Chinar
The plane tree, famed for its broad flame-coloured autumn leaves.
Literally: plane tree
The chinar is the great plane tree of Kashmir and Iran whose broad leaves blaze red in autumn — its turning foliage read as hands aflame or hearts on fire. For Iqbal, son of Kashmiri lineage, the chinar carries the valley's beauty and a smouldering quality: its autumn fire suggests passion and a land's longing, leaves that burn like the marked, fervent heart.
Lala-zaar
A field of tulips; a tract ablaze with red tulip-blossom.
Khizaan
Autumn, the season of withering when leaves fall and the garden fades.
Kashmir
Kashmir, the valley of Iqbal's ancestral roots, of unmatched beauty; in his verse an emblem of paradise on earth and a people's suffering.
Laala
The wild tulip — a blood-red mountain flower.