Habba Khaatoon & Arnimaal: The Queens of Songs

Habba Khaatoon and Arnimaal pays tribute to the lives and works of two of Kashmir’s best-loved lyric-poetry composers, Habba Khaatoon and Arnimaal. Separated by at least two centuries, both of them are acknowledged today as the queens of Kashmiri lyric-poetry. While vaakh in Kashmiri poetry is described as a vehicle for expressing any mystical or spiritual experience, vatsun gives voice to the pain and the ecstasy of the human soul. Habba Khaatoon, who lived in the sixteenth century, composed her legendary vatsun, a tradition that Arnimaal continued two hundred years later, in a style that was her own. The volume contains a bilingual edition of the Kashmiri verses alongside their English rendition by Trilokinath Raina, who also provides a detailed introduction to Habba Khaatoon and Arnimaal.