Tag: photo

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Kashmir side of Pir Panjal

Something miraculous happens when you cross to the Kashmir side of the Banihal Pass. Your spirit seems to soar. It’s true. While the weather was rainy and gloomy on the Jammu side of Banihal, on the Kashmir side, it was a perfectly day – The air was light, cool and clear, and the sun was shining benevolently. You almost turn an animist.

Almost every one who wrote about visiting Kashmir from this particular route, at this particular moment – the after ‘Jawaar Tunnel Moment’, takes a pause, gives in to the churning of the spirit inside and takes another heartful look at the unbound beauty of nature.

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Misty Mountains and the Road

The weather was rainy. Air cool, it must be raining somewhere. Raindrops, not so frequently, hit the windscreen and became water..

Traffic slowed down to a crawl and then stopped completely. During some stretches of the highway, this road becomes a one way narrow lane ploughed in the mountain range.

The vehicle stopped, it’s going to take some time for the traffic to get going again. The driver jumped out. All the people in the bus got talking, shared some old stories and some domestic gossip. The truck drivers of this route seen to have a peculiar habit. If the spot be right, they make it a point to park the truck right parallel to the edge of the gorge. Those big fat tyres sit just  inches away for the plunging depth of hundreds or thousands of feet – it makes no difference to them if it’s hundreds or thousands, they just park their truck and get out of the other door. Is this a fool proof method to protect the truck from truckjackers? Or is it their institutionalized method of maximizing the road surface area so that other vehicles can still pass by while their truck just sits on the corner of the narrow road. I don’t know.
Time passed, the traffic snarled back to life. But our driver was nowhere to be seen. From the window we looked for him in every direction. Minuted passed, a plastic ghee dibba in hand, our driver came walking down a nearby mountain pathway looking calm and content. Jangal pani. He got into the vehicle and put the dibba back at its place, under the seat. I don’t think he washed his hands.

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The area around Banihal looks kind of strange. Some things here seem to suggest it is culturally closer Kashmir and some things that make it  look like part of Jammu district. A masjid seemed to be designed like those in Kashmir, particularly like charar-e-sharif.

The dhabbas lining the road make it a point to tell you that they are offer 100% pure Hindu vegetarian Vaishnav food, and the dhabba right next to it advertises 100% pure Muslim Non-vegetarian ‘Waazwan’.

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on road, Baglihar Dam, Chenab

That’s no monastery perched on top of a hill.

Baglihar Dam on river Chenab as seen from a place called Peerah.

Wiki Entry:

Baglihar Dam, also known as Baglihar Hydroelectric Power Project, is a run-of-the-river power project on the Chenab River in the southern Doda district of the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir. This project was conceived in 1992, approved in 1996 and construction began in 1999. The project is estimated to cost USD $1 billion. The first phase of the Baglihar Dam was completed in 2004. On completion on 10 October 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India dedicated the 450-MW Baglihar hydro electric power project to the nation.

In the 90s, this project was a one of the major source of discontent between India and Pakistan. Matter was sorted out amicably with the help of World Bank. Without doubt ‘Water’ is going to be the big issue of future.

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Added this image to wikipedia page about Baglihar.

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on road, Kud

Photographs around Kud.

Kud, around 103 Kms away from Jammu, is a place of some great scenic beauty. Kud is popular as a spot for trekking and camping. But among the people of Jammu, Kud is famous for its sweets and sweet shops, actually the famous shop is just one. These sweets are made in the purest desi ghee possible. Pickles, aanchar, of Kud are equally famous.

Shiny steel roof tops of houses.

Birdworld Mall. Kud will be next know for this establishment. Hiring process for birds is still on.


Pine trees. Electric wires.

NH1-A to Srinagar, built precariously along ravines, cutting thorugh dicey mountain sides, at times too narrow, nature reclaiming the ground, never too wide, is a highway of diesel fumes, trucks and buses. Kud provides some respite during the journey.

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Snowfall in Jammu!

I was in Jammu last month. The trees in the garden looked devastated, most of tress were leafless and leaves that were still clinging on to some of them looked rusty. I asked around if it was the work of locust or was it some tree disease.
“Didn’t you read about it! It was the snow”. And I remembered reading about it in papers and I remembered being told about it after a telephone conversation call from Jammu. It was the freak hailstorm – greatest in last twenty years – that caused it. I had often heard about the kind of destruction that hailstorm causes to the vegetation and standing crops, and now I got a glimpse of it. It had been almost a month since then and still the green here hadn’t recovered.

On the morning of 27th January 2009, people in most areas of Jammu woke up to see the ground covered in about 6 inches of hail. Even as the warm sun came out, it took almost the entire day for the hail to melt away. During my visit to Jammu, I read an article written by an uncle of mine for a Kashmir Pandit magazine. He remembered snow of Kashmir. He remembered sheen’e bhagwan –  Shivling made and setup in courtyards and gardens from freshly fallen snow and he remembered snowman that children used to enjoy making from the first snow of winter, snowman that for its eyes had two pieces of black charcoal, Tchyin, often taken from a dead Kangri.

That article carried a photograph of a garlanded sheen’e bhagwan and a snowman made from the hail that fell down upon Jammu in the wee hours of 27th January 2009.

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Got these photographs of hail from another uncle of mine.

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vavij

Va’vij: A hand fan

I tell her to stop, I tell her, ‘I do not need it’.
She won’t listen, my nani.
She sits right near my head and the vavij  in her hand goes round and round.
She says, ‘You must be feeling the heat!. Jammu my dear is just too hot.’
‘This heat, I love,’ I tell myself. ‘It’s true. It’s true.’
A late afternoon sweet delirium triggered by million buzzing bright white suns. Disturbed.
I tell her to stop, but the vavij in her hand still just goes round and round.
Jammu my dear is just too hot. And then the vavij goes around to fight a few house flies too.

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