Way back in 1997, I was on an official visit to Kashmir where I met Kashmiri poet Bashir Athar in his office-Srinagar TV Centre. It was my pleasure to receive his latest poetry collection 'Kani Shahar'(Stoney City) to read. The more I read it, the more I was impressed and felt that the poems deserved to be translated and made available for reading to more readers. The theme of the poems was timely and the style excellent. Imagery superb and the language so powerful. I selected some poems (those which impressed me the most) and translated them into Hindi for Samkaleen Bhartiya Sahitya(Contemporary Indian Literature--A Hindi magazine published by Sahitya Akedmi,New Delhi, India) Athar received lot of attention for the theme he had chosen. Eventually, I thought of introducing this powerful poet to a greater number of appreciatve readers and my choice fell on English language. I took upon the stupendous task of translating the poems into English taking care of the flavour, appeal and suggestion of the original text. I worked hard and revised/typed the pages several times before they could attain the present form. I don't claim to be well versed in English language. Truly so, because it is not my language, nor my mother tongue too. Just my second or third language-enough to converse or express myself when needed.

I am sure that the readers/viewers would love the poems and come out with their reactions.

Dr.S.K.Raina