This is a Kashmiri devotional song in praise of Lord Krishna, which recounts a practical phenomenon witnessed by his friend Sudama. [Kaim sa ne preytith mein pana paer]

 A Kashmiri devotional song 

Part-1

[1]

Who held this dark malice, this venomous mind?
Who snapped my green bonds, my shelter, my kind?
My hut of dry twigs, my branches laid bare—
Who left me with nothing but wind and despair?

 

(Chorus)

Who shattered my cottage, my shelter so small?

Who answered my prayers with ruin and all?

O Murli Dhar, is this Thy decree?

Is this the favour Thou granted to me?

 

[2]

Dead-tired and weary, from distance wide,
Tears filled his eyes in a shimmering tide.
"Who is this king in my dwelling so vast?
What magic is this, from a glorious past?"

 

(Chorus)

Who shattered my cottage, my shelter so small?

Who answered my prayers with ruin and all?

O Murli Dhar, is this Thy decree?

Is this the favour Thou grantest to me?

 

[3]

Dead-tired and weary, with burdens to bear,
Tears filled his eyes, streams bright and clear.
Sudama saw a king in his dwelling so grand,
“What magic is this, by whose unseen hand?”

 

Chorus

Who shattered my cottage, my shelter so small?

Who answered my prayers with ruin and all?

O Murli Dhar, is this Thy decree?

Is this the favour Thou granted to me?

[4]

Where is my family? Where do they wander?
Why do I stand in a place I must ponder?
Starved by my journey, by cruel drought's art,
I search for my garden, my roots, and my heart.

 

Chorus

Who shattered my cottage, my shelter so small?

Who answered my prayers with ruin and all?

O Murli Dhar, is this Thy decree?

Is this the favour Thou granted to me?

[5]

Where are the blossoms that sweetly would cling?
Where are these meadows in the first verdant spring?
What wondrous fields spread, a vision of might?
What grace has transformed my darkness to light?

 

Chorus

Who shattered my cottage, my shelter so small?

Who answered my prayers with ruin and all?

O Murli Dhar, is this Thy decree?

Is this the favour Thou granted to me?

…..

Part-2

[1]

Where from these fountains so bright and blue?
Where do these flowers draw colours so new?
Where did these pearl springs get a promise to run?
Where from this water come blessings, so won?

 

Chorus

Who shattered my cottage, my shelter so small?

Who answered my prayers with ruin and all?

O Murli Dhar, is this Thy decree?

Is this the favour Thou grantest to me?

[2]

Everywhere, buildings in grandeur now loom,
Everywhere, houses with bright-coloured bloom,
Everywhere, heavenly fragrance and light,
Everywhere shining, a beautiful sight.

 

Who shattered my cottage, my shelter so small?

Who answered my prayers with ruin and all?

O Murli Dhar, is this Thy decree?

Is this the favour Thou grantest to me?

[3]

Where have these fountains with sudden grace sprung?
Where do these blossoms to bright hues belong?
Where have these pearl-waters, so silent, flown?
Where has this river of blessing grown?

 

Who smashed my hut, my humble home?

Who left me to wander, to weep and to roam?

[4]

Everywhere, palaces touch clouded skies,
Walls painted bright where my cottage lies.
Everywhere fragrance, a heavenly air,
Yet my poor hut—who has tended with care?

(Chorus)

Who smashed my hut, my humble home?

Who left me to wander, to weep and to roam?

[5]

When did these servants and helpers appear?

Have all my children fled far from here?

Has my dear wife betrayed me at last?

Is my small world a tale long past?

(Chorus)

Who smashed my hut, my humble home?

Who left me to wander, to weep and to roam?

 

[6]

Where are those buds, those flowers so fair?

I long for their fragrance still in the air.

My heart is aching, I’m searching in vain,

Hoping to see their beauty again.

(Chorus)

Who smashed my hut, my humble home?

Who left me to wander, to weep and to roam?

[7]

Sudama pressed on, both hands to the frame,

Perplexed as he whispered his own name.

He peered through the doorway, to the ceiling and floor—

Puzzled, he wandered through the window and door.

(Chorus)

Who smashed my hut, my humble home?

Who left me to wander, to weep and to roam?

[8]

Pitiful Sudama, lost in surprise,

Watched as a wonder rose to his eyes.

Out from the forest, calm and sweet,

Susheela came forth, his wife, to greet.

(Chorus – softly)

Who smashed my hut, my humble home?

Who left me to wander, to weep and to roam?

(Final echo)

Who smashed my hut… who smashed my hut…

Sham Misri, Seattle, USA

 

The Stone-Keeper's Secret

I. The Historians' Dispute

The stones don't speak in certain years,
They only weather, hold the fears
Of dynasties that rose and fell,
A timeless, fragmented tale to tell.

Did Someshvara's spire climb in ten-twenty's air,
Or a century later, in a king's new care?
Dhaky and Brown with Kramrisch debate,
While Ojha's twelfth-century seal they await.

The Vishnu temple, standing worn and grand,
Michell places first upon this land.
A puzzle built of sandstone block,
Resisting time's unflinching clock.

II. The Vassals' Game (Kiratakaupa)

First known as Kiratakupa's hold,
A prize for vassals, brave and bold.
Someshvara, of Paramara line,
Gained the Chaulukya's favour, a fate divine.

Then Alhana, Chahamana lord, took the stage,
His governorship marked on a stone-made page.
But power shifted, a relentless tide,
To Madanabrahma, in whom trust did reside.

His successor fell to Kirtipala's might,
As thrones changed hands from dark to light.

III. The Scars of War (The 1178 CE Inscription)

In eleven-seventy-eight, a record made,
Of a temple's wound, a violent grade.
Repairs were carved for Turushka blows,
The Ghurid threat, and all its woes.

When Muhammad of Ghor's armies came,
And lit the land with battle's flame.
But Chaulukya forces, at Kasahrada's field,
Made the invading tide to yield.

So Kiradu stands, a testament true,
To kings who built, and wars that came through.

Story

The Stone-Keeper's Secret

The desert wind, sharp with grit, was the only thing that moved freely through Kiradu. For the old caretaker, Bhanu, it was a living breath in a place of the dead. The scholars came and went, their voices full of dates and dynasties that Bhanu did not need. He knew the truth of this place not from inscriptions, but from the silence between them.

Today, a young historian from the city had arrived, his bag heavy with books. "I am studying the Paramara chieftain, Someshvara," the man, Anil, declared, pointing to the best-preserved temple. "The one who built this in the 12th century. Or was it the 11th? The historians can't agree."

Bhanu simply nodded, his eyes on the intricate carvings of the mandapa, its octagonal columns holding up the empty sky where a roof should be.

Anil spent his days scrambling over the ruins of the five temples, his camera clicking. He spoke of Madanabrahma of the Chahamana family, of Alhana and his son Kirtipala, and of the great battle against the Turushkas that had scarred the stones.

"Look here," Anil said one evening, excitement in his voice. He had found a section of wall on the Vishnu temple, which the scholar Michell had dated a century older than the rest. "This damage... it's not erosion. This is from a tool. A deliberate defacement."

Bhanu approached and ran a calloused finger over the gouged stone. "The Turushkas," Anil explained, his voice full of academic triumph. "The 1178 inscription records the repairs. This is proof of the Ghurid invasion, right here!"

Bhanu was silent for a long time. The sun began to bleed into the sand, painting the complex in shades of fire.

"That is not the story the stone tells," Bhanu said, his voice barely a whisper.

Anil scoffed. "And what story does it tell?"

"It tells of a day when two masters worked here," Bhanu began, his gaze distant. "The first built the Vishnu temple. His work was pure, a prayer in stone. Then came the new master, Someshvara's man, to build the grander temple. His style was different—more show, more gods, more war. The two masters argued. The new one, favored by the king, called the old one's work primitive. In a rage, the new master took a hammer and defaced the older temple, to build his own upon its reputation."

Anil stared, his historical narrative crumbling. "That's... a folktale. There's no inscription, no record of that."

"The stone is the record," Bhanu said, his eyes sharp. "You see a battle with outsiders. I see a battle within. The repair in 1178? It wasn't just to fix what the Turushkas broke. It was to hide the shame of what one of our own had done. They covered the scars with new carvings, but the deepest wounds remain. You can still feel the old master's sorrow here. It is why the Vishnu temple stands so alone, and why the wind sounds like arguing here at dusk."

The sun dipped below the horizon. A sudden chill gripped the air. Anil looked at the defaced wall again, and for a moment, he didn't see a historical artifact. He saw a crime of passion, a jealousy preserved for a thousand years.

He packed his bag in a hurry, the weight of his books feeling suddenly insignificant. He left without another word, the official history of vassals and invasions unsettled by the whisper of a more human, more tragic truth.

Bhanu watched him go. He then turned back to the Vishnu temple, placing a hand on the cold, scarred stone.

"The scholars only hear the shouts of kings," he murmured to the silence. "But if you listen closely, you can still hear the whisper of the first master's chisel, and the crack of the second master's hammer. That is the true history of Kiradu. It is not written in ink, but in regret."

 SYMPATHY — a poem, a father’s gift, and a memory revived

While sorting through old papers and books to clear away what had accumulated over the years, I came across an old volume my father—Late Pandit Janki Nath Misri—had once given me to read when I was in the 10th grade. The book is The Indian Treasury of Verse, edited by S. G. Dunn (Oxford University Press, 1915).

At that age, I could not fully grasp every poem. Yet after joining S. P. College, Srinagar, I returned to the book with a clearer mind and a deeper appetite for meaning. Many of the poems I memorised then remain vivid in my memory even now. One of them was “Sympathy,” and it reads:

Sympathy
I LAY in sorrow, deep distressed,
My grief, a proud man heard;
His looks were cold, he gave me gold,
But not a kindly word.
My sorrow passed -I paid him back,
The gold he gave to me.
Then stood erect and spoke my thanks,
And blessed his Charity.

I lay in want, in grief and pain:
A poor man passed my way;
He bound my head, he gave me bread,
He watched me night and day.
How shall I pay him back again,
For all he did to me.
Oh, gold is great, but greater far
Is heavenly Sympathy!
— C. MACKAY

Today—31 December 2025—I physically laid my hands on that same book again. It had been lying among “junk” and old reading material that I had intended to dispose of. The moment I opened it, memory returned with startling force: on the contents page, I saw my own name, written in my own handwriting from years ago.

What moved me most was not only the rediscovery of the book, but the rediscovery of myself—the student I was, the father I had, and the quiet thread connecting those years to the present.

What I understood then—and what I understand now

As a 10th grader, I likely admired the poem for its rhythm and its moral clarity: one man gives money without warmth; another gives care without calculation. But in college—during those formative years at S. P. College, when one’s inner world expands, and one begins to notice the subtle textures of human behaviour—the poem opened differently.

It is not really a poem about “help” at all. It is a poem about the difference between charity and sympathy.

• Charity can be correct, even generous—yet emotionally distant, almost transactional.
• Sympathy, as Mackay uses it, is not pity. It is presence: a willingness to share the weight of someone else’s pain, to sit beside them, to watch “night and day.”

The proud man’s gold solves a problem but leaves the heart untouched. The poor man’s bread and care, on the other hand, restore something deeper than comfort: they restore dignity, belonging, and faith in humanity. That is why the poem’s final line still lands with such quiet force: “Oh, gold is great, but greater far / Is heavenly Sympathy!”

A link to my father

This book was not simply an anthology. It was a gift with intention behind it—my father’s way of placing good language, strong ideas, and moral clarity into my hands. When I revisited the poem in college, it was not only a literary exercise; it was, in a subtle way, a return to his guidance.

Over time, the poem ceased to be only ink on a page. It became intertwined with:

• a father’s gift,
• my educational journey in Srinagar,
• and the enduring human truth that care is measured not in currency, but in compassion.

I also remember my father sometimes mentioning another “Sympathy.” Perhaps he was referring to the famous poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, with its powerful metaphor of the caged bird and its longing to be free. If so, that too fits the larger theme: whether in Mackay’s gentle moral contrast or Dunbar’s fierce longing, “sympathy” ultimately points to the same thing—an understanding that reaches beyond words into lived experience.

The old book, The Indian Treasury of English Verse, smelled of monsoon damp and forgotten years. Its spine cracked as I opened it, a sound like a distant door. I was not in my college then, but back in the quieter room of my earlier youth, the 10th-grade student I had been. The book was a parting gift from my father, Pandit Janki Nath Misri; its weight in my hands was a weight of expectation. "Read this," he had said, his voice still present in the silent house.

That first reading was a duty, a landscape of words I traversed with diligence but not always with sight. Poems like "Sympathy" by C. Mackay were passed by like familiar stations on a known route. I lay in sorrow, deep distressed… I understood the story—the proud man's gold, the poor man's bread—and noted its moral neatly. It was a lesson, like many others, filed away.

But time has a way of turning lessons into mirrors.

The shift to S.P. College, Srinagar, was the turning of the soil. It was a world of sprawling debates, of heated discussions on philosophy and society in the shadow of the Himalayas, of new friendships forged in the keen intellectual cold. I was building the architecture of my own mind. And in that construction, I returned, as if seeking a foundation stone, to my father's book.

After sixty-five years, I read this poem, Sympathy

This time, "Sympathy" did not offer a lesson. It offered a revelation.

The lines were no longer just ink. The proud man became a type I was beginning to recognize in the world—the benefactor whose gift carries the chill of transaction. The gold was not just a coin; it was no aid given to elevate the giver, not to heal the receiver.

But it was the poor man who now stole my breath.

He bound my head, he gave me bread, / He watched me night and day.

I was recalling the shopkeeper near my college who, seeing a student looking peaky and poring over books late, would slide a cup of kehwa across the counter with a nod, asking for no payment. I remembered the classmate who, when I struggled with a concept, stayed back not to tutor me, but to wrestle with the problem alongside me, sharing the very burden of not knowing. This was not charity. This was kinship. This was watching night and day.

The final couplet became my silent anthem:

Oh, gold is great, but greater far / Is heavenly Sympathy!

The second life of a poem

Books can become “old.” Paper can be yellow. Spines can crack. Yet certain lines do not age at all—because they do not merely sit on the page; they take residence in the mind. And when they return, they return with our whole history attached to them.

So, this memory is no longer just about finding a forgotten book in a pile meant for disposal. It is about finding, in a few familiar verses, a compass I did not know I had been carrying all these years: the ability to distinguish between the glitter of assistance and the glow of genuine human kindness—and to recognise, with gratitude, the quiet inheritance my father placed in my hands.

Happy New Year-2026

Sham Misri,

Jammu.