On visiting Kashmir

KAA-SH-MEER. The moment this name exits your mouth with a furtive, sensuous lip-smack at the syllable ‘M’, a surge of mixed emotions and feelings, sights and sounds washes over you. A verdant, table-top flat valley bejeweled with a necklace of snow-capped mountains. The vast watery bosom of the Dal Lake bedecked by fancy shikaras tweaking your ‘WhatsApp’-weary romantic pulse into sudden beats of amorous passion. The Chinars – nature’s sturdy Pathans – dotting the serene landscape with their palm-shaped foliage silently reciting Azaan and Namaz, invoking the heavens for love, peace, and bliss. The tall and handsome, bearded Kashmiri youth wearing their hurts and wounds, wrath and suffering, with winsome smiles of resilience, and undying, irrepressible human spirit. Not the least, the slim and shy, pretty, circumspect, head-scarved ‘Kashmir ki kalis’ with nothing but rose petals to speak of for their fair faces adding ethereal charm to this earthly paradise par excellence. And lots and lots more to write home about with a gleeful heart.

But alas!

To mar and besmirch this sweet reverie, rises up a counteracting, crisscrossing, tear-smitten wave. A hopelessly mixed-up collage of gun-toting cops, AK-47s, bullets, bombs, IEDs, corpses, bloodied streets, death and gore, eerie hush of scare and fear … a sad, horrific, spinechilling drama that your imagination can conjure up. Albeit invisible, the ghost of circumspection and fear hanging over the valley: its reptilian hiss and sound perceptible to Kashmir’s every eye and ear. The demon that is hard at work contriving new ways and means to rain more destruction and devastation, more violence, pain, grief and misery; trigger more moans and wails in a Kashmiri home.

In a somewhat similar, fudgy, light-and-grey frame of mind – part happy, part chary – was I to land on the valley one late August afternoon. When, as if on cue, the grey of clouds and the light of the sun too were, likewise, fighting themselves out like old, unrelenting warlords.

It happened on the spur of a moment. Our feisty daughter, an intrepid soul that she is, issued her recalcitrant and travel-shy parents an ultimatum: “We are going. Why won't you? We are booking the tickets, anyway.”

It was a short tour but we lived and loved every moment of it, every morsel of it. Our not-so-posh, but pretty decent place of stay at Rajbagh managed by a young, grinning, gym-fit, handsome Kashmiri youth. Our evening sojourn to the Lal chowk compered by soft-spoken auto-drivers doubling as our guides in their charmingly sweet Kashmir-accented ‘Hindurdu’. Our sumptuous wazwan dinner at the iconic ‘Ahdoos’ restaurant (visited by Rahul Gandhi a day later)– a gastronomic delight both for the eyes and the palate. Our slow trot along the Lal Chowk in its new, rather glitzy avatar from its old, laidback, pristine Kashmiri demeanour. Our brief step-ins to small shops to sample Kashmiri ware and stuff.

A visit to the iconic Shankaracharya temple atop a hill is our first destination next morning– where the hum of Rajesh Khanna’s playacted 'Jai Jai Shiv Shankar’ still lurks in the Chinar-scented air. On return we visit the world-famous gardens Chashme Shahi and Nishat, redolent with the soft, sensuous melodies of many an old song-and-dance Bollywood number. There is a lot more packed in our day’s itinerary: a walk along the Dal Lake, a detour of Handicrafts emporium, a South Korean dinner and so on, but the Shikara ride is the mother of all delights.

Day 2: We are off to Gulmarg. The curvaceous road is fine – sans any littering along its flanks. The view of hills beyond bedecked with swathes of tall deodars seemingly speaking to the heavens above is enchanting. The gondola ride is all thrill and fun.

The day 3 forenoon is all shopping: we buy dry fruits, some handicraft items, a few home decorations et al.

Time has raced by. Finally, saying our ‘Allahhafiz’ to Kashmir, we are back to Chandigarh.

Yes. A paradise on earth Kashmir indeed is. Let’s all pray that peace and happiness return to KAA-SH-MEER. Sooner than later. Inshallah!

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