I can’t recall the thrill when Father announced his next posting. “We are going to Srinagar”! I knew Kashmir from the Hindi films set in Kashmir and from the songs and dances of those that were not set there. If you watch those old films, you would be able to visualize how Kashmir looked like until 1989.

We have no photographs of our time in Kashmir. Unlike the selfie era where every moment is immediately captured in a cellphone, few Indians, even middle class, possessed cameras in those days. Father had a German one that he had acquired during his training in Germany. But after years of disuse it had become nothing more than an expensive souvenir of his German sojourn. We mastered the art of retaining in our mind’s eye. When I visited Kashmir nearly four decades later, the places we revisited were exactly as I remembered them. They came back with memories of sounds, smells and taste and also the thoughts racing through my mind at that moment. I could clearly see, hear and feel the people who had been around us, both locals and tourists. 

We decided to take a Kashmir package tour seven years ago to revisit the Valley as a tourist. We flew down from Delhi to Srinagar and were there in a couple of hours unlike in the past when a visit to Srinagar entailed an overnight train journey followed by the most beautiful twelve hour long bus ride from Jammu to Srinagar. Despite warnings by the crew, tourists began to take pictures as we began our descent into the Valley.  Our driver was waiting outside the airport with a SUV to take us to our houseboat on the Dal lake. The Dal looked as beautiful as I could remember but there was something eerie about the army uniforms on the Dal Boulevard. The Boulevard itself had been ruined by hawkers and cheap vegetarian dhabas catering to tourists on their way to the Amarnath pilgrimage.  Shikaras waited on the edge of the lake waiting to ferry tourists. I tried to recline on the long shikara seat but the magic of the shikara ride had faded along with the worn furnishings. I had tried to imagine how it would be to live in a houseboat and here I was walking into one with living and dining room and bedrooms lined with thick carpets and furnished with carved walnut furniture. We were served a traditional Kashmiri lunch before we boarded a shikara to the Dal Boulevard where our driver waited to take us for a drive to Pari Mahal, the palace of fairies.

The drive upto Pari Mahal in the chauffer driven SUV brought back memories of our first visit to Pari Mahal. I could see Mother in a her favourite lemon embroidered sari walking up with our family friend Major’s wife dressed in a parrot green chiffon sari in my mind’s eye. She was trying to put Mother at ease by inquiring about our extended family who she had not met since she got married. Their plump and friendly daughter kept up the chatter with me and my siblings while Major and Father discussed politics.  We bounded up the highest point from where one could have a fill of the Dal Lake. It was dusk by the time we walked back and the Major’s daughter demanded candy floss from the hawker who was hanging around the parking lot. We were also offered some but we were trained to politely decline food and gifts from friends. 

Since there was still some light, our friendly driver decided to drive us upto Chashme Shahi, a garden with a magic spring that was believed to have healing properties. We bounded up the steps upto the spring and waited for our turn to taste the magic water. The water tasted as fresh as it did when I was a ten year old. Soon an alarm began to sound warning tourists to leave before the gates were closed. By the time we descended the steps to the parking, the place wore a forlorn look like the Dal Boulevard where a shikara waited to take us back to our houseboat. The shikara ride under the moon was sheer magic with the surrounding hills and buildings reflected in the lake. After dinner, we sat quietly under the open sky with watching faery lights shimmering on the waters of the Dal. But the beauty of the moonlit ride was marred by a sinister silence. We had opted for the houseboat option despite the explosions threatening to tear the Valley asunder. What if there were a terrorist attack in the middle of the night? We were at the mercy of the owner of the houseboat. The happy sounds of honeymooners from the adjoining houseboats set our minds to rest. 

Our houseboat owner had ordered a shikara to take us to the floating market the next morning. I had heard about the floating market and occasionally noticed shikaras carrying flowers or vegetables when we visited Nehru Park in my childhood. The floating market was hidden behind the houseboats and did brisk business these days as the regular shops on Residency Road and Lal Chowk were often made to down the shutters with every curfew. The shops in the floating market tried their best to lure me to buy phirans and shawls, lacquered boxes and even carpets. But I wanted to get a glimpse of Nehru Park. Nehru Park looked disheveled and deserted. The lawns had not been mowed. The flowerbeds were empty. The wrought iron chairs on the terraced restaurant from where we had watched the debonair Hindi film star Dev Anand shoot a song sequence were turned upside down. There were no tourists at that hour. Nor were the small children who would dive into the water to fetch coins to entertain the tourists. We had the island to ourselves. I shut my eyes and could see Mother looking wistfully at the smartly dressed tourists on the terrace sipping tea. We were famished at the end of the day and wished Father would buy us cupcakes from the restaurant. Father was striking a bargain with the shikarawala to let all of us get into a single shikara as it was a short ride to the Promenade. I looked at the four Chinar trees beckoning me to my childhood and requested the shikarawala to take us there. But Char Chinar was sealed off for security reasons. I recalled Char Chinar being the highlight of our visits to the gardens across the Dal. For some unfathomable reason, I couldn’t forget the stench of the single public toilet in Char Chinar, which would mar the thrill of my visit to the island.

We were going to move out of the houseboat into our designated hotel. Since the hotel we had been promised was not available due to some confusion, our driver pulled up in front of a hotel in a congested part of Lal Chowk. I put my foot down and refused to get down. Lal Chowk was not my idea of a vacation. It was a busy square where there would be protests and shootouts every other day and there was no way I was going to jeopardize my safety by agreeing to stay right there. I could see my schoolbus pass the square as it did every day. It would honk past into Bengali and South Indian tourists emerging in cheap bright roughly embroidered woolen coats out of the souvenir bazaar on the left. I could hear the excited chatter of the Bengali and Madrasi tourists queuing out and my Kashmiri schoolmates covering their mouths to suppress their laughter. It also brought back the smell of the tonga stand from where we would walk to the Residency Road bus stand to take a bus to the tourist spots. I could smell the delicious beans and rice in the vegetarian dhaba on the right with its functional chairs into which we, particularly our mothers, sank gratefully after a day out. The road on which the dhaba was located led to a crowded local bazaar into which we had never ventured. I had my way with the driver and we were driving to Raj Bagh, the elite neighbourhood where private homes had been turned into boutique hotels. We were offered a suite provided that we agreed to climb up to the third floor. We had to come down to the restaurant on the ground floor but the Kashmiri meal was worth the descent.

I decided to explore the neighbourhood the following morning. Perhaps I could find the Major’s army bungalow that we had visited before driving to Pari Mahal. It was on a similar tree lined lane. But the entire neighbourhood was choc a block with boutique hotels swarming with tourists. But I located the missionary school where the Major’s wife used to teach. I had been escorted there by our house owner’s daughter-in-law who was universally called tathi, which means sister-in-law in Kashmiri, to take an admission test that I had flunked. Despite the Major’s wife’s timid intervention with the Sister Principal, I was not admitted because I had misspelt the word Santa Claus. I walked down to the bank of the river Jhelum where tathi and I had taken a boat to cross to Lal Chowk. When I noticed the Institute if Hotel Management. I thought of calling Father to inform me but he was gone two months now. I returned to the hotel stopping to buy several pound of almonds and walnuts from a local shop bustling with phiran clad Kashmiris.  We concluded the day with a shopping trip to Residency Road. I searched for Regal Theatre where we had watched countless Hindi films. My driver informed me that all theatres had been closed down due to terrorist strikes. Kashmiris, I realized, have forgotten what it is to view a film in a theatre. The shops adjoining the old theatre sold the best Kashmiri handicrafts. I entered Shaw brothers with a reference from an Army Officer friend who told the owner not to fleece us. I picked up the finest pashmina shawl with the most intricate embroidery, another with gold thread and several everyday stoles in bright shades. A Kashmiri couple sat next to me shopping for their daughter’s trousseau and highly recommended my choice. It was like being back in old Srinagar with Kashmiri friends.

We were on our way to Pahalgam. I must have done this trip so many times but I will never tire of it. We drove across Residency Road and Batwara to the highway. I peered hard to locate my school in Batwara and spotted the board with the name of the school. But it had been cordoned off by a high wall with army guards on each side of the gate. We turned right to the fir lined highway familiar from innumerous journeys. Our driver requested us to allow him to take his mother and sister along and drop them at their family home. I agreed reluctantly and listened to the sister’s incessant chatter but we were on our own once we drop them in their ancestral house.  I couldn’t wait to get to Pahalgam. As we neared Pahalgam, my excitement began to mount. But now it had a row of little hotels tucked behind the main road in one of which we had been booked. Pahalgam looked overcrowded and filthy because of the restaurants where rows of SUVS carrying Amarnath pilgrims stopped to take in a Punjabi meal. The restaurant in our hotel was also filled with noisy joint families. The pilgrims stopped to pick up embroidered shawls and salwar kameezes in the shops that have mushroomed on the main road. I walked to the end of the road and was overjoyed to find that the hotel that we stayed in our last visit still exists.

This was our last visit and we had decided to stay overnight instead of taking a day trip. But Mother came down with a fever the moment we checked in. We walked down to the river but it was not the same with Mother lying in bed. Perhaps she had a premonition of the letter with the dreaded news that waited for her in Srinagar. I crossed over to the other side where Rishi Kapoor approached Dimple in the teenage romance Bobby and could see the gaggle of young women surrounding them.   A few blocks away, set away from the main road, was the forest bungalow where their hit song ‘hum tum’ was shot. But it was the bridge over the river that had withstood decades of tourist footfall. We walked down the bridge and sat by the river. I recalled the time we put up in a camp a mile away up the hills because our light-skinned uncle was mistaken for a white tourist. I could see the fire that Mother lit up to cook a meal in the open, the shepherds grazing their sheep and the shawl seller who sold us a finely embroidered shawl. 

But now the hills had been commodified and we were offered fabulous views from Valleys named after films of the 1980s that were worth the drive. The next morning we set off on a horse ride up the hill behind our hotel and were rewarded with the sight of nomadic communities on top of the hill. We returned to find the shutters of the restaurant downed and the guests forced to return to the safety of their rooms because a curfew had been imposed. Paradise was ringing with sounds of bullets. The pilgrims had disappeared on the road to Amarnath. We were given two hours to check out and left the town. To make up for the lost day, our driver decided to stop at a government guest house by the river. I walked almost half a km down the river when I spotted a familiar sight, a Pandit family on a dhurrie with the daughter-in-law cooking mutton in a pressure cooker on a stove. Pandits have become so rare in Kashmir that it was comforting to have them share their nostalgia for the home that was no longer safe for them but they visited once a year. They urged us to visit Matan, the Hindu pilgrim centre, where the priests would draw up your entire genealogy. I recalled our bus stopping in Matan during our visits and a priest emerging from the middle of the pond and reeling off our entire family tree.

Gulmarg brought back memories of my sight of snow and pony ride up. But this time we were going to stay overnight and take in the majesty of the snow clad mountains. Our room did not have a view of the mountains but of the little paths along which villagers treaded up to the main road. A walk to the open ground brought back the sound of the bus stopping and all of us running out to get our first glimpse of snow. In order to see the snow, we had to take a short pony ride up the mountains and I learnt to say ‘Move’ and ‘Stop’ in Kashmiri following the directions of the pony drivers. We tore ourselves reluctantly from the mountains full of snow because the last bus to Srinagar was going to leave. This time the government had installed a cable car to get tourists to go up the highest point from where they could either walk or take a sledge to the peak. We were standing behind a lovely young Kashmiri woman who unlike the tourists who have been asked to hire snow boots was wearing silver sandals. We managed to get the tickets for the last ride on the cable car and walked across steep rocks to the mountain peak. I marveled at my ability to feel my way up the rocks inviting young honeymooners to coaxing their wives to stop getting scared and attempt the climb. By the time I raced down the snow laden path, I was out of breath but got in gratefully into the cable car. I was hell bent on drinking my fill of every view on the downward journey. Back to the hotel, it was dinner and dreams of snow.

Our driver had a wedding to attend. He made us skip the best part of the package, a visit to Sonmarg citing traffic jam due to the Amarnath pilgrims. To make up for it, he drove us to Kheer Bhavani,  a shrine to the goddess Parvati sacred to the Pandits. Kheer Bhavani had shops selling flowers and other offerings run by Muslims that I didn’t recall seeing before. Even more strange was a tall boundary wall with two army guards at the Gate. I remembered a bare courtyard with a statue of the goddess installed in a pond in the middle. But Kheer Bhavani now had all the paraphernalia of temples to mother goddesses, including stalls selling fast food. We had arrived in time for the evening prayers. I had no memory of prayers being performed at the shrine, which was an isolated spot. But a hall had been constructed in front of the shrine which began to fill up with men and women of all ages when an army Jawan rang the bell to summon devotees. I realized that the 100 odd people who filled up the hall were the few Pandit families who had chosen to stay back and who were accommodated in apartments in the shrine complex. To listen to Hindu chants in at dusk with a hundred voices chiming in unison brought back images of the old Kashmir where Pandits mingled freely with Muslims.

I closed my eyes and joined the Pandits in chanting the aarti. My eyes filled up with the gratitude for all the fun times we had had as a family so what if we couldn’t drive down in style.