Kashmir Trip 2006

Hamiasto, Hamiasto, Hamiasto...

Kashmir, the land full of misery, terror and bloodshed, the land of unique historical significance, the land where over forty lac Mohammedans live, the land which instantly rings a bell in our soul, the land where all kinds of armed forces live, has also one more side, that is, its beauty. Beauty which is beyond dreams, beauty beyond explanation, beauty which has attracted millions over the years. It is this very Kashmir where my family and I decided to visit in early April 2006.

Day Zero
We reached Srinagar in the afternoon by Spicejet which had absolutely no spice (frills!) in its air service. A cool and very pleasant breeze softly touched our skin as we came out of the plane. Mixed feelings rose in my mind throughout my mind as we were in the car on the way to our guest house. All the houses that passed had the same structure but different colour. In the same pattern, the roof tops of all structures were made of tin sheets, sloping downwards. The people, local Kashmiris, on road looked exactly like the ones I had seen on television. The men had a good, not very long, something like Abhishek Bachhan’s beard, short centre parted hairstyle, wearing firan (something like a long shirt, worn above a shirt, with intricate designs around the collar and buttons) of grayish shade and had a very fair skin colour. The local women wore some kind of designer burkha type dress. I don’t know how many of the people I saw on the way were militants, because the appearance of kashmiri militants shown in films matched to a large extent to them.

Our guest house was amidst many trees. It was a cottage, made of wood, giving the old English feel, among Z security cover. My father had doubts about getting good quality vegetarian food in Kashmir, but out care taker, a sardarji took us to a nearby Vashionav dhaba. This dhaba had the most amazing vegetarian food. I also got an opportunity to eat hot traditional kheer which was truly delicious. After this meal we proceeded to Shalimar Bagh.

The road to Shalimar Bagh ran across the majestic and huge Dal Lake. On the way, there was a place where many fountains in line had been constructed. A rainbow was visible from the road over these fountains, More of Mohammedans could be seen in the area leading to the bagh. All the weakness of the body from traveling vanished away as soon as we entered the Bagh. It was undoubtedly a paradise. Beautiful stone water structure divided the park from the middle. Noor Jahan, the beauty queen had built this beauty patch five hundred years ago. I got on to doing my postcard photography from a twelve year old SLR camera. The ambience of the bagh was were fresh and appealing. Rows of hilly vibrant coloured flowers were spread across the bagh. Like a typical tourist we got our pictures clicked in the bagh wearing fluorescent colored traditional Kashmiree outfits. My brother had taken the responsibility of my tripod stand, but on our way to exit the bagh, while my brother was packing the tripod, he found that one of the screws of the stand was missing. I got furious and blasted him off, creating a mad scene, but he did claim the responsibility of the loss. So, all the anger was without any purpose. The area behind Shalimar Bagh’s boundary wall is said to be the home of militants.

On our way back we stopped at Dal Lake to take a ride in the Shikara i.e. a typical boat. The boat ride was absolutely different from the boat rides taken at hill stations like Nainital or others. True beauty could be seen all around from the boat. The scene cannot be described in words, probably only my pictures can give you a partial idea about it. While on the Shikara, two other boats covered us from both sides. No, we were not being attacked. The boats were shops, one selling jewellery and the other kesar (saffron). It was fun to see mummy doing boat shopping. While in the middle of Dal Lake, the shopkeeper’s mobile in the Shikara rang. This is height of technology.

After the peaceful and relaxing boat ride we proceed to get a feel of the actual city of Srinagar. We went to the main city area and crossed the famous Lal Chowk where so many bombs have been blasted and attacks been carried out. I failed to see any shop with a hindi name or owned by Hindus, all had royal urdu names or English names. We could not get of at Lal Chowk for security reasons as night had started to fall.

On our return to the guest house, we lied down and relaxed. Songs like Zombie and Jugni automatically played on my player in shuffle mode. After dinner everyone slept and I began to write this text…

Day One
After a very peaceful and relaxed long sleep, I woke up at around 8 in the morning. We left for Gulmarg at around 1030 hours. Gulmarg is a small village around 50 kms away from Srinagar. I was listening to Enigma all throughout the drive and had dosed off for most of the time. Majestic snow peaks were visible all around throughout the drive. As we came near Gulmarg ice was seen on road sides. The entrance to Gulmarg was through a huge gate. Words easily cannot describe what lay inside those gates. It was beyond my imagination. To be frank I was unable to visualize Gulmarg through words and description by others. You really have to experience it yourself to get the true idea.

Gulmarg was surrounded by thick snow peaks. It itself had no grass or mud patch. It was covered with ice throughout. Only the road had been cleared, rest was all ice. The weather was terrific. Sun shone high up in the sky. Our Sumo stopped near a small elevated piece of land. A 2 feet wide passage led to our cottage from the road. As I was not aware of the heavy snow all around, I had come wearing only my sandals. Thus, it was very difficult for me to climb up as the passage was all wet with melting ice. The cold ice came in contact with my feet as they were not covered. I ran on the ice upto the cottage and took off my freezing socks for drying.

The cottage was not very old but made completely out of wood. It was very well furnished and gave the feel of a cottage in Switzerland in the middle of ice. Seeing the amazing weather, we decided to leave for the trolley to the top immediately. The uncertainty of clear weather made us decide this. As I had no proper footware, I had asked for boots from the gueat house people. I was given huge, heavy white colored rubber snow boots. They were ideal for such a place.

The trolley was called Gondola. It is one of the highest trolleys in the world. The trolley took us to Kilanmarg situated at an altitude of 10050 feet in just a few minutes. Kilanmarg was like an ice desert. We had to walk on 4 feet high ice cover. The view was out of this world. A true paradise. The sun rays made the snow peaks look like mercury. Lots of photos were clicked at this place. We took a ride on the sledge here. The sledge men pulled our sledges up the hill. My sledge man was very thin and had little energy. The purpose of taking uphill was to come downhill at speed. We came running down in sledge like an F1 car. I lightly touched the ice with my hand which was flying all around due to the sledge’s speed.

Two small children, also tourists started making and hitting snowballs at my brother. Thus my brother had a good snow fight with the kidos. A local police officer was our guide. On the way back to the Gulmarg in the trolley, he told us many interesting thing. He said that this whole are is surrounded by militants. Behind the snow peaks we saw lay POK, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir or Azad Kashmir. Also, there was no possibility of bargaining with the sledge men as they were supposedly militants.

The sad part is that the militancy in Kashmir exists only due to political reasons. The government spends 80 percent of its funds in Kashmir. The local, militants are not afraid of the Indian forces. The irony is that the Mohammedans on being asked would join Pakistan although they are surviving on Indian resources and aide. Kashmir was a very rich Hindu kingdom, but the militancy has lead to suppression of all Hindus. The Hindus have been forced to sell of their lands and materials to Mohammedans. The Hindu culture, texts and people have been brutally suppressed by the militants.

Our caretaker in the cottage at Gulmarg was Altaf mia. He took good care and made excellent authentic Kashmiri food. In the evening we went for a walk outside the cottage through the ice. Not a single soul was visible on the road for security reasons. A chilly wind started to blow after few minutes which forced us to go back inside the cottage. Inside the cottage everyone just lazed around. I had connected small speakers with my player and put on old hindi movie songs. The mood was so pleasant and relaxing. There was DTH, CAS television system. Over hundred channels came on the tv but majority were regional doordarshan channels.

After dinner everyone sat in the common room and my father asked a lot of questions to Altaf bhai about their livelihood, village life, agriculture, education, marriage, status of children etc. It was nice to hear that there was no person in the region without a home and education till class 10. The girl child had lots of freedom and had gained a lot of respect. She was sent to school compulsorily and was also given the freedom to marry the one she liked. But Altaf mia also told us that the attempts were made to not let the girls watch tv and get different exposure.

The care taker lit kangari out of kerosene in our rooms to make it warm. We made ourselves cosy in thick blankets and slept. I slept with my socks, sweater and topee on, so you can imagine how cold it would have been.

Day Two
I woke with the bright sun rays coming through the window in my eyes. I saw the sun rise through my window. But unlike the day before, the sky was not clear anymore. Dark clouds covered the whole sky. After seeing the sunrise I went back to sleep and woke up after one and a half hours. To my surprise everyone else was still sleeping comfortably. But with my knocking on my parent’s room, slowly everyone woke up.

We had a small yoga session in the drawing room. I gave the instructions and my mother and mausi followed. During our session my brother woke up and came out only to take pictures of us exercising. After bathing and dressing up, we had hot parathas, cucumber sandwiches and milk for breakfast.

The atmosphere outside the cottage was icy cold. My brother decided to make an object about which we had heard since childhood, read and seen so much in cartoons, it was…any guesses? A snowman. But due to the unavailability of rubber gloves, he was able to make only a one foot high snow man. It was a great experience to actually stand and feel a snow man.

We had checked out from the cottage and now were in the car on the way to Srinagar. The driver took us for a round trip of Gulmarg. The huge golf course was covered with ice. The benches in the park were submerged. We came across a sort of a local market. Here many people were seen doing their daily work. There was an old temple of Lord Shiva here. It was the only Hindu structure left in Gulmarg. As the sun was covered with clouds, the whole drive below the snow peaks looked like a drive in a cold desert. There was no movement. Birds did not fly around. The people were inside homes. Only one or two cars passed by downhill.

On the way we decided to visit a Dargah. It was a seven hundred year old dargah of a saint by the name of Baba Rishi. Inside the dargah only men could go near the altar, women could just take a round near the structure.

From here our journey back to Srinagar actually began. As we entered Srinagar, we decided to ‘visit’ some shops selling Kashimiri stuffs. So we reached a market of handicrafts. The initial purpose of just visiting changed to buying seeing so many interesting objects. From one of the shops I bought small small authentic Kashmiri gift items like pencil boxes, key chains, pen holders and mini boxes. These were all hand painted and had intricate designs on them. My parents and mausi went to a shop and came out of it only after nearly emptying their pockets, after shopping items for one hour. During this period my brother had taken a short nap in the car. Later my brother and I too went inside the shop to see what they were buying. The shopkeeper was a true saleman and seeing our interest in his items, he ordered Kavha, a traditional Kashmiri drink for all of us. The kavha was very good, it was like sweet water. The kavha is made mainly out of boiling saffron.

After shopping we went to have lunch and then went to another mughal garden – Parimahal. Parimahal is a garden made by Shah Jahan. It has seven levels. Each level gives a different and beautiful view. The structure is very old. Its walls have many pigeon holes. One of the Asia’s largest golf course in Srinagar was completely visible from Parimahal. The Dal Lake lake magnificent form the top. The air was blowing at a moderate but pleasant speed. We sat in the garden for sometime.

While in the car, a sudden desire to watch Mission Kashmir rose amongst all of us. Thus we set out to search for the VCD. After much inquiry, we went through the interiors to shop that rented VCDs. The shop was closed. But the shop next to this one was a vegetable seller, he opened it for us. Though Mission Kashmir CD was not available, we found some other interesting CDs. We rented at the rate of Rs. 10 per day two films, Kashmir Ki Kali and Yahaan.

We finally reached back to our cottage in Srinagar. After settling down, all of us except my brother watched the 1960s film Kashmir Ki Kali. While we were watching the movie, my brother was writing about his college friends for the farewell. Then we had dinner, watched all the photos of our trip on tv and slept. I then started to write this account.

Day Three
After a good sleep I woke up at 0830 hours. All others had also just woken up and were lazing around. The weather had changed. It was raining heavily. The temperature had dropped down significantly. In slow motion everyone got dressed and had breakfast.

We departed for Kheer Bhavani, an ancient devi’s temple around 25 kms away. It was raining heavily all throughout. The drive was through villages. But these villages were unlike any of the villages I had ever seen in India. The farmers over here were extremely rich and lived in huge bungalows.

Our driver and caretaker were from the police. They told us a lot about the true picture of Kashmir which remains hidden from the tourists. The villages that passed were residents of Militants who had killed or thrown away the original Hindu landlords. The houses were currently occupied by Mohammedans. There were so many disturbing things and events told during the drive. The one I recall is as follows.

A small village on our right was of a Hindu family. The Mohammedans had killed all the adults of the family to capture land. The small babies and children were kept together in a single room and repeatedly fired upon till there brains fell out.

We passed a long stretch which was called Pakistan. This whole area consisted only of Mohammedans. These people were surviving due to Indian Government’s efforts but were ready to join Pakistan any moment.

Though the ground realities were very disturbing, the drive to Kheer Bhavani was very beautiful. We passed lush green forests, lakes, Indus river and ofcourse Pakistan. It was raining heavily even when we reached Kheer Bhavani. The distance of the temple from the gate was over 300 meters. All of had to walk in the pouring rainfall. On reaching the temple, we had to take off our shoes. The floor was naturally wet with rain. Because of the rain we had to walk bare foot to the main altar which was 100 meters away. All, except me got wood sandals to wear, but I walked barefoot in the rain. After offering our prayers, I ran, actually sprinted back to the gate shade with shoes in my hand and rain pouring down. Other had gone to get Prasad within the temple complex. As I had sprinted back I did not get that wet, but others slowly walked to the gate, thus were completely wet. Luckily they were wear thick jackets because of the cold so water did not seep through. Only the hair, face and feet got wet.

From Kheer Bhavani, a Hindu temple, we went to the famous Hazrat Bal Dargah. My mother and mausi were afraid to go inside. I decided to take lead and went inside, my brother followed. The mosque was beautiful. It had framed paintings all around. The walls had intricate wood work. The ambience inside the mosque was amazing. A maulavi was offering and leading prayers to Allah. All others inside the mosque were following him. He was some kind of a saint. My brother became very scared inside the mosque and forced me to get out. But as we were going out, my father was coming in. Thus we again entered the dargah. The maulavi was offering intense prayers to allah. The whole hall was echoing with his voice. Everyone was saying amen repeatedly after the maulavi. When the prayers finished, everyone gathered around him out started kissing his hands and taking something from him. It seemed like he was a flame of the aarti thaal of which everyone wants a part. Like we move our hands over the flame, the people were doing it with him. My father asked the idea and meaning of the prayers the maulavi just recited. He gave a brief idea about this to us. The experience of visiting this mosque was very unique and pleasant.

From Hazrat Bal while we were going back to the guest house, we crossed a gurudwara. This was the only gurudwara in Srinagar. We went inside this old and very sacred gurudwara. The priest gave us hot sooji ka halva. It was very tasty and had become tastier because of the rain. Eating hot food in cold rainy conditions is a heavenly experience.

Thus throughout the day we had visited places of worship of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. It seemed like only a church was left to visit, though we didn’t come across one on the way. We had not planned to visit these places, these sacred places just came on our way and we visited them. We had lunch at around 1530 hours and went back to the guest house. In the evening I decided to write the day’s events.

My parents had gone to meet someone in the evening. My brother had gone off to sleep. Only my mausi and I were left. We both decided to watch Yahaan. The movie was interesting. It was about a new soldier of the Indian Army in Kashmir at the peak of militancy. Later in the evening my parents came back and my brother woke up. After sometime my father started to shiver. He is very sensitive to cold. The whole day had been rainy and very cold, thus he was suffering. After making proper heating arrangements for him we ate dinner. I watched The Bourne Supremacy after dinner. Later in the night a humorous episode of Cricket Controversies on NDTV was coming. Then I saw a stupidly funny show on Pogo called Takeshi’s Castle. All this while all others had gone off to sleep except my brother who was watching tv in the other room. I slept at around 12. My brother slept later as he was again writing about his friends.

Account of the trip beyond this point is yet to be completely written. Only points are written below.

Day Four
The weather had cleared. It was a pleasant morning. After waking up, breakfast, we set out to visit the ancient Sanckracharya Temple. On the drive we came across a big house, with red roof, lush green gardens and two stories high. The house looked very familiar but no one could recall where we had seen it before. It was then that the driver told us, this was the same house that was pictured in Mission Kashmir as Sanjay Dutt’s residence.
The Sankracharya Temple is situated on top of a hill. It is visible from all corners of Srinagar. The drive to the top was one of the most beautiful hill rides ever. As we reached the top, so we thought, we saw that the car cannot go till the Sankracharya complex. We were at the highest point. There were around 400 old steps which we had to climb to reach the complex, the temple was even more higher. The climb was not too tiring as a cool wind was blowing. There was police force everywhere, at the beginning, in the middle and also at the top of the stairs. One third of the complex was occupied by the police force.
The steps that lead to the temple were not very wide.
Morning passing mission Kashmir house. Sankaracharya. Tv tower. Nishat bagh. Drinks. Chashmeshahi. Drive. Shop and internet. Talking with shpekeepers. The royal gown.Search for mission Kashmir. Coming back. Watching movie. Dada blackmailing.

Day Five
Woke up relatively early. Drive to pehelegam. Avantipur, gurudwara. Anantnag. Meaning of pehel. Talking in car. View from guest house. Lither river. Ass encounter. Martand, mutton. Kargil board. Sarson ke khet. Kavah. Music in car. Reaching back. Packing.
Agar Hai Firdos Burohi Hamiasto Hamiasto

Day Six
Check out. Last drive.houseboat.mueseum.govt shop.blackm ailing continues. airport