A typical modern house in a suburb of Srinagar. Actually it’s not modern, this house design was popular around 1980s.
Location: Raj Bagh, Srinagar
House Roof and Kitchen Garden
teen’e pash – tin roof tops
View from Hotel’s Roof Top
Walk in a Park
Chenar tree in a park along the Jhelum river near Zero bridge. Chenar trees are protected by state laws.
Dead and dying Chenar trees.
Zero Bridge
Early Morning
Old Zero bridge on Jhelum. In the background, atop the hill, TV tower and Shankaracharya temple.
New Zero Bridge.
House boats on Jhelum river.
Kashmiri Shawl Seller
At Qazigund bus stand.
kaajwat, dooyn, bat, wokhul
Famous stuff from Qazigund
Hotel
A colorful hotel at Qazigund. It’s evening time.
Move Out, Move In
Photograph: Paddy fields of Kashmir. June 2008. Just before Qazigund.
The bus was a video-couch, and that wasn’t the only reason for my happiness. We were going to Jammu, and unlike the last time, on this particular trip, almost everyone was going. I had been to Jammu the previous year with my parents. It had proved to be a good vacation, my first vacation, the first move out of the valley. Was it a summer vacation or a winter vacation, I don’t remember…it must have been summer, I prefer it that way. And now we were going on another vacation. But, no one looked happy about it. Everyone was glum and edgy. Anyway, I made sure I got to sit in a window seat. It was a seat in the left aisle and just near the front gate. Between the two aisles, just above the door to the drivers spacious cabin, at a head level, seated in a box, a cabin of their own with a glass window, were a Colour TV and a VCR. As the bus moved, I got to see things that a had never seen before. Outside the window, there is beauty everywhere. Willows and fields. All Green. And inside the bus, the movie show starts, o joy, o joy, it is Naseeb starring Amitabh Bachchan naar log zachchan. I was praying for a screening of his Toofan, I had recently seen the poster pasted, on the next door medicine man’s next door drugstore cum video parlor shop. The red of the poster, the crossbow, it was all so enticing. But for now, for this journey, Naseeb seemed just as good. ‘At least it not B&W’, I told my very excited self. So, the Video coach really lived up to its promise and name.
Now, I look at the 14 inch color TV screen through the glass, what plays: the songs, the comedy, the dialogues, the fights, the symbolism of three holy rings, the brave heroes, misunderstandings, the monologues, the morals, the beautiful heroines, everyone dancing and the evil villains. Now, I look out the glass of the 20 inch slide window of the bus and I see the beautiful paddy fields for the first time . They look mesmerizing. (Now I know, we must have crossed Qazigund). ‘Farmlands in Kashmir! What do they look like in winter?’What do these farmers do then?’, I wonder. And then, for some reason, almost on cue, every in the bus starts to draw the folds of the window curtains. I am told to do the same. I protest. No use. Windows are duly covered. Not a single beam of sunlight inside the bus anymore. The video coach is completely dark, like a film theater. Temperature starts to drop, the uphill mountainous part of the journey had started. I start to feel glum. At least the film is still playing. Now, it’s that hilarious scene: A very much drunk and beaten-up Amitabh applies Band-Aid on the mirror and consoles himself. He’s not the only one in need of a repair. With every bump and jerk, the VCP seems to throw a fit, the screen starts to freeze and roll. The bus conductor starts hammering the TV cabin. He has been at it the whole time. But his treatment is not working anymore. But him is hitting the TV cabin all the more.The driver is now screaming about something. And just before we cross the Banihal tunnel, the movie is abruptly stopped, the cassette taken out, the TV switched off. Not a word. No one protests. Am I the only one watching this movie. The bus crosses over to the other side of the tunnel, but the TV is still dead and black. Video coach is a fraud played out on simple people.
For the rest of the journey, the movie wasn’t played again. We reached Jammu in the evening. For the longest time, watching Naseeb all over again was the only thing I wanted . For the longest time, green paddy fields were my last memory of Kashmir. I was eight. And then, about eighteen years later, I got my new last memories of Kashmir.
Deen’e Phila’safar – Man on the Bridge
Dinanath used to live at Habba Kadal. It is said, once in a while, on some mornings, a leaf or a flower – any flower, any leaf – in hand, he would walk up to the house of his botanist neighbor and ask him to check the caffeine content of the specimen. This was Dinanath’s private quest for a caffeine free tea. But, people didn’t get his private quests.
Dinanath was a professor of mathematics. Sine, Cos, Tan – that’s all he understood. But people didn’t understand him, they thought him strange. Calculus was his only love and reason. And for this people named him ‘Deen’e Phila’safar‘, Dina the Philosopher.
A happening in a morning from his life is still quite a popular anecdote among the people.
On that morning, while taking a walk on the old Habba Kadal bridge, as was his wont, contemplating – as it is said – whatever it is that great people contemplate – Dinanath stopped right in the middle of the bridge, slowly moved close to the rusty railing, and looked down deep at the cold, brown m – it was still late summer – murky waters of Jehlum. A man, just a random guy who recognized Dinanath and saw him walking to the edge of the bridge, shouted out, ‘Haya! Deen’e Phila’safara,’ and walking towards Dinanath from the opposite side of the bridge, with a movement of eye that could be mistaken for a wink, but may well have been an involuntary twitch, in a mischievous tone added, ‘are you thinking of jumping into the river?’
It was the morning of Dinanath’s beautiful proof. Dinanath remained unmoved, caustic agent seemed to have had no effect. The other man must have thought of saying something more but then in a sagely heavy voice, Dinanath replied, ‘Why should I jump off the bridge and into the river when I am already in the river!’ The other man was perplexed even if he was hearing this from the Deen’e Phila’safar himself. To this man’s astonishment , Dinanath added, ‘If we think about it, if I may point out, even you are right now down in the river’. And then, Dinanath produced his legendary ‘Man in the river’ proof. It went something like this:
If, A= B and B = C
then, A=C is always true
Similarly, if Man is on the bridge and Bridge is on the river
then,
Man is on the bridge
————————-
Bridge is on the river
Bridge-Bridge cancel out..Now that the bridge is out of the equation, now that there is no bridge, without doubt, man is in the river.
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Image: An illustration and the view from the railing of the new Habba Kadal bridge.
Laila-Majnu Symbolism of Gardens
An Indian garden where each baradari in its turn is as purposeful as it is decorative, should not only be looked at, but should be lived in to realise its charms. At Achibal the summer- house set in the tank just beneath the waterfall is planned for the noontide rest, lulled by the sound of the cascade, cooled by the driving spray. As the shadows lengthen, carpets are spread on the chabutras under the huge chenars, and towards sunset the upper pavilions near the spring are used. Seen from the forest walks above the light on the submerged rice-fields turns the valley into a golden sea, on whose southern shores rise the peaks of the Pir Panjal, like giant castles, with the long, monsoon cloud pennants streaming from their towers. At night, from the gallery of the large pavilion the garden shows a vague, mysterious form ; marked out by the shapes of the dark chenars, the grey glimmer where the cascade foams, and the reflections of the stars in the pools.
Old histories and stories haunt the garden : of Jahangir and his Nur-Mahal, and Majnum and Laila claim this Paradise again he in his hopeful cypress shape, she on her rose-bush mound. For Moslem garden-craft, like Mughal painting, is full of symbolism, and rich with all the sensuous charm and dreaminess of the old Persian tales ; and the story of Laila and Majnum, the faithful lovers who only saw each other twice on earth, is most frequently memorialised in the garden. Two low-growing fruit trees, such as a lemon and citron, or a lemon and orange tree, planted in the midst of a parterre of flowers, are the lovers happy in Paradise ; the same idea is also illustrated by two cypresses, or the so-called male and female date palms, which are generally planted in pairs. The design of the double flower-beds in which the two symbolic trees were planted can be seen in the brick parterre at Lahore and in those of the Taj. Majnum’s sad, earthly symbol is the weeping- willow (baide majnum), whose Laila, the water lily, grows just beyond his reach. Two cypress trees are frequently grown as their emblems, and the prettiest and quaintest emblem of all is Laila on her camel litter, a rose-bush on a little mound. Dark purple violets mean the gloss and perfume of her blue-black hair, saman (jasmine, which also means a foaming stream) is Laila’s round white throat, ” cypress-slender ” is her waist, tulips and roses are her lips and cheeks, and the fringed, starred narcissus her eyes. There are other garden legends more difficult to discover, and traditional ways of memorialising well-known verses by the planting and arrangement of the trees. But the old craft is dying for want of encouragement, and we must be quick if we would secure its secrets.
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From C.M. Villiers Stuart’s ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ (1913)
Read more:
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Image: Superimposed images of
Laila Majnu in a Garden, a painting from Kota, Rajasthan, circa A.D.1760-1770, National Museum, New Delhi
and
A poster of Bollywood film Laila Majnu (1976)
