Snow On The Desert Notes

About the Author:
Agha Shahid Ali was born into a very highly educated, multilingual, and liberal Muslim family.
While he was growing up, his immediate family lived in New Delhi, India; Srinagar, Kashmir;
and Muncie, Indiana, where his parents (Agha Ashraf Ali and Sufia Agha Ashraf Ali) both
completed their doctorates in 1964. English, Urdu, and Kashmiri were all spoken in his home.
Ali considered English to be his first language (it was the only language in which he wrote) and
Urdu to be his mother tongue. As a child, Ali was educated in Roman Catholic schools, but he
attended an American high school while his parents were in graduate school. Ali earned several
degrees: a B.A. from the University of Kashmir (1968), an M.A. from the University of Delhi
(1970), an M.A. (1981) and a Ph.D. (1984) from Pennsylvania State University, and an M.F.A.
from the University of Arizona (1985). Ali lectured at the University of Delhi from 1970 to 1975
before moving to the United States to teach, study, and write. At Pennsylvania State University,
he served as an instructor from 1976 to 1983, and at the University of Arizona, he worked as a
graduate assistant from 1983 to 1985.
Apart from the theme of death or loss, which becomes more legitimate and literal toward the end
of his career, Ali was also interested in demarcation. He resisted the title “U.S. citizen.” He
preferred the description “immigrant” or, better still, “exile.” He accepted titles such as Kashmiri
American, South Asian American, or Asian American. He considered himself conservative in
poetic content, form, and technique. Although conservative in art, he was not conservative in his
politics.He adhered to strict guidelines for the ghazal. In addition, Ali’s poetry is rich in allusion
to and inclusion of poetic influences from mythology to the works of his contemporary poet
friends and larger literary community. His poems are full of dedications to various people in his
life. His poems also speak to the enduring qualities of love and friendship. With elegance and
wit, they also speak to the difficulty of maintaining such relationships.''
About the Poem:

Shahid’s ‘Snow on the Desert’ was one of the poems of ‘A Nostalgist’s Map of America’
published in 1991. It had taken Shahid more than ten years to introduce this moment into the
poem. It hibernated till one day it was set off by the sight of snow in Tucson in Arizona, where
he was a graduate assistant at the university, the intense feeling of that morning and the departure
of his sister Sameetah from the local airport. That is how cities live on in the memory and works
of writers. It takes unpredictable moments to trigger an entire array of memories, a whole urban
landscape and its events and people.
Comprehensive Questions
1. What are the images/objects Agha Shahid Ali brings in Snow on the Desert to recreate the
imagined past from his memories? Explain.
Each sun ray being 7 minutes old
The poet recalling from the book he read about the preparation of wine
Imagining the road was a sea once
Recalling the preparation of sacred wine from Saguaros
Sun’s rays knowing the secret of earth’s origin & its past
Driving by the ocean that evaporated
Each stoplight creating a memory
Earth thawing from longing into longing
Dried seas and forsaken shores the earth had lost
The night in New Delhi listening to Beghum Akhtar singing
Bangladesh War, sirens, air-raid warnings
Voice of the singer coming as though she is dead and gone

Recalling every shadow the earth had lost
- The above mentioned are the images and objects – they bring old memories to the poet –
some memories are real – some are imagined – adds imagination to the memories – tries to
recreate the past not just by recalling the vents alone but elaborating it using his imagination
2. How is the theme ‘sense nostalgia and loss’ reflected in Snow on the Desert?
Major theme – sense of nostalgia & loss
Nostalgia – longing for the past
Loss – pain of losing something dear
The following lines reveal the nostalgia
“We are driving slowly, the road is glass. / “Imagine where we are was a sea once. / Just
imagine!””
“And I remembered / another moment that refers only / to itself: in New Delhi one night / as
Begum Akhtar sang, the lights went out.”
“I breathed the dried seas the earth had lost, / their forsaken shores”
“we are driving by the ocean / that evaporated here, by its shores”
The following lines reveal the sense of loss

“a moment when only a lost sea / can be heard, a time to recollect / every shadow, everything the
earth was losing,”
“a time to think of everything the earth / and I had lost, of all that I would lose, / of all that I was
losing.”
3. Write a short note on “The Desert Smells Like Rain”.

The desert smells like rain” with the subtitle “A Naturalist in Papago Indian Country” is a book
by Gary Paul Nabhan.
The life of Papagos Indians (also called Tohono O’oodham or Desert people) is described in
this book
Offers insight into the desert plants and animals – from reading this, the poet comes to know
about what people believe about cactus and how those plants feel – the Papagos people attribute
human qualities to cactus
- The poet also knows about the preparation of wine from saguaros – the books tells a lot
about plants
-
4. “A time to think of everything the earth, and I had lost, of all that I would lose, of all that I was
losing” – analyze the context of the these lines in Snow on the Desert.
- These are the closing lines of the poem
- Reveals the deep and heavy sense of loss in the heart of the poet
- Universalizing the feeling by relating it to the loss of earth
- Drawing a similarity between the earth and himself
- Feels that time must be spent on recalling what he and the earth has lost
- Feels that he is continuing to lose something or the other
- Feels afraid that the loss would not stop but would continue into the future as well
- There is a note of despair and helplessness as he has no control of the things he is losing
5. What is ‘another moment’ recollected in “Snow on the Desert”. What is the significance of the
it in the poem?
- The momemt recalled is the night in Delhi when the poet was listening to Beghum Akhtar
- What was thought to be a pleasant evening turned into nightmare when there were sirens
and air raid alerts
- This memory is unparalleled as it has no equal – the fear, feelings and emotions experienced
at that time were not and will not be experienced again
- Mingling of imagination while thinking about the past – the singer dead but voice is heard
- Significance - A deep longing as well as a fear about the past getting repeated is found here
6. How is identity crisis reflected in Snow on the Desert?

- Identity crisis – one of the prominent themes
- The poet lives at the foothills away from the main city
- Unable to mingle and become one with people of the country he had migrated to
- Existence of imaginary door which slides open as the poet moves from his area into the
main city and close as he comes back to his place
- He is hut away and also shuts himself away from the people of the city
- Unable to cope up with the required changes in order to adapt himself to the new place and
identify himself with the people there
- Identity crisis - A common problem with all migrants

Snow On The Desert Notes

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Snow On The Desert Notes

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Snow On The Desert Notes

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

About the Author:

About the Poem:

Voice of the singer coming as though she is dead and gone

The following lines reveal the sense of loss

3. Write a short note on “The Desert Smells Like Rain”.

6. How is identity crisis reflected in Snow on the Desert?

You might also like