Nakul Shivani/ New Delhi

On a cold winter evening, as dusk is about to settle over the scenic Wular Lake, a young Kashmiri boy  armed with a pen and notebook stares at the beautifully crafted horizon.

The area is abuzz with tourists clicking pictures of the sun setting. There are others bargaining with the local shopkeepers selling kashmiri handicrafts. Cars and buses rush through on the narrow road nearby. Local families laze around with children playing. There is chatter and then there is method in the chaos here.

In all this, the young boy filters the surround sound, gathers his thoughts and puts pen to paper to create poetry about life and social issues.

Drug addiction

The rate of Drug addiction is incessantly soaring

The way it is preying our youth can never be worth ignoring

It is what begets myriad cognate evils

It besmirches reputation and brings upheaval

Initially it entangles person victim in illusion of ‘lets taste once'

Alas! They don’t know soon they are becoming dunce

I have perceived kith and kin falling victim to it

I have seen how it snatched their wit

To uproot this menace practical measures are exigent

Now we can’t afford to be any more negligent

Ummar Jamal writes about issues that affect the youth of Kashmir

Meet 22-year-old Ummar Jamal. A third-year law student at the Kashmir University, Ummar has been observing social issues and writing about them since his school days.

A resident of Bandipora, he initially wrote in Kashmiri, but then moved to writing in English to draw a wider audience. “Audience in Kashmiri was limited. I wanted more people to read my poetry, so I shifted to writing in English,” he says.

Ummar was initiated to poetry since very early in his childhood. His father, himself an avid reader encouraged him to read poems of famous Kashmiri poets. “My father has been a great influence in my life. As a child I saw him reading a lot. That inspired me to read as well. And just like that the reading habit turned to writing,” says Ummar.

Ummar Jamal has been a voracious reader since his childhood

A product of Nadim Memorial Govt Boys Higher Secondary School, Ummar wrote his first poem in Kashmiri when he was barely in his teens. “As I grew older, I realised I needed to expand my horizon. I started reading Keats, Wordsworth, Shakespeare. They made me understand the nuance of English language and its beauty to express…express anything,” he says.

𝙋𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙮

Yesterday when I looked at that Poverty - stricken girl.

When she was holding her begging bowl.

Lachrymose it made me after seeing her.

I rude why I couldn't provide her succour.

People insinuated her for Importuning.

And she exhorted for some pennies.

So that hunger of the days together she avoids.

People doubted her that she is masquerading.

Willy-nilly she still continued persuading.

Late night when I was pondering on bed.

This thought suddenly struck my head.

What if I were born a destitute.

Obviously, I too have been ridiculed by that snoot.

The decide to take this lesson with me forever.

Helping poor is every human's fundamental devoir.

Gradually, he realised the power of language, writing to bring social change. He started putting his experiences to paper, writing about the dreams he had for the world.

“My poetry is different. It is about experiences. It is a medium to express myself,” he says.

Speaking like a person beyond his age, Ummar talks about the dreams he has for society as a poet, and a young Kashmiri.

"I want to bring social change with my writing" - Ummar Jamal

“I want to bring about social change. Through my expressions in poems, I want the downtrodden to be uplifted. I want to write so that there is fairness and equality in society,” he says.

Ummar has more than two dozen publish poems to his credit. There are many more tucked away in his notebook and even more hiding in his mind. “I want to compile all of them into a book.”

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But a book in his name is not what he will be content with. “I want to see change on the ground. I want a society of my dreams through my writings,” he says before pausing to write his next poem.