dawn upon them. After 62 long years. It is going to be unique. Sui generis. And it is going to come about quietly. Like the morning dew.

Though Farooq Abdullah [variously called gobar gas minister, an appellation that makes him mad a March hare] made some dissenting voices, by and large, the envoys from Delhi were pleased with Omar. He’s Kashmir’s prince charming. Affable, highborn, slightly condescending, tech-savvy, torch bearer. Kashmir’s Nehru. [One can’t help draw comparisons with several British commissions that used to come down to Delhi from London – pre independence India -- to declare: the native’s aren’t ready yet]. Madam Ambaki Soni enlightened us that everyone participated in the 2008 Kashmir assembly elections. Thank you, maa’m. Diplomas in French and Spanish apart [from Alliance Francaise, New Delhi and University of Havana respectively] and being friends with the High Command [read 10, Janpath; equivalent to Her Highness in imperial UK] – her understanding of the Kashmiri sentiment is quite noteworthy.

Alas there is a spoilsport too. This is an old gentleman with a grey beard who kills the joy of the ruling clique and their boot-lickers every single time. Without fail. He is a right-winger, who refuses to play ball. And he sneaks out of every possible cordon that is thrown around his home. [God knows how!] Once a favorite of Pakistan, he is now equally loathed by both India and its bête noire. With everyone – from the Mirwaiz to the rococo-like Lone – coming around, this conservative has stood his ground. Though hugely irrational at times [there are jokes about how he prefers a chicken meal in jail], Syed Ali Geelani has more credibility than all other troupers in the Kashmir theatre. He’s Kashmir’s Jinnah.

So autumn is here again. Mobile phones are going to be banned again. Omar will hold more Durbars [courts], reeking more of a medieval potentate every passing day [Can we do without the imperial, moth-eaten colonial nomenclature? How about Awami Milan [Interaction/Meeting]? Doctors and Transporters may join hands to not work. Both, effective healthcare and public transport is non-existent in Kashmir. Yet people have to be paid every second fortnight, reason why socialism never really works. On top of it Geelani has a new computation ready: The army has occupied upwards of 8 lakh Kanals [500 million sq yards] of prime Kashmir land. Vacate it now. We want to grow honeysuckle in it.

It is fall. The year's last, loveliest smile.

Sameer