Valley of the roses

Of my first-ever trip to Kashmir, all I remember is that we couldn’t go to Gulmarg for some reason. I was about nine then, and most things were fuzzy. A few years later, we went – en famille again – on a holiday to Srinagar once more, little knowing that it would be our last trip – the troubles started a few years subsequently and we haven’t gone back since.

Almost three decades later, I’m left with but a series of impressions – words, images, sensations – of that vacation. But Srinagar was always special, as my parents had lived there for some years much earlier, when my father was posted in the region. My brother had been a toddler then, and all he had to remember it by was a stack of black-and-white pictures. Now he was returning, all grown up.

My mother recalled fascinating details of their life there, such as a houseboat named Suffering Moses. We stayed on a houseboat too, albeit not the same one. Suffering Moses used to be run, back in the 1950s, by Ghulam Mohammad who used to say of my brother: “Yeh to moochhon mein hansta hai,” referring to his upcurled-lip grin. That’s still a family phrase, more so since my brother’s son has inherited that “Rishi Kapoor grin”.

Being the youngest of the party I was given short shrift when it came to Important Decisions – like where and what to eat. In the beginning we ate some unmemorable food at a tourist-chain type of joint… until my mother remembered Grand Hotel, which was not on the package-tour itinerary. There is a Grand Hotel in every city in the world, to quote from the eponymous movie, and the one in Srinagar is etched in my memory for its food. We must have worked our way through a good bit of their menu, and what I particularly recall is their goshtaba – the best in Srinagar – and their rishta. Even their plain dal was superb. It was enhanced by the ambience of the hotel’s formerly grand but now unpretentious dining room, which had the air of an ageing beauty, knowing she can’t compete with the Miss Worlds of the day but for whom heads still turn, nevertheless. The staff quickly came to know us and our individual preferences, in a display of the renowned hospitality which my mother never stopped singing the praises of.

We stayed for a couple of days at Pahalgam too, and went on a horseback ride at Gulmarg. I had a very quick lesson in balance, counterbalance and centre of gravity, when we had to negotiate a small ditch with an almost vertical drop. The horse I was riding knew what to do, and I could practically feel him communicating to me that I should lean against the pull of gravity to help him along. In fact the horses knew the routes well, and didn’t even need a guide to lead them!

At one point, we stopped on a beautiful green hillside (well, actually, all the hillsides were green and beautiful) at a wayside shack, a dhaba, for hot tea and parathas fresh off the tava. There were no plates, and there was no place to sit – you stood around with glass in one hand and paratha in the other. As we munched, it began to rain, ever so slightly but not enough to make us scurry. The sensation was unforgettable – standing there on that hillside; fat little drops plip-plopping into our glasses; the delicious parathas; and the strong tea countering the cold wind.

Back in Srinagar, I remember we walked along the bund where I saw, for the first time, wild roses growing in lush profusion along all the walls and fences. Roses were precious and I had never seen them in such abundance. I wanted to pick one but my mother stopped me, saying they looked beautiful on the briars and there would be nothing to admire if they were picked. I responded with: “But I just want one.” And she replied: “If everyone said ‘just one’ then all the roses would be gone, wouldn’t they?” She is no more, and I still can’t abide cut flowers.

One everlasting memory is of a ride we took on a local bus to visit a shrine. It was much better than any organised tour, careening along the winding, sloping roads amid thickets and plantations and rolling fields, passing through villages and crossing shaky bridges over rushing mountain water. Among the local passengers on the bus was a party of four or five young women, perhaps in their late teens or early 20s, who were on an outing. They were teachers, and had a holiday that day. They were unabashedly friendly and charmed us all. At one point one of them, Afroze, caught me humming to myself and pounced, saying: “Aap to chhupe Rustom hain, aap gaati bhi hain?” and insisted that I sing along with them. They sang one or two Kashmiri songs for us but it was clear they loved Hindi film music, and coaxed a number out of me.

I have no idea why I chose the song I did, but I’ll never forget it. It was Khilte hain gul yahaan, khil ke bikharne ko; milte hain dil yahaan, mil ke bichhadne ko… (“Flowers bloom here, to bloom and get scattered; hearts meet here, to meet and then be separated.”) Whenever I hear it I remember that bus ride, those beautiful, happy faces, and I wonder what happened to them when the valley began to gush with blood instead of clear rivulets of water.




(First published in India Se magazine, Singapore.)