The Dare

We were a reckless bunch of daredevils living in Miranda house, Delhi University. I shall best classify our stage in life as "not girls any more and not yet women." We readily laughed and bitched around, and borrowed each others food, lipstick, jewelry, even clothes.We were always short on cash no matter what day of the month it was. No amount of homework and assignments could prevent us from partying late into the night and snacking well past midnight. It was on one of those frivolous "nite-outs", when we were "daring" each other to do all sorts of ridiculous things, that me and my friends accepted "The dare to visit Kashmir and stay there for a week !! " Say what ???? Even the army was weary of the daily blasts and the killings.

So there you go. The rules were that you had to spend one full week in Kashmir at the height of emergency, travel everywhere as a tourist, and get your photos taken as if everything was normal. You had to go to all the tourist spots in the beautiful valley.. If you came back alive the rest of the girls had to cough up 5000 rupees and obey all your orders.Do you begin to get the idea of our immaturity and ignorance? But like typical Miranda House girls, we thought nothing much of it.

So we packed a few clothes and toothbrushes, combs, etc and threw in a few pacs of buscuits and chips and chocolates and cameras of course ,and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. As we had a shoestring budget we took the train to Pathankot, and then the cheapest busses, and planned to stay in the youth hostel in Srinagar.The journey was long and smelly, but that will be another story by itself.Needless to say that we reached Srinagar bus station just in time to see the setting sun.

We were four mod, pretty girls, and even though none of us had bathed for over 24 hours there was still that "class" about us which caught the immediate attention of all the touts .We were instantly surrounded by assorted characters shouting "madam, hotel?" "Madams, you like go to 5 star houseboat?" and so on. It felt like we had met a whole bunch of terrorists already."no thanks"  cried and rushed towards the tourist information office.

We freshened up and to our dismay found out that there were no vacancies for us in the youth hostel.The touts had long gone and it was getting dark. At that point one elderly man approached us and asked us if we wanted to rent a cheap accomodation. We asked him how much it would cost us. He said 15 rupees each per night but only one room was available.Now that seemed extremely attractive and we all promptly gave him 15 rupees.He hailed an old ambassador car and we all jumped into the back seat not knowing where we were headed at night. We passed a few old bridges and soon the car stopped at the entrance of a narrow lane.
"Madams have to walk now said the driver. Car not going in lane."We all paid one rupee each and walked out.

In the night it seemed like a river bank.There were a lot of little shanty houseboats moored on either side of a muddy river. We looked at each other questioningly. "Come madams!" called the old man. "The fifth boat is our home!". So we had been tricked into renting an old unregistered houseboat on the banks of the jhelum. The adventure had begun. Anyway, tomorrow we can go back in the daytime and get into the youth hostel, we decided and entered the ricketty old doonga or houseboat.

These boats, with their shingled roofs, are the forerunners of Srinagar’s luxary houseboats. A particular community lives in them. Formerly this community was associated with ferrying people, livestock and food grains along the river. The past still lingers in their lifestyles even if their occupations have changed. Doongas are sparsely furnished - virtually no furniture is seen except for in the kitchen, which gleams with copper utensils of every description that line the shelves from floor to ceiling.

The old man opened the door to a completely unfurnished room. All it had was carpets and pillows .There was a tiny wash basin and a rudimentary toilet. An old cupboard stood in the corner.
He lit a few oil lamps and gave us one jug of water and two glasses. Then out of nowhere an eleven year old boy appeared with a whole handful of kambals and rajais, and made four makeshift beds for us on the floor.He kept smiling and singing a kashmiri song." Madams which country?" he asked us.
"India" we answered."Whats your name?"
"Sikander, but everyone calls me Raju guide." he informed us.
Then he brought a table and placed our bags on it ."Tomorrow I will bring four beds !" he cried
"Who is going to stay here tomorrow?" we giggled at each other. Raju saluted us and wished us "good night "and left.. We crawled into the warm rajais on the floor and sleapt like logs.

"Good morning madams!!" we heard a loud banging on the door.It was Raju sikander, and he wanted to bring us breakfast."Madams like indian breakfast or kashmiri breakfast?"
"Whats kashmiri breakfast?"
"Its one rupees ok? madams. First I bring you Kahva or green tea ,and kashmiri bread like sheermal and baqerkhani ,very yummy, very tasty ,very good!! you like?"
We had no idea of how it would taste, but we all dished out one rupee and off went raju. We got up and looked around.We were in the old city of Srinagar with its medieval charms.The river Jhelum was lined on both sides with shanty houseboats,and traditionally dressed men and women were bustling about. Burnt brick buildings in warm rich colours stood huddled close together, and the sights and sounds and tastes of that first morning in Srinagar still linger in my mind. It looked very peaceful.

Needless to say that the breakfast was rustic and delicious.We relaxed a bit and looked out .
Raju was having his own breakfast of red apple in the water. He bit the apple, threw it in the air, took another bite, threw it in the air and if it landed in the river, he dived right in after the apple, retrived it from the muddy waters and took yet another bite. yuuukkk ! When we burst out laughing at his pranks he merrily asked us if we wanted to swim too.

"No way!" we laughed and Raju casually inquired if we wanted to go sightseeing?

"Where will you take us?" we had unwittingly taken up the bait....

"Madams, Raju is best guide in Srinagar. He takes you all famous places in shikara.Only 5 rupees every madam give me. I bring shikara in half hour. Give money and be ready." 

There was no other plan on our mind anyway, and sightseeing seemed like a good idea so we each gave Raju 5 rupees and got ready. We also thought that after sightseeing was done and plenty of photos were taken we would go to the tourist centre and change our accomodation. 

In less than forty mins Raju came in a nice looking shikara.It was called Lake Princess and had bright red cushions and bright red canopy.It looked very cozy and we were really excited to see Srinagar from this water taxi.Raju proved to be very entertaining.He was an expert guide.
He took the shikara out of the river into the lakes and showed us the floating gardens, where they grew vegetables on rafts, he took us to char chinar, and the nishat and shalimar gardens and chasmeshahi.In each of these places he climbed on to the apple and pear trees and gathered juicy fruits and offered them to us.He narrated the stories of sound and water shows and water fountains in the good old days.

It was clear that in his breif  lifetime he ahd seen a dramatic drop in the tourist industry. 'Madams, first all the actors coming here, shooting on this lake, in this garden, now who is coming? Nobody. Everybody afraid. But good you have come. We need paisa badly. My sister is getting married on weekend and we need lots of paisa for the wedding."Then as if hit by a brilliant idea, Raju asked us "Have you seen Pashmeena and shahtoosh shawls? It is so thin it will pass thru your ring and still it is very warm. Madam want to see?"Yes we thought that would be fun.So Raju took us in the shikara to a housboat emporium. They all seemed very surprised.But they showed us all the embroidered handicrafts.The same were hundred times less than the shops in chandani chowk, so we made a few small purchases at bargain prices.I still have the handmade pashmina shawl, and the little walnut tie box.

As they bade farewell to us I saw Raju collecting his guide's commision for taking us to the emporium.The same was repeated at the jewelry stores, the wood stores and in the end Raju had made another 5 rupees just out of his commissions.He took us along residency road to some local restarent and ordered rishta and rogan ghosh and biryani for us, and alu dum and some paneer dish.We never would have eaten authentic kashmiri food had it not been but for him.He was a real chatterbox and kept telling us that Kashmir does not want to go to anybody, but become azad.And that he said was the problem. India wants Kashmir, Pakistan wants Kashmir, but we want nobody. We want to be free.Suddenly a few army jawans entered the hotel.There was a pin drop silence and everyone who was talking loudly became silent.

So after eating when we got back in the shikara Raju told us all kinds of stories about the army, the terrorists, and the world politics. He expertly talked about America, Russia, Europe and Japan,and surprised us with his knowledge of world history.So imagine our surprise when we reached home that evening, and the elderly man began scolding Raju and beating him up.He then turned to us and cooly informed us that Raju had stolen the shikara in which we had been touring  the whole day.Raju gave him all the money he had collected from us and that seemed to pacify the man a bit and he dragged the expert guide away to the sixth boat where they lived.We felt too lazy at the end of the day to change out hotel and crawled back into the rajai.Again we fell asleep in no time.The next day Raju was back with an ambassador car.After collecting 10 rupees each from all of us he showed us the following main attractions in the city.

The well-known Shankaracharya Temple atop the hill called Takht-e-Suleiman, is a 5 km climb from Nehru Park on a metalled road. But Raju took us from the back side via a shortcut road, and soon  we were on top of  the hill.Raju told us to tie a ribbon on one of the trees so we will be blessed and revisit the Shankaracharya Temple again in future.The site dates back to 250BC. The philosopher Shankaracharya stayed at this place when he visited Kashmir ten centuries ago to revive Sanatan Dharma. 

Across the city is another, much lower hill crowned by the Hari Parbat Fort, built by an Afghan governor of Kashmir in the 18th century. The low wall enclosing the upper part of the hill was constructed by Emperor Akbar in 15 the century.But the hill is considered sacred to the Hindus due to the presence of temple of Sharika, which is believed to be a form of goddess Durga or Shakti. The hill is surrounded by almond orchards, which make a lovely sight during April when the trees blossom, heralding the advent of spring in Kashmir. Raju told us of the big mela that used to be held there in his childhood.Wonder why he sort of spoke of it in the past tense.

Then he took us to see  the historic Sikh Gurudwara Chatti The sixth Sikh guru travelled through Kashmir, stopping to preach occasionally. A gurudwara has been built at the exact site of each of these halts. The most important one among these is Chhatti Padshahi gurudwara, situated near the Kathi Darwaza, in Rainawari, Srinagar, which is held in great reverence by devotees of all faiths. Raju informed us that sikh religion was half muslim and half hindu, which was interesting.

Hazratbal Mosque is located in a village of the same name on the banks of the Dal. Its pristine white marble elegance is reflected in the waters of the lake. Hazratbal's special significance is derived from the fact that it houses a hair of the prophet Muhammad. This is displayed to the public on religious occasions, usually accompanied by fairs. Apart from these occasions, Friday prayers are offered at Hazratbal and attended by throngs of people. 

We took a lot of photos.But the best attraction was the wedding of Raju's sister.We were also invited to take part in the traditional prenupt dances and the big traditional wedding feast with 30 dishes.Raju's mother let all of us dress up like kasmiri brides and we all looked like little prom princesses.We gave handsome gifts to the newly weds.

By now we had completed all the conditions of the dare.We had spent 6 days in Srinagar and lived like kashmiris, seen the intimate little details of the land and the people.So we bade farewell to our new friends and departed to Delhi.Raju took all our address and phone nos just in case he wanted to come and visit us in INDIA. We tried to convince him that he too lived in India and was an Indian, but he prefered to be a Kashmiri he told us.So that was that.

Our friends were too jealous of us and they gave us the 5000 rupees of the dare and obeyed our wishes.Like not all of them, but half of them. When I think of the risks we took at that time I am amazed at myself.:it was all possible due to our vast innocence and ignorance.If knowledge is power,IGNORANCE is bliss!

Tags: women's day

42 Comment(s)  |  Share   |  Permalink [?]  |  Digg!

Post Rating: [ Votes: 8 ]    Saved