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Published: January 10th 2010
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Strange Srinagar
We visited Srinagar and Gulmarg in Dec 2009 end, against some trepidation - everyone thought we were crazy - why Kashmir... its not safe - go to a balmy weather place like Goa... etc... but my son wanted to see Kashmir - its always been a part of India which most teenagers in Mumbai would have never experienced - given that by the time they were born, insurgency had already started.
Srinagar was cold, bare, dirty - the Dal Lake too is dirty. Validates the fact that the local government has other pressing needs on their minds. And that Kashmir is the 2nd most corrupt state in India - after Bihar I think. I was not surprised.
On some days, in and some areas, there was more military personnel than locals. But in most other places, the main markets - like MA road etc - the market was busy with shopkeepers trying to do good business, and locals trying to buy whatever they needed. Business as usual.
A few glimpses of the local Kashmiri life that I came across:
Most locals that I interacted with - namely - our car driver attached to our
houseboat company, the car driver attached to our Gulmarg resort, a couple of shop keepers, and our local skii instructor - they all said that Pakistan is only interested in our land, and not in us as people - if they get our land that will not be good for us. Whatever we get we get from the Indian government. Why complain about the Indian government - its not that Pakistan can give us anything better. They emphasised to me that now for years there has been peace, and locals do not want to be annexed to Pakistan. They went to great lengths to explain to us that now there is peace and I should tell my friends that they should holiday in Kashmir.
I also saw a fair bit of construction in and around Srinagar - half built roads, canals, houses... everything look like it was being built, but not finished. Overall the fact that someone is optimistic about the future, is the reason why someone would build anything, right?
I had heard a lot about the warm hospitality of the Kashmiris. In Srinagar I did not feel it - the autorickshaw drivers all speak English and
try to cheat you - you are just tourists who should be milked for their money - everyone else is out to hard-sell something. At the houseboat - I stayed at Chicago Houseboat - owned by Ajaz Khar (handphone 91 94190 61430) - I felt comfortable - the meals were lavish and tasty - but it was cold and the bukhara was not adequately heated - the assistants did their work but I felt that there was no personalised attention from Mr Khar. But I would still recommend the boat to anyone who would like to stay there. There was something nice about it - very nice.
On Sunday we went to Lal Chowk area, which was under a terror attack after 9 days and all in the news - the market was for cheap goods - new and used - and it was amazingly bustling with activity. No group of more than 4 can collect in this area - it is very sensitive, high security is in force. BUt just watching the locals shop made me feel that surely there is some money to spend amongst the middleclass, and people like to shop. For every 100 men, you
see a woman, by the way.
I also read the local Kashmiri newspapers - esp. the editorials. The author of an article I read explained that India must stop thinking that Kashmir is a bottomless pit into which they have to keep pouring in money on security etc. Kashmir provides water through its rivers to India, and also allows India to negotiate terms with Pakistan - if Kashmir did not provide that - India would not have much power to bargain. I also noticed that there were hardly any female authors writing in the newspapers.
I did get the feeling that Kashmir is quite isolated from the rest of India - I felt that Kashmir never did exist for me in the past 20 years - I felt like I had come to a strange land, and had to remind myself that this is in India.
We stayed at Gulmarg for 6-7 days, learnt to ski with local instructors. It was fairly crowded, though it seems that our resort Nedous, had opened this year after 20 years. Don't know how many other resorts were open all these years. Nedous was a great place - run by Ms
Daisy Nedou (91 195 4254428) - a highly competent lady. Beautiful old-world-style cottages, and with old-worldly staff - very hospitable. Lots of army folks around in Gulmarg - training for high altitude warfare. Omar Abdullah managed to take out 2 days with his family to ski - he was very fit, and skilled in skiing, and his little sons too were doing very well. I like the idea of young, suave, competent, outdoors-oriented chief-ministers, esp. in traditional and religious states like Kashmir.
We returned to Srinagar from Gulmarg. We bought some awesome silk scarfs, woollen stoles, caps, silver jewellery, papier mache boxes, and a sweater. And yes, 2 lovely Kashmiri carpets. All very reasonably priced. Due to less tourism the prices have been low. Well, I did my best to boost the local economy.
What I enjoyed the most was exploring the bookshops - there are an amazing no. of bookshops - don't remember seing any city where there were more bookshops. We bought a whole load of books - on Pakistani literature, Indian writers, writers from the Northeast (Katha publishers), books on animals (my kids bought them), and ofcourse some run of the mill stuff like Arthur
Hailey, Gabriel Garcia, and other popular writers. I find it amazing to see how different the collection of books is in each city/country. We all loved reading this treasure chest of books that we bought. I saw locals buy text books, and a few foreign tourists buy other books - but I was wondering - what is the demand for so many kinds of books, from so many bookshops.
We enjoyed Coffea Arabica ( M A Road) for its pastas, shwarmas, and pizzas. We enjoyed the Cafe Robusta for its .. same stuff actually - but some great coffee. This was after we had tried all local food joints and restaurants... we thought we could just indulge in "western kind of restaurants" where I saw some polished Kashmiris get together - what was the term I read somewhere ?... Bohemian Bourgeoisie (BoBos) - though being bohemian is relative - here a woman with her husband, but without the head scarf being fully in place was bohemian, and guys wearing leather jackets and smoking expensive cigarettes was bohemian.
A few days later there were protests when the Chief Minister's team had organised his 1-year-completion celebration - because people felt
that he had not lived upto his promises as a Chief Minister.
Then there was the Moharram - the 10 days of mourning - it seems that Shias are a minority, and every year when they try to take out a procession there are roits - local Sunni people and police invariably create trouble. There were riots there when we were there, and it felt odd to return back to our shikara point, by walking though a market full of closed shops, and a hundred armed police.
After that we were to take our flight back to Mumbai - but due to bad weather - snow in Srinagar and fog in Jammu and Delhi - for 2 days all flights were cancelled - we had to extend our holiday by another 3 days - enjoyed ourselved thoroughly. We finally left on 6 Jan at 11 am, only to discover that there was a fight with terrorists at Lal Chowk, and a curfew was imposed for 2 days! Whew, we were glad to be back.
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