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How green is the Valley!

PHOTOS: NISSAR AHMAD

ALL THINGS BEAUTIFUL A lone shikara on the Dal lake and (below) the famed Hazratbal mosque

One of the bonuses of being an army wife is that you get to see hidden places — little towns and charming cities that seem to have fallen off the map and are sometimes nowhere on the tourist radar.

Last month, I was in Kashmir racing up and down the countryside, hiking up snow dusted mountains, splashing through silver streams, reading Dalrymple under a walnut tree while the daughter strung daisy necklaces, and riding through rough pony tracks to the Line of Control and back. But that’s for later….

It was Srinagar that first stole my heart. Capital of Kashmir, City of Bridges, City of Gardens and Shrines, there’s enough beauty to fill a hard drive with digital pictures. I’ve been looking at carved mosques, narrow lanes with their overhanging balconies, bungalows along the River Jhelum, gingerbread trimmed houseboats on the Dal Lake, handsome men from the sepia-tinted pages of an M.M. Kaye novel, beautiful rosy-cheeked women with Persian names and little children who resemble cherubs.

You know you’ve left the rest of India behind when you first see the ice-tipped Pir Panjal range and the burnt-brown and gold of the stubble bordering other airport runways gives way to green, lush with red poppies. Babloo, our friend and guide with movie-star looks, eases the Scorpio out of the airport gates and I take in the bewitching green landscape, budding into spring, hemmed in by the Zabarwan hills. The trees are heavy with pink and white blossoms and the chinar trees rich with leaves. Horses pulling cartloads of vegetables trot through the streets. But there is also the disquieting presence of para-military soldiers in bullet-proof vests with rifles, behind a tangle of razor-wire at intervals along the roadside.

After criss-crossing the Jhelum twice, the car swings into Boulevard Road that skirts Dal Lake. It is almost mid-afternoon and golden-pink clouds drift over the hills that circle the sun-dappled lake and chinar trees bow low with the breeze in a dreamy setting that filmmakers chase whole lifetimes. Babloo transports us to a shikara that would drop us off at our houseboat with the innocuous name – New Mexico.

A shikara is like a gondola — graceful, the paddlers seem suspended above the water. Passengers lounge on a couch beneath a canopy, against cushions. This scene from the Orient is marred a bit by signs over the canopies that advertise mobile-phone services. Raouf, the boatman, steers us past floating vegetable gardens, lotus pads and duck weed.

New-Mexico had splendid views of the hills, the fountains on the lake, the famous char chinar trees and the 18th Century Durrani fort on Hari Parbat. The back rooms are occupied by the Mishras, who seem to spend all their time indoors watching soaps (names have been changed to protect the slothful), so we get the better ones in front. The porch opens into a colourful viceregal parlour overstuffed with colonial furniture and Kashmiri rugs. Both sides of the room are lined with windows facing the surrounding water. Houseboats are anchored against the shoreline, with permanent water and electrical connections and other luxuries. A water parade of people paddles by selling all kinds of wares. The light drizzle that lasts a few minutes sets off a drum roll on the wooden roof and by the time Shairah, the caretaker, arrives with milky sweet tea, we are ready to set off.

We first take in the famed Mughal gardens at Chesmashahi, Pari Mahal, Nishat and Shalimar. Almost always built in terraces with fountains and framed by the hills, the banks are bright with poppies and roses and a great sea of bluebells flower under the chinars. The gardens are full of tourists, picnicking families and schoolgirls. With lovely views of the lake below and Kashmir’s green cathedral to golf — the Royal Springs Golf Course — the highland air is clean and cool tinged by the sharp scent of pine.

We hare off the next day to visit the city’s famed shrines — Hazratbal, Jamia Masjid and the Shah Hamadan Mosque. The Hazratbal shrine lies on the banks of the Dal, past the tomb of Sheikh Abdullah and the chinar-filled University of Kashmir. In splendid white, the shrine is said to contain a relic believed to be a hair of the Prophet Mohammed. A citadel of peace, the shrine comes alive in the evening when the muezzin’s call to prayer sets of great flocks of pigeons into flight.

The Jamia Masjid at Nowhatta in the old city was built by Sultan Sikandar in 1394 in the Indo-Saracenic style, with a magnificent courtyard and 370 wooden pillars. It holds upto 30,000 people during prayers.

The Shah Hamadan mosque on the banks of the Jhelum is richly carved and embellished with chandeliers and art. Taste the blackberries growing in clumps on the trees around the yard. The imam won’t mind.

Food runs heavily to lamb and chicken, while vegetables are simple but tasty. Babloo and his cousin Shabir treat us to a Kashmiri wazwan, without frills, at the Mughal Darbar.I lay as still as a python all afternoon. If you want to grab a falafel you could head for Coffea Arabica, a restaurant that has great ambience and plays everything from Sinatra to Boyzone.

On our way back, we shop for Kashmiri papier-mâché work with gilded decoration. Persian carpets and embroidered shawls and phirans. Theyunroll like treasures from Alladin’s cave. In little shops, trinkets abound recalling the splendour of Mughal life.

As I await my return flight, the memory of the beauty of the sharply defined Himalayan crags intrudes. I think of the pine trees casting end-of-the-day shadows up the sides of the Zabarwan. I promise to return to Srinagar only after I have baked in Chennai again, because the coolness of the mountains belongs only to those travellers who have earned it in the scorching plains below.

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