Like most attempts at chronicling indescribable beauty, Amir Khusro’s much-quoted ‘hamin asto’ is from afar, in passing, removed from close quarters and ground reality. From the perched Taj hotel – itself a peeling, fading relic of what it was just a few years ago, understaffed but brimming with heartening sights symbolic of a changing Kashmir like openly affectionate dating couples and doughty women in western wear – the Dal Lake snuggled mistily into the gelid grey of the Zabarwan sub-mountains. The water wasn’t exactly a shimmery emerald like the Pangong or the surrounding range stately typical of the Himalayas but here you find a serenity bordering on the empyrean prompting the greater minds to epithets and lulling the lesser mortals into grateful quietude. We sat smoking on the deck next to a closed infinity pool waiting for our food, not minding an inordinate delay or the drizzle that fell with dusk.
Peripheral lives of the Dal
The causeway strode on scything the metallic water with purpose. Where the path cambered for the lake to flow, little wooden bridges rose across which I could see moving brown figures. Sizeable expanses of green serenaded the strip further on – the famous rads or floating gardens as I discovered later. Not just the lovely blooms sold on the shikaras were grown here but also vegetables that fed villages that lay along the fringes of the lake, away from the boulevard or houseboat sights.
“What is that?” I asked somebody, staff or guest I don’t remember.
“That’s a bridge.” Unclear questions invite obvious answers.
I need to ride across it, I told my girl friend, maybe tomorrow. Wake me up, she replied, once you get back.
Haphazard tin shanties out of water
Riding into the rad
Angling has always struck me as a strange sport; its popularity perhaps hooked more on getting skunked by someone a few feet away than by a tug at your own line. I have heard from friends that it is a good stress buster, great bonder, and the application of infinite patience even thrilling for some. And then you have the catch and release around the GHNP where I have camped occasionally. But the fishing activity along the Dal had a sense of urgency, I could detect more purpose – it was for food. Men, including some in traditional pheran could be seen hunched intently along the rugged shore watching the line, almost willing their tackles to tingle.
Waiting for tackles to tingle – an angler
The turn from the main drag was smooth and the tarmac continued for a good 100 metres making me wonder whether I was actually going off-piste; roads to wonderland are usually rocky. A water plant stood in the way and I manoeuvred my motorcycle around some cylindrical equipments sprouting from the ground, different filters, probably – and hit dirt. In Kashmir, no commoner stops you from going or entering anywhere – maybe why houses belonging to erstwhile politicians or eminent citizenry all have state-provided armed guards serving the token purpose of dissuading trespassing. Well, there is more to it, am sure. Two men stood operating pump machinery, nodded and smiled as I waved and rode on. Despite the benevolence, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was breaching, not warded-off territories exactly but guarded, sensitive domains of living and sustaining. If it’s the joyful knowledge of who is waiting at the end of a ride, sometimes it’s the edgy oblivion of not knowing what lies ahead that will keep you going.
A hobbledehoy in a snazzy sports bicycle raced me veering precariously close to the smoother grassy levees while I rode roughshod over the nonexistent road. Each time I stopped to take photographs, he would stop too and wait patiently catching his breath. He tried talking to me in pure Koshur which sounded like I was being berated for something. My responses in pidgin Hindi irked him, soon he was gone and I didn’t see him again. The young bloods in the valley, I noticed, were quick to temper. Some days earlier while taking a selfie at a bar I was accosted by five or six youths who thought I was shooting a video and insisted I delete it. There was a lot of snarling and fist pumping which ended quite convivially with some of them taking selfies with my motorcycle.
Bridge across everyday
Life in ‘paradise’
After the gnomic cyclist left, I rode on as light faded and reached a habitation. Causeways like the one I was riding, divided the wetlands around the lake into four basins and two islands including the Char Chinar which I was in. Somebody told me later that people in these villages spend whole years not stepping on solid ground which didn’t seem very improbable. Sand embankments jutted out from the water upon which stood haphazardly sprawling tin shanties. You couldn’t say if it was one or more residences – the whole area was an unseemly subtopia of tin and bricks. Docked outside were shikaras, colourfully decked – just the ones that came knocking if you spend the night on the Dal in a houseboat. Entire transactions could be seen made from boats that passed beneath the wooden arches connecting the road and buildings.
A plank walkway led towards a copse and people could be seen working in a rad, the floating garden of matted vegetation and earth. A man on a boat cleaned away the submerged aquatic plants while a woman removed weeds from a plantation already up; tomato, cucumber and melons are grown during season and of course, lotus stems, a staple. As it was spring, the trees were largely aphyllous, which meant more working light. Who would have thought that so much work went into paradise upkeep! And some animosities, as I learnt later.
The edge of the oblivion – riding on
These fringe folks and their farming methods were often blamed by the houseboat owners for the shoddy state of affairs of all the lakes including the Dal itself which has contracted from 22 to 18 square kilometres over the years. The boat owners couldn’t be blamed either – the state government’s blinkered gag on repairs and renovation has seen to it that at least half of the boats have gone under already. As their calls for rehabilitation to more solid grounds go ignored, coming in their line of ire are these hapless villagers.
The couple continued to work well into the half-light, not missing a beat. If not plenty, there was ample, the people I saw around me were kvell and I got invited to tea more than once, a recurring theme during my nearly two weeks in and around Srinagar. The road led on to Rainawari, a famous nobby suburb of old brick buildings usually accessed from Lal Chowk. It was getting late and I was getting worried messages from my girlfriend.
“How far to Rainawari?” I asked an exuberant, rotund old lady who caught my eyes. She was jabbing the air and talking animatedly to a bunch of moppets who hung on to her every word and broke into laughter.
“Not very far,” she replied. “I would have come with you if I could fit here,” she said gesticulating at my motorcycle seat and pointing at her own copious posterior, cackling. The children squealed in delight and playfully dragged her towards my motorcycle.
I held on powerfully.
