in bits and pieces
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My friend Yaseen Tuman adds: Small hillock in photo is Shankaracharya Hill. Exact corner where Nehru Park Shikara Ghat Stands today and Hotels from this point to Dalgate.
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| Slow primordial death. |
Created based on satellite images of Dal Lake dating from 1998 to 2012 made available by Google (here, although they were supposed to have images dating from 1984 but somehow the actual data available is only from 1998. The image came alive and death of the lake became clearly visible by applying certain line filters on the images. I tried something similar for Wular, but there the lake is hardly visible in any case, all one sees is movement of a green cover.
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| A defunct houseboat on Dal. 2008. |
“About 1665, Shah Jehan died in the palace at Agra, not without suspicions of foul play. Aurangzeb had been suffering from serious sickness, but after his father’s death he was sufficiently recovered to proceed to Kashmir, where he recruited his health in the cool air of the mountains. At Kashmir he attempted to form a fleet which should rival the navies of European countries. Two ships were built by the help of an Italian, and were launched on the lake of Kashmir; but Aurangzeb found that it would be difficult to man them efficiently. No amount of teaching would impart the necessary quickness, nerve, and energy to his own subjects; and if he engaged the services of Europeans, they might sail away with his ships, and he might never see them again.”
~ ‘India and the Frontier States of Afghanistan, Nepal and Burma, with A Supplementary Chapter of Recent Events’ by James Talboys Wheeler and Edgar Saltus (1899).
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Unrelated post:
Haya ho
Hya ho
From Ek thi Ladki (1949), one of the earliest visit to Kashmir by Indian Cinema. [Came across it thanks to an awesome Kashmir Song compilation by dustedoff]
The boatmen in the song can be heard chanting ‘Ya peer Dastgir’, which is like the traditional chant for Kashmiri boatmen and the muslim working class. Also, the probable reason why we see more than two men rowing those boats is that around that time regattas organised on Jhelum river and Dal Lake by Christian Missionary School were an important part of the Srinagar experience.
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Previously:
Koshur British Rhymes: “There is indeed a “nursery rhyme thrill”, a certain Hickery-Dickery-Dock patter of rhythm, which anyone can hear (as Aldous Huxley heard it) any time, of day, in the streets of Kashmir…”
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| Floating Gardens. Dal Lake, Srinagar. |
A description of how these floating gardens were created, from G.T. Vigne’s ‘Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo, the countries adjoining the mountain-course of the Indus, and the Himalaya, north of the Panjab’ (1842):
“We now enter the division of the lake called Kutawal; it is chiefly around this that the far-famed floating gardens of Kashmir are anchored, or rather pinned to the ground by means of a stake. These, however, are very un-Lallah-Rookhish in their appearance, not being distinguishable from beds of reeds and rushes. Their construction is extremely simple, and they are made long and narrow, that they may be the more easily taken in tow. A floating garden ten yards long’ by two or three in width, maybe purchased for a rupee.
Mr. Moorcroft has well described the manner in which these gardens are made. The weeds at the bottom, cut by means of a scythe, rise and float on the surface; these are matted together, secured, and strewed with soil and manure; a protecting fence of rushes is allowed to spring up around them; — and upon this platform a number of conical mounds or heaps of weeds are constructed, about two feet in height. On the tops of these is placed some soil from the bottom of the lake; the melon and cucumber plants are laid upon it; and no further care is necessary.”
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| Shop Bridge. Srinagur. Kashmir. |
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