The Pony Owner of Pahalgam

Subhransu Maitra

He could have got away unharmed. 

He chose not to. 

Instead he jumped– 

-Syed Adil Hussain Shah the lionheart, 

the pony owner worth rupees 

three hundred a day, 

in spite of coarse life, poverty, 

darkness, violence, bigotry, 

lies and undeserved shame– 

in the clear sunlit air 

to speak truth and snatch 

the killer’s gun in a  

foredoomed effort to save 

his guests, his Kashmiriyat. 

The pony owner is dead. 

Long live 

Syed Adil Hussain Shah. 

(April ’25)