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Pahari writer’s film joy

26/ 2/2007

A WRITER is looking forward to the British release of a film he wrote after it was successful in Kashmir.

Dalat Ali from Newbold wrote the screenplay for 'Mehndi Laan De.'

It tells the fictional story of a young Rochdale man who goes to Kashmir and at first finds it hard to adjust to the cultural differences, until he falls in love with a local girl, who can't wait to visit England and dreams of wearing jeans and going to McDonald's.

Daalat, a senior committee member at the Kashmir Youth Project, writes under the name Ali Adalat and is very well known in Kashmir.
He was the first person in Rochdale to start writing short stories in the Pahari language, the local dialect of Kashmir.

He was inspired to start 25 years ago when he found it impossible to find stories written in this language, despite it being widely spoken amongst Kashmiri people.

Last year Daalat was flown out to Kashmir by the University of Jammu to attend the opening of a new section of their library, made up entirely of texts written in Pahari.

While he was there he was invited to an award ceremony at the Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages and unexpectedly received several awards in recognition of his promotion of Pahari.

His clutch of awards includes one from the Jammu and Kashmir government for his contribution to the development of Pahari speaking people.

Another is from a charity organisation called Saambh and commends him for his services to the Pahari people, culture and language.
In Rochdale Dalat continues to write short stories and promote Pahari.

He said: "Despite the large Kashmiri population in Rochdale, there are currently no services available in Pahari.

"I believe information should be available to people in their first language."

Dalat's books are on sale at KYP.