Muharram in Poonch's Many Tongues

From Punjabi elegies to Pahari chants, Poonch carries Muharram in the sound of many voices.

- Sammer Mehdi

The hills of Poonch come alive each Muharram, not with the sound of a single language, but with the layered voices of many.

Here, remembrance speaks in Kashmiri, mourns in Punjabi, chants in Pahari.

It is a grief stitched into the land, shaped by the borders that cut through these mountains, yet softened by the ways people hold on to each other.

In this border district, Muharram is not just a religious observance. It is a memory kept alive in every dialect, a procession that carries history not only through footsteps but through words.

The streets fill with the cries of Ya Hussain, carried in Pahari songs, echoing in Urdu verses, folded into Kashmiri laments.

Jaffer, a lifelong resident of Poonch, finds comfort in this.