Kashmiri woman using coded language to preserve her poems

65-year-old Sufi writer Zarifa Jan has told Good Morning Kashmir that she started writing poems in her late 30s after she had gone to fetch water from a nearby canal during which she lost her sense of the world around her and fell into a kind of trance.

She said she also lost her water pot and began to feel like a completely different person.

A few words came out of her mouth spontaneously in the midst of this unconsciousness. In fact, this was the beginning of Zarifa’s poetry.

From Bandipora district of North Kashmir, Zarifa says that initially her late daughter used to preserve her poetry in written form, but after her death, this medium was taken away from her.

“I felt like everything was taken away from me. I will never forget the shock," she told the news portal.

“I don’t know if this idea came to my mind, but after seeing these circles written on the paper, I understand what I have written," she said.