Northeast Natters: Day 1 - In the Lap of the Brahmaputra

Arriving in Guwahati

Paltan Bazaar outside Guwahati railway station is the archetypal picture of chaos of an Indian railway station terminal. A state-owned airconditioned bus brought the three of us - Jose, Sachin, and me - from Guwahati international airport and deposited us at the chaotic bus stand, which rubbed its dusty shoulders with Platform One of the railway station. Immediately, the August heat and humidity of most cities on the plains hit us. Our t-shirts cleaved to our backs, drenched in sweat. I admired Sachin for his resilience. If I had his long locks of hair, I would've been hopping mad. On the other hand, however, with my bald head, I was a mobile solar panel, and I had no idea where in my large rucksack had I buried my damn cap! 

Jose stridently declared that he was going to find himself some chilled beer before we boarded the bus to Tezpur. At that point, none of us knew that we didn't have to go via Tezpur to Bomdila. All we had to do is go to the Guwahati Inter State Bus Terminus from where we could have taken the overnight bus straight to Bomdila. On the return leg a week later, we smacked our foreheads when we returned to Guwahati on that bus.

There was nothing international about Guwahati's Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International airport. I declared that the ISBT at Kashmiri Gate in New Delhi was far better. Jose had seen the abbreviation on a hoarding somewhere - LGBI - and remarked that this was ostensibly an inclusive airport. Took us a few minutes to figure out what he meant, because we were searching the airport for the Arunachal Pradesh Tourism office where we could get our Inner Line Permits (ILPs) made. For the convenience, however, of not having to troop to Guwahati and go to some government office and spend half a day over there, we had to cough up extra money though. Comes to the same thing, the boys said. Go to Guwahati, locate the office and spend time waiting for this would be excruciating. Save us the trouble.

"Going to Arunachal Pradesh?" asked one of the men who was simply there in the office, doing nothing. He probably didn't know where he was to be asking such an obvious question.

"Are the roads good?" I asked. The man turned to another sitting next to him, wearing what looked like a Himachali cap, and chuckled.

"Roads? Good? It's the rainy season. You'll be lucky if the roads still exist."

Our ILPs were already paid for and stamped, so there was no looking back now. Although, we exchanged worried glances. Should we have gone to Meghalaya instead? I got a few text and video forwards from a colleague in Bangalore. The Assam flood of 2017 had inundated most of the state, even the Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary. The video showed a rhino running amok on what was allegedly a highway in assam. Yes, a rhino, not cattle or goat. And there are rhinos everywhere in Assam. Stone rhinos, graffiti rhinos, red rhinos on the neon signboards at petrol pumps, miniatures on dashboards of buses. Our worries dissipated a little after we found the low-floor, airconditioned bus that transferred us to Paltan Bazar in downtown Guwahati. All highways fully open, assured the bus conductor.

We got the first glimpses of the Brahmaputra river as the bus neared the state capital. Boats and ferries of all shapes and sizes were anchored to the riverbank. After getting off the bus and stretching our weary limbs and backs, we walked about a little in the marketplace looking for a decent place to eat. The moment we stepped out the bus stand, Jose had shown me this huge Signature Whisky signboard outside a rundown building, which announced a bar on the first floor. After looking around, we gave up the search and decided to go to this bar, although Sachin and I weren't keen on drinking before a four-hour bus journey. So while we washed down our lunch with fresh lime sodas, Jose had two beers that got him going - literally, all along the journey for the rest of the day. Whenever the bus stopped along the way, he jumped out, bounded across crowded roads and watered roadside walls, trees, or ditches.

The Ride to Tezpur

Rain an hour after we left Guwahati. The hills in the background are in Meghalaya.

"Wow, this place is not so bad after all!" we remarked after the bus trundled out of Paltan Bazar and made its way out of Guwahati. There were the same shopping malls, brand showrooms, bistros and restaurant-chain outlets along the way like the ones we saw in Bangalore or Mumbai. So there was nothing for us to gloat about. Yes, there are these airs that travelers from popular metros have when they travel to 'exotic' or seemingly 'less privileged' and 'laidback' towns. After we exited the city and cruised down the fine highway, the rolling green hills appeared. It rained intermittently making the landscape even more beautiful. We saw motorcycle tourers cruising past on their Royal Enfields and Harleys, even on KTM Dukes much to our pleasant surprise. Eventually, saner riders had begun to discover modern, refined motorcycles instead of the unreliable, rudimentary machines that riders go ga-ga about and feel 'macho' on. Jose was seated in the seat in front of us, next to a pleasant lady who was intrigued and amused to see us. She pointed towards the hills on the right and told us that those hills were part of Meghalaya.

It didn't rain all the time, although the sky was always grey and brooding.
This was probably the last good stretch of the highway

"Such a fine, wide highway, no?" I exclaimed. A few kilometers later, I realized that I'd spoken too soon.

'Cunt-ry' Roads...

Somewhere near Jagiroad, our bus veered off the six-lane highway into a single lane road that reminded me of Mumbai, for it was as pothole-ridden as the roads in my hometown. The similarities ended there. The vestiges of a bad cloudburst still showed. I thought there were ditches full of water on either side of the road in front of the traditional houses. There were hastily constructed bridges on stilts that connected the verandas to the road. Pigs roamed around the pools of still water. I wondered whether a malaria epidemic prevailed in these regions because of these floods. Thankfully, our airconditioned bus was sealed, unless it stopped at all the villages to take in or let out people - and mosquitoes in the process.

The villages that our bus trundled through weren't impressive. Neither was the pit stop restaurant, a ramshackle structure that served nothing more than maida chapatis, watery dal that looked like some leaves and tomato skin boiled in water, and some rotten pickles that didn't look even slightly appetizing. We quietly munched on the chapatis with milky tea, which wasn't refreshing either. If this was the only kind of food available on the route, we weren't happy. We bought a couple of mango juice bottles and packets of chips and returned to the bus once again, which we were slowly getting fed up of.

Tezpur, Finally

An hour later, we crossed the Brahmaputra after sunset and entered Tezpur. It took us nearly half an hour to reach the bus station. We had left Bangalore at 3:30 AM that morning, flown out of Bangalore at 6:10 AM, landed in Kolkata and waited at that airport for about ninety minutes, and then flown to Guwahati, reached Paltan Bazaar a little after midday, and then boarded this bus at 2:30 PM, only to arrive in this bus station at 7:45 PM, which was nothing more than a decrepit shed.

As soon as we got off the bus, we were swarmed by cycle rickshawwalas, whose cycle rickshaw were as creaky and sad as the bus station. We asked them to take us to a reasonable guest house where we wanted to spend the night.

"You are only men, no?" a cyclist asked. For a small fee of twenty rupees, he ferried us to a narrow, unpaved street where there were sorry-looking eateries and shops under rundown buildings on either side. He pointed to one of those buildings, led us through an incredibly narrow, rat-infested alleyway, which could have well been an escape tunnel at wartime, to a "reception" of a lodge, where a disinterested fellow charged us Rs. 900 for a "deluxe room".

What was so "deluxe" about the room? Does it have air conditioning? The man replied that it was bigger, had two double beds, an attached bathroom and a TV. The room was full of mosquitoes, extremely stuffy, and the fans were useless. He gave mosquito repellent machines but we had to step out and buy mosquito mats.

"Tell you what boys," said Jose. "Let's not eat anywhere over here. And certainly not chicken or meat. They might serve us rat meat! Let's scout the neighborhood, find a liquor store, buy ourselves a bottle, and drink ourselves silly, just so that we get knocked out for the rest of the night."

We reminded ourselves that we had to wake up again at 4 AM to board one of those shared taxis to Bomdila at 5:30. That was what one of those shared taxi drivers had told us outside the bus stand. Planning for all this, we stepped out and walked through the sorry neighborhood, asked around for a wine shop, and found a store that said 'Pharmacy' or 'Chemist' on the hoarding outside the shop. I don't remember what we bought over there, but I do know that it was only a half-bottle. We found a shop where they had eggs, so we asked the shopkeeper to make us three omelet sandwiches.

"We'll keep it simple," I said. "Once we enter Arunachal Pradesh, we'll eat good Tibetan food. Momos and Thukpas!"

"I'll only have the chips," Sachin declared. By the time we returned to our 'Deluxe room', we were so exhausted, we barely had a peg each and only a bite or two of our omelet sandwiches.

"Tastes weird, no?" Sachin said and put aside the sandwich. We agreed. Despite the stifling humidity, slow turning ceiling fans, and buzzing mosquitoes, we fell asleep. 

Northeast Natters: Day 1 - On t

Northeast Natters: Day 1 - On t

Northeast Natters: Prologue - Day 0

On The Turning Away

One sunny June afternoon in Bangalore — There! Could a better prelude than this exist? — three Malayali men in three different age decades gathered at Sachin’s place. On the table: Mr. Johnny Walker marched aristocratically around the red carpet banner wrapped around the whisky bottle. Sultry beers bathed in cold sweat pouted at us. The flat filled with the strains of Mark Knopfler and Aerosmith out of sync with the munching and chomping of fried chicken sausages, chips, and Behrouz Biryani. On our minds: The fact that life was about to scatter us in three directions.

Jose had Canada lined up. His immigration came through. Sachin was expecting his second child and moving to Singapore. I was headed back to Mumbai after three years of living alone in Bangalore.

Sachin frying the chicken sausages in butter

“Let’s do a trip, man!” Sachin had urged weeks earlier at Prost Brew Pub. “You guys have biked together, but I can’t ride. And we’ve talked Vietnam, Cambodia, all that. But this is it. After August, we may not meet again. Let’s go north — I’ve never been beyond Delhi.”

Ideas flew. Drive to Leh in Sachin’s Hyundai Creta? He squirmed. My poor Creta won't survive; not happening. Kasol? Too much trekking. Garhwal? Same problem. Mcleodganj? I’d already been twice. Kashmir? Unsettled. More often than not, it's like walking into the sets of the likes of "Saving Private Ryan". Only thing is, this is no film set. Ladakh by air? Too expensive. Bhutan? Same story.

Then the Northeast came up. I hadn’t been to that neck of the woods since my honeymoon in Sikkim in 2003. First Meghalaya, then maybe Arunachal Pradesh.

Jose, decisive as ever, checked flights. Within minutes he snapped his MacBook shut and said, “Done. Tickets booked. Bangalore → Kolkata → Guwahati. Return direct.”

Sachin looked nervous. “Edda, sure about this? Floods, landslides… what if we get stuck?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Jose grinned. “Worst case, we just drink our way through.”

We clinked glasses, laughed, and agreed to “play it by ear.” The trip was on.

Sachin's beautiful house

Where do we go? Where do we go now? And while we mulled, Jose booked the air tickets.

Three happy Mallu men after the trip was planned and the booze bottles emptied.

On the Night Before

I lived closest to the airport, if you could call it that. “Closest” still meant 41 km via the Outer Ring Road. Jose and Sachin decided to crash at my place and catch the 3:45 AM airport bus.

The thought of hosting them worried me. My flat was a decrepit pigeonhole even the watchman pitied. I had no furniture; A dead refrigerator stored four plates, 3 spoons and forks each, two cooking woks, a coffee mug, and seven glasses. Why seven glasses? Priorities you know. Besides, there was this disastrous electrical wiring that caused two near heart attacks about which I shall write elsewhere. To sum it up, it was something of a ghetto minus the nefarious activities that come with one.

Worse, the "house" sat next to a bar with the same name as an ex-girlfriend. After our bitter breakup, I couldn’t tolerate anything connected to her — our favorite songs, films, not even my old car, which I nearly disposed of, leaving it in Kerala at my parents', not that they used it much. Whenever I stepped out of my apartment building, I wouldn't look up to avoid seeing the "Her Name" Bar and Restaurant signboard. Eventually, one weekend afternoon, I forced myself to walk into that Her Name bar. The beer was cheap and nice, the snacks edible, and slowly the place became my weekend haunt.

On the previous day of the trip, the Bangalore office organized a farewell lunch for four of us — two transfers, including me, and two exits — at a long-awaited buffet at Absolute Barbeque. Stuffed to the gills, I still joined Jose that evening for beers and chicken starters at Her-Name bar.

“So this is your "beloved" place?” he asked, scanning the dim interior. It was packed for once. “Not bad. Chilled beer, decent food. Not so bitter after all.”

Sachin came later, and for once we called it an early night. The alarm was set for 3 AM.

At dawn, as sunlight streaked behind a British Airways jet on the tarmac, the three of us were already in motion. Bangalore was behind us. The Northeast awaited.

Sunlight streaks at the horizon behind the British Airways sitting on the tarmac.

  

Motorcycle Diaries Story 3: Happy Birthday Red Demon

My RS200, fondly known as the Red Demon, turned two last week. Two years ago, while it was still in the running-in period, Jose and I rode to Nandi hills. I had to keep the bike under 6000rpm, which was difficult because the Red Demon begs to be rode hard and fast.

On the way up to Nandi. Note the missing registration number on the plates.

I'm more of a motorcycle tourer, not a speedster. Besides, the racy seating on this motorcycle is a stark contrast from the laid-back seating of the 'Bluecephalus', the former Avenger that I sold before I moved to Bangalore. 

Behold the RS200, the Red Demon, with its stickers

View from the hills

We rode through the city to Hebbal; I was entering the main city areas on a two wheeler after two years! Staying in benign BTM earlier and then in ridiculous Kadubeesa-whateverthatshitwasahalli, I restricted myself to the peripheries of Bangalore, notably along the dreaded Outer Ring Road. The 'real' Bangalore, however, is in the heart of the city literally. With the Avenger, I didn't dare venture into the city for the fear of being apprehended by traffic policemen for whom catching non-KA vehicles was as much fun as gambling in Las Vegas (They do strike gold too with the fines that they impose on non-KA vehicles!). 



So, with the Karnataka registered Red Demon, I finally got an excuse to venture deeper into the city on weekends. Well, did I do that often in the last two years? Nah I didn't :P



The ride was smooth and uneventful. Being a weekend morning, we got to see many Hayabusas (which I don't like) and Kawasaki Ninjas (which I do!). Even the occasional cyclist in full gear sped by whenever we took breaks. I was pleased with the ABS on the bike despite it being a single-channel one. Anything is better than nothing, they say. The feedback from the front ABS brakes are nicely fed to the back wheel, thus aiding safe and effective braking. Almost all my falls from previous bikes have been because of wheel lock, so that was why I had been adamant on buying a motorcycle that had ABS. No complaints at all. Even now, two years later, the ABS has helped me often on my commute to/from office. 

Dosas and filter coffee on the way back home

I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but as we returned from Nandi Hills, we stopped at this restaurant for breakfast. The dosas and filter coffees were good! From here, and after covering the highway where I had to resist the temptation to go vrooom, at Hebbal, Jose continued straight into the city, while I turned left on the ORR and headed home.

Now the bike is bereft of those puerile stickers. It now stands shining as good as new in the mezzanine parking at the workplace. 

Heart in the Hills: An Attempt At Poetry

Over there, where the stream gurgles,
before it rolls into the vale.
And through the latticed curtain of deodars,
the morning light twinkles.
Over there by the ledge, where our chalet sits.
Bedazzled by the snow-capped peaks.
From there, watching the changing colors of the hills.
Blue, golden, purple, crimson.
The theatrics of dawn and dusk.
At night, in the tender moonlight,
The hearth and your embrace keep me warm.
In the morning, under the eaves we sit,
Our feet swinging over the ledge. 
Watching the valley,
Your head resting on my shoulder, 
Our hands clasped, we sit,
Wrapped in the morning mist.
Is it really mist, or wisps of your breath,
Or perhaps vapors rising from our coffee mugs?

Over there, when the breeze whistles,
as if happy to have kissed your toes. 
When the trees rustle and the soaring kites mewl.
The mountain birds croon in the greens.
Over there, when the whispers of the valley rise,
We lock lips, as the prayer chants rise. 
Conch shells. Drums. Cymbals and bells. 
The calls of the azaan. 
The merriment of the boarding schools.
Tinkling bells of yaks.
Sighs of wanderers.

Where the gentle rhythm of your heartbeats.
The rise and fall of your bosom.
The tenderness of your mouth, the twinkle in your eyes.
The fragrance of orange citrus Shea butter in your hair. 
The warmth of your slender hands.
Over there, on the hill, on the ledge, by our chalet,
I will meet you again.

Mission Kashmir Part Two: Srinagar - Still Waters Run Deep

Near Dal Gate, the entry point to Dal Lake

On a chilly December evening, after riding in the backseats of a Chevrolet Tavera share-taxi from Jammu for ten hours, we got off at Lal Chowk and yawned and stretched. If it was cold that morning in Jammu, the chill had a sharper sting in Srinagar. The driver and some of our co-passengers told us that we'd find accommodation in one of the hotels lining the main street in the marketplace, although nothing looked impressive. The Lal Chowk marketplace wasn't any different from Paharganj in New Delhi or Andheri station road in Mumbai. However, two aspects stood out: the open-air stalls and even the boutiques were closing for the day, and it was not just chilly, it was freezing cold. The next evening, same time, we realised that the temperature was zero degrees Celsius! The only other place where I'd experienced subzero temperatures was in the United States. 

We had to find accommodation soon otherwise we would turn into ice sculptures,  which we usually see at wedding receptions near the salad counters. The folks of Srinagar were amused to see us with our rucksacks and jackets. Thankfully, we had come prepared. We had thick jackets - mine was an oversized coat that I'd purchased at a Costco outlet in Arlington - thermal inners, sweaters, woollen skull caps and gloves, even woollen socks. But I'd made the mistake of wearing Addidas sneakers to a subzero-temperatures place. Barely ten minutes after getting off the share-taxi, my toes singed. 

Road to Srinagar near Anantnag

A middle-aged man chuckled and led us through the alleyways saying he would show us a nice place to stay.

"Houseboat?" he asked. 

We were two guys, brothers-in-law; why would we need a houseboat? I had images of houseboats bobbing on the waters of Dal lake in springtime, with tourists posing for photographs in Kashmiri attire, holding wicker baskets of tulip flowers and all, with shikhara boats drifting by. But we followed the man all the same, who walked so fast that we had trouble keeping up with him. Both of us were slightly heavyset then and we had huge rucksacks on our backs. Our jaws rattled even though we were walking as fast as we could through the narrow winding lanes of Lal Chowk. 

Go India Go Back!
We Want Freedom!
Get Out Indian Army!
Indian Dogs Go Back!

The graffiti was everywhere. They were daunting, they rankled us, made us wonder why we didn't go to Hrishikesh as planned earlier. When we set out from Mumbai in the Duronto Express, our plan inclined towards going to Hrishikesh, doing some whitewater rafting, and then go further up the hills to Joshimath and Auli. Thanks to this chap we met on the train, who convinced us that we should go to Kashmir if we haven't been there before, we changed our minds. Again, at ISBT, if we wouldn't have boarded that PunBus Volvo bus to Jammu at the last minute, perhaps we would have gone to Mcleodganj or Kasol in Himachal Pradesh. Somehow, we were destined to come here, I said to bro-in-law Govind, as we reached a well-paved road beside a river on which there were two rundown houseboats moored on the riverbank. A gangplank connected the houseboat to the riverbank. The thought of slipping and falling into that chilly river was so frightening, it made me slightly dizzy. 

Near Chinar Bagh

"There, that is your room," the man said, ushering us into a tiny, crammed burrow of a room with a fireplace right in the middle. Large enough for a Hobbit perhaps, but not us. He showed us the squat toilet. A wooden plank was removed in the centre. We had to squat over that gap and divest ourselves of the previous day's excesses straight into the river. In the room, there was just about enough place for two people to stand shoulder to shoulder. The rest of it was covered by a double bed, the fireplace with its chimney and pipe extending to the low ceiling, and wooden cupboards and shelves alongside the wall.

"This is a room?" I asked. The man frowned. 

"Of course saheb! This is a houseboat! All tourists who come to Kashmir prefer staying in these houseboats only. Why do you want a building? I'm sure wherever you've come from, you stay in concrete buildings only, don't you?" 

"And where is the Dal lake?" 

"You're standing on it!"

That was certainly not the Dal lake that we were standing on. These two houseboats were moored on some river, which I later realised was a tributary of the Jhelum, not even The Jhelum, let alone the vast Dal Lake. We excused ourselves and went to the main road, wondering what to do next. That was when Shakeel the autorickshawman appeared in his front-engine autorickshaw. 

Shakeel was a tall, balding man in his fifties probably, with grey-white wisps of hair and a peppery stubble. In his phiran and boots, he looked warm and comfortable while we trembled and could barely speak coherently. He gave the man a scolding and then took us to Bishambar Nagar. On the way, he showed us a little eatery where he said we could get good, inexpensive, vegetarian food. I wasn't happy. Vegetarian food? I came all the way to Kashmir, travelling nonstop for two days, my bones and knuckles were rattling in that cold weather, and I have to eat vegetarian food? All that the eatery had was chapatis, some dal, a mixed vegetable dish, and a potato mash sabji. All of this constituted a thali for forty rupees. But hey, where are the kebabs and stuff? I'd heard and read about the Kashmiri Wazwan, the Tabak maaz, Rista, Dani phol, and Goshtaba so much and instead, over here, I get vegetarian food? 

"For tonight, this should do," Govind said. He was relieved I guess, because Govind isn't much of a meat eater. In fact, his 'non-vegetarian' comprises only chicken (without bone) and prawns. For him, coming to Kashmir was like coming to another world, another universe altogether.

We gingerly asked Shakeel if there was a liquor shop nearby. He frowned and said that he would take us to 'the only liquor store in Srinagar' but before that:

"You need to find accommodation, don't you?"

Of course. I could not feel my big toes anymore. I was certain that by the time we returned home, I would not have those toes for long. They would fall off before the end of this trip. 
We went down a flight of stairs beside the Bishambar-Dalgate road, descending into a narrow alleyway, and came upon a staid building with a signboard above its entrance: Hotel Golden Finger.

That is certainly some finger. Ever since we had landed, we had been privy to hate signs, which categorically stated that weren't welcome as 'mainland Indians' over here. 

"Don't worry about these slogans, sirs," Shakeel said when he saw me nervously staring at one of the messages on a nearby wall. 

"We Kashmiris love to host you folks! These are our protests against the AFSPA stopped coming here, what will we do? How will we sustain ourselves? Please don't worry. You are welcome in Srinagar."

Govind by the Chinar Bagh stream

One of the many bridges to cross to Chinar Bagh

Eventually, we brought for ourselves a bottle of Blenders Pride whisky and food packets from the nearby eatery, which had shut down by the time we returned from the liquor store. It was only seven thirty. We got a little room for 900 rupees with an electric blanket as well.

"Trust us," the receptionist said. "You will need it." 

I made another mistake that evening. I tried to take a bath. The water from the boiler was scalding hot. I could see steam rising from my arms and the back of my hands turning red, but I could just not feel the heat. My toes had turned slightly blue, but the hot water brought back their original colour. I trembled so much that I got back into the four layers of clothes that I had worn and leapt onto the bed on which the electric blanket was laid out. Govind was smart. For the next four days in Srinagar, he didn't even remove his shoes, let alone the clothes. 

Bread toast and omelette with milk tea with sugar, not salt. Staple breakfast at Golden Finger Hotel. We weren't the only guests in the hotel the previous evening. Four old folks stepped out of a room conversing in Marathi. They said they were from Model Colony in Pune and were pleased to know that I 'was from Kothrud'. No, I didn't really belong to Kothrud; in fact, Pune in general and Kothrud in particular was the 'place of my undoing', but until then, the 'undoing' hadn't happened. The Puneris were returning that afternoon, so I wished them safe travels and Govind and I set out towards the famous Dal Lake. 

We didn't know that the Chinar Bagh was on the Bishambar-Dalgate road where the eatery was located. A tranquil river shrouded in fog weaved along with the road with arched bridges at various points that one could take to cross over to the Chinar gardens. The hotel chaps said that the temperature was 2 degrees below freezing that morning, but by the time we got to Dal Lake, it had risen to about 4 degrees C. The boatmen and other locals were amused to see us. We were tourists obviously. We definitely didn't have the apple and rose cheeks of the locals. We didn't wear phirans and carry kangris within the gowns. It was baffling at first to see no hands in the phirans of most Kashmiris. Did they lose their hands after mishandling some landmines or, worse, were their hands chopped off by terrorists as punishment for siding with 'Indians'? Later we realised that their hands were within the phirans, wrapped around kangris full of live coals that kept them warm. 

Houseboats moored at Dal Lake

The only one of it's kind in India I guess

There are soldiers and army check posts everywhere in Srinagar. Mostly CRPF jawans, but you'll get a glimpse of all of them: Rashtriya Rifles, JAKLI, Sikh and Jat, Engineers, Signal Corps, GREF. Imagine waking up to the sight of guns pointing at you every day. Imagine how it would feel to be patted down every now and then. On the other hand, imagine the plight of those soldiers who come from various parts of the country, standing on guard for long hours in acutely hostile territory, amid belligerent folks who abhor the very sight of you and your uniform. 

The walk alongside Dal lake, which wasn't frozen yet but was frigging cold, did us good. I had run my first half marathon earlier that year in January 2012, but nothing after that. I was also a regular drinker and ate a lot of fries. Although I went to a gym as regularly as I could, I hadn't really toned up a lot owing to the junk food and alcohol that I consumed. Working in IT also ensures that you lead a sedentary lifestyle, in front of a laptop or computer all the time, sitting in one place for long hours doing nothing worthwhile. So while the walk was exhausting, it was a good exercise. Of course, we took one look up at the clouds enshrouding the Adi Shankaracharya temple on top of the hill and decided that instant that we weren't going to climb that far. But I wanted to see the Hazratbal mosque and so we walked...in the wrong direction. 

A little after the floating post office, we took a shikara ride. Gulzar was a young and handsome boatman who took us into the villages alongside the lake. It was a different world, magical and absolutely beautiful. There were crossroads (or crosswaters perhaps) where village folks rowed their canoes to shops and houses. Gulzar showed us the floating farm patches, which need to be tied to the owners' houses or else they float away and become other people's properties. 

Even the locals were in no mood to venture out in that cold weather

Colourful shikaras in contrast to the leaden environs

The refurbished Gulfaam of 'Gul Gulshan Gulfaam', the old teleserial on Doordarshan

One of the many saffron vendors on the lake

"Why did you come in this weather, sahebs?" Gulzar asked. "Even we Kashmiris find it too cold to be outdoors. You won't get to see the lovely flowers in the gardens. Everything is barren and gloomy right now."

We told him we wanted to see snow. 

"Go to Gulmarg and Sonamarg then," he said. "You'll surely see snow there. It could snow in Srinagar too, but when I can't tell. If you're lucky, it might snow tonight even."

He bought us Kahwas from a tea stall, filled with almonds and a dash of saffron too. Many shikharas sailed towards ours in which the boatmen showed us jewellery and artefacts made of beads and colourful stones. Other boats brought saffron. 

Our first and probably best cup of Kahwa

"If you rub saffron on the palm of your hands and if a yellow-orange stain appears, the saffron is not real," Gulzar said. "Those are a different kind of flower with saffron dye in them. Real saffron doesn't let colour leak from it. Real saffron also has a richer fragrance."

We didn't buy saffron from the boat vendors but we stopped at a handicrafts shop from where we purchased dress material and shawls for the womenfolk. I'd gifted one of the shawls to a certain someone who I hope still has the shawl, and that the shawl hasn't gone the same way that the wine and martini glasses, which that person had gifted me, went.

At the crossroads

The steely grey skies persisted throughout our stay in Srinagar. The sun looked like a Diwali lantern in the frigid sky, incapable of providing any warmth to the cold, frozen land below. We asked Gulzar about the general mood in Srinagar, the animosity towards outsiders. He wore a wan smile and said that there was no hostility at all in the hearts of regular Kashmiris. He reiterated, like Shakeel, that if there were no visitors in Kashmir, the state's livelihood would collapse. 

"We need visitors here, saheb. As many as possible. We want Kashmir to be a grand tourist destination, just like it was before the late eighties."

The floating farm-islands that could drift away if not literally tied up to the owner's house

I noted the stress on the word 'visitors' and 'tourists'. So long as you were only a tourist with no intent of settling down as a permanent resident and certainly not an army man, you were welcome anytime. If every state in India assumed that stance - and I'm not even talking about secession here - then the idea of a Republic of India itself would collapse. We would return to precolonial times when the country did not exist as India and was fragmented into more than 300 states and principalities. Can you imagine a situation in which you, like me, were born in Mumbai and would need a passport and visa to travel to Bangalore or Hyderabad and work there; or if a man from UP was denied work visa to Maharashtra? Apparently there are three broad groups of people in Kashmir: one that wants to remain with India, another that wants the state to be acceded to Pakistan, and a third that wants Kashmir to be an independent country. There are similar movements in some North East states as well, and the Khalistan movement, the struggles and the impending violence, hasn't been erased from our memories yet.  

A bylane

A wider bylane

"We are angry with the authorities who have deployed the Indian Army over here," Gulzar said. "For how many years they have been here? How they use their powers to govern us? Tonight, there is going to be yet another curfew in Srinagar. A Shia youth who was in jail earlier was released two days ago. Now they have arrested him again. On what charges? They say he raped a woman. Tell me sirs, why would we rape our own women? All this is done by the armymen, but they put the blame on us and brand us as terrorists. The bandh has been called in protest against the youth's arrest." 

We returned to the shore, walked around the barren Shalimar Garden and Nishad Bagh, drank more Kahwas, walked through villages, and sat pondering by the lake. The fog was heavy and it was still cold even in the afternoon, as I mulled over what Gulzar had to say. I could see the outline of the tomb of the Hazratbal mosque, thought I didn't have the energy to walk around the lake up to the masjid. We had lunch where I asked for Mutton Rogan Josh, which wasn't as good as the one I had in Ramban on our way to Srinagar. 

After our shikara ride, Govind with Gulzar the boatman

That night, I bought Seekh kababs and skewered mutton with chapatis, while Govind stuck to the vegetarian fare at that little eatery. We returned to the hotel room by six thirty. The chap at the hotel said it was minus two degrees celsius. We drank all of the whisky, went to Gulmarg the next day, and to Pahalgam the day after, and on the last day headed out to Srinagar airport to fly to New Delhi. It snowed that morning in Srinagar. That was the first heavy snowfall that both of us had seen, although I'd witnessed two snowfalls earlier in Washington DC. Our flights were delayed by four hours but the security personnel allowed us to sit inside the airport terminal. Throughout our stay in Srinagar, that one question kept lingering in my head: Would Kashmir become the paradise that it once was, ever again? 

One night after our juicy Whatsapp conversations with our respective love-interests back home, when I drifted off to sleep, I dreamt that I was Emperor Jehangir. On one of my campaigns up north, I rode into Srinagar and stood by the Dal lake, spellbound by the beauty of the surroundings. It was springtime and the hillsides were abloom with bright flowers and lush chinar forests. Mesmerised by the sylvan environs of Kashmir, I muttered a Persian quote borrowed from Amir Khusrow, the Sufi poet: 

Gar firdaus bar-rue zameen ast, 
hami asto, hami asto, hameen ast.