One is familiar with the most clichéd metaphor of Kashmir being the ‘Switzerland of India’. Some years back when I had a trek in Kashmir, I was baffled and tried to figure out why the diadem of beauty is conferred on the European country alone. And later when I chanced upon Kashmir in winter, it reaffirmed my belief that it could in no way stand second fiddle to any European destination, so to speak.
The road that led us to the hotel was like the parting of a grey-haired lady. To our left was the partially frozen lake and to our right were the hotels and bylanes robed in white.
It was a casual telephonic conversation between me and Dipankar, my travel partner that ended up in buying tickets to board the flight in 5 days’ time. When the Srinagar-bound flight left Delhi, our eyes vied for a space in the windows to catch every passing frame with wide-eyed wonder.
It was like the awe-inspiring opening sequence of Where Eagles Dare as our flight flew like a crane above the stunning landscape of snow-covered peaks.
The sights of white-roofed huts signalled the presence of human settlements in that enveloping whiteness of downy snow. As the flight taxied on the tarmac, we were greeted into a surreal universe I didn’t even dream of.
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Sunrays were glistening on the heaps of snow and the pigeons pirouetting above our heads belied the infamous stories of a valley continually marred with the scars of war. Sun sets late in this part of the country offering us some extra hours to savour the metamorphosed sight of earth for the people of the plains.
We had our stay beside the boulevard of Dal Lake. The road that led us to the hotel was like the parting of a grey-haired lady. To our left was the partially frozen lake and to our right were the hotels and by-lanes robed in white.
The first sight of the Dal and the lazy happy people basking on the dying sunlight was overwhelmingly poetic but real fun started at the death of night. We mistook the sight of something hitting the glass to be a dampening shower at night. But soon we realised that it was snowflakes flying at the window panes at the wee hours.
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Once we understood that we rushed out with our cameras and stepped into a wintry wonderland. The wind winnowing its way through the incessant snowfall, bars of light like beacons coming from the headlights of the speeding vehicles illuminating the snow, the excitement of the street dogs, branches of pine trees laden with snow brought us to a make-believe cinematic world.
The day dawned in the valley with a murky sky heavily wrapped under clouds. The distant houseboat owners were clearing the fresh snow deposited on the roof of the houseboats. The daily life was under way as usually. Breaking the ice of the frozen Dal with his oar the tea seller was making a thin strip of water-way to ply through to sell his homemade bakery items and flasks of tea.
Lanes of old Srinagar were most picturesque. Mosques, old wooden buildings and bridges, little boys frolicking the heaps of snow, the philosophic tailor in his tiny shop stitching clothes and smiling at our thrilled eyes, the tune of azaan floating through the mazes of streets seemed like snippets of an old Ismail Merchant film.
Finding us enthusiastic to take the photographs of man scooping ice with his spade to clear the pathway, someone smiled and said, “ better stay back here in the winter months with us, experience the snow and take photographs’’. I could feel the underlying sarcasm. We got some prized snaps but as they say, “someone’s loss is someone’s gain”.
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Life in this valley with water freezing even in pipelines, biting cold numbing all activities, ice fields limiting the scopes of fresh produce, lack of tourist forcing the houseboat owners to lock their doors, small traders battered with prolonged lockdown and the unfortunate offshoots of political imbroglio are the tales that lay buried under the photographs of such a picturesque town.
Boating on the placid water of Dal Lake is the most abiding memory of any old calendar that would don the wall or the films that showcased this town. But boating in the near frozen lake in the peak of winter speaks of a grim tale of survival. We coaxed the shikara driver to take us to inland where generally the tourists are not plied into.
The shikara moved inside the thinner strips of creeks when it left the wide lake that is bordered on the one hand with the boulevard and the colourful houseboats on the other. Tourists were hardly seen there. The floating shops selling garments and floral printed quilts and woollens were all shuttered down.
We entered in a floating village where the closed doors and windows made it perennially sleepy. The mellowed translucent sun lulled everything and everyone into a strange silence and frigid inactivity. Only the heaps of snow in front of the homes and over their terraces turned the landscape surreally fantastic.
Frozen sheets of ice made the cultivable lands infertile. Canoes carrying a lone vegetable seller or an old man plying with logs of woods to keep them warm through the winter. Kids with their mothers went past us adding a fleeting slice of warmth. But overall it was a sordid tale of strange forlornness where the very life is hibernating under thick layers of snow. But for the migratory travellers from the cities craving for a snow enveloped world of lifelessness is a kind of perpetrated debauchery.
Winter gave us a unique opportunity of visiting the railway station of Srinagar. Train services lie suspended in the winter months because of heavy snowfall and turns the station into a painted scene suspended in a state of timelessness.
One needs to see to believe how a railway station becomes a sight to die for once it puts on the veil of snow. The rows of leafless maple trees beside the platform, the seats for the travellers sticking out their heads amid the carpet of freshly accumulated snow from last night’s heavy snowfall, the family of stray dogs running around were picturesque spectacle of old classics where the polar express would chug through billowing curling smoke and splintering snow from its wheels.
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The story of the young station master of Srinagar station spoke of the axiom hackneyed with overuse. While the young man told us that he was looking for the earliest opportunity of going back to his home city of din and bustle, we were overwhelmed at the silence of the place. Grass indeed remains greener at the other side.
The vacation was brief but the memories are limitless. We remember the old man who kept serving cups of delightful kahwa till we were done, the locals squatting on the street corners with the cane baskets of fire tucked under their oversized firan, the country lad who treated us with the warmest hospitality when we visited his village in Sonamarg and the sound of ice cracking when the oar of the lonely boatman hit the frozen surface of the lake. With his canoe disappearing at the next bend, the trailing sight of unsold vegetables of the day on its deck spoke me of a different tale.
