In around 2010, when my father got posted to Srinagar, I forced him to buy a cheap point-and-shoot camera so that he would send me photographs of Kashmir, the places he saw. Every couple of months we would meet in Jammu and he would show me the photographs. Among the photographs was a photograph of this beautiful old building that stood out. He told me in old days ‘Aabu Guzar’ was the toll collection point for the goods leaving and entering Srinagar city via the river.
 |
| 2010. |
Over the years, I started coming across photographs of the place in old travelogues. Having never been to the place, the sight of the place in an old book became a thing of little joy for me. Earlier this year when I visited Srinagar, the thought of finally visiting the place did occur to me, but it was winter, the water levels were low, it would not have been a pretty sight, I told myself, ‘Next time when the water levels are higher.’
This old building is now gone, destroyed in the flood of September 2014.
-0-
2010, Aabi Guzar
-0-
