a cute one...

This is a really nice picture of a young girl off to school. She lives on the other side and takes the boat to get to the school side. She'll tie her boat there. When she returns in the afternoon, she'll row herself home.

on the other side...

The other side of Gagri Bal is littered with shops of all sorts. Nothing special about these shops really, they have stuff you'll find all over Srinagar, just that if you feel like shopping while on a shikara, well you know where to stop, atleast you shikara man does!

The day we were to leave, we took out a little time for a shikara experience, for which we hadn't had time till then. We decided to spend 45 minutes on it. The shikara guy, instead of taking us out to main Dal Lake part, took us to these shops area, we weren't interested in shopping and asked him to steer away, maybe upset that he won't be getting any commission, he started rowing back to where we had started, when Dad pointed out it had been only 25 minutes, he actually came to a stand still, and didn't move till time was up! Fortunately Dad was in a good mood, and laughed at his cheek, because Dad has real bad temper.





Hmm... This looks like a general store of sorts.


This chap is actually trying to wash something in the water. Dunno what was dirtier by the time he finished, the thing he was washing, or the thing in which he was washing.


Even BPL is making its presence felt!


Some shops are not on land but are houseboats.




The people who live on the other side grow vegetables and flowers and then sell them on the Lake, and also row them across to the main part. Apart from that there are other shikara shops, selling different things.




This guy here is selling jewellery trinkets and curios.


And this one is offering to take our pictures in traditional clothes. You'll find such photographers in all of the famous Mughal Gardens.


The CRPF water wing. Kashmir is crawling with the army, the police and the like. Spotting bunkers, or army cars, or machine guns in NO BIG DEAL.

the underwater jungle...

OK. Now for the real thing. If those pictures were like a trip to heaven, these will jolt you back to earth, the real purpose of this website. It was pretty shocking for us as well. What after all that we had heard of Kashmir, the paradise on earth.

A native friend told us that weeds were choking the Dal Lake (but nothing could have prepared me for this). That the authorities were trying to get rid of them but they grew too fast for the huge machines the government had set up along the lake's border (pictures in some later post). Well, everybody knows when its man against nature, nature wins. And it surely doesnt help if the man happens to be only too willing to let nature win.

I got to know that the Dal Lake really was very beautiful. But then terrorism struck Kashmir, and like most things during those dark ages, it fell into decadence. Though terrorism no longer has Kashmir in a chokehold, the government could never restore its glory, whether its the Dal Lake or Kashmir in general.

These pictures just present the pathetic weed situation in the Lake, the Gagri Bal part, and the litter thrown in by the tourists who clearly have no desire to leave the place as they found it. They leave it only a little dirtier. Thousands of tourists, all contributing only a little. The impact can be imagined. Sadly, the locals don't mind, they help.

If you look a little carefully at this picture you might notice weeds just below the water surface. The sad part is that this is true just for the picture, when you are out there you really don't have to make an effort, its staring you in the face.

I actually felt a little scared in the shikara, it appeared there was a jungle down there, and if I fell into the water, it would gobble me up only too easily.

This actually looks like dry land, but its not. The only way of detecting water would be probably to throw a stone and see it splashing.

I wont call this filthy, or dirty, or anything such thing. To me it was just plain shocking.

the beautiful beautiful kashmir...

You just can't wrap up your visit to Srinagar, Kashmir without spending a few carefree moments on the serene waters of the Dal Lake, on one of its famous shikaras. The pictures that follow are probably the ones you've seen many times, and will, I daresay, fit snugly into the picture you have in mind of the 'paradise on earth,' as Kashmir is fondly called by its people. It must have been, maybe, but it no more is. Wish the people were fond to the extent of keeping it clean. Anyway, all of that later as of now the beautiful pictures, just can't stop myself from publishing these, because Kashmir is beautiful. It has that natural beauty which a few lucky places on earth have been blessed with. The Dal Lake, the water streams (which we noted with amusement can be come across anywhere, surprising you), the mountains, the much cleaner air, etc. Yes, Kashmir is very beautiful, as long as you keep your eyes to the skies.

Anyway back to the Dal Lake. When you are in Kashmir you just can't stop clicking. As you will see now, these pictures are of a small portion of the Dal Lake, Gagri Bal. Of a morning spent in a shikara.

 
Early morning, this shikara man waits in hope of some customers.

The houseboats. Personally I didnt like them at all, and hold them partly responsible for polluting the Lake. I don't understand why people would want to live in them. These are like hotels on the water surface, and what makes them more hotel like is that they don't move. Are not allowed to. Who wants to stand in his own waste? Our taxi driver told us that there are 1500 houseboats in all, and thats what they will be forever. To get a new houseboat, an existing houseboat will have to be removed to keep the number constant. So every few years a new houseboat is built using the deodar which is available in plenty all over Kashmir to replace a one whose wood's rotten from standing too long in the water. A houseboat is available for any number of nights and the charges vary greatly depending on how lavishly its furnished. Some of them, we were told, are tiny palaces, available ofcourse, at a king's ransom. 

This will never cease to amaze me. The mountain ranges. To my city eyes, this was heaven. There are mountains everywhere. Whether you're looking straight ahead or over your shoulder, chances are you're staring at a mountain, if not both both ahead of you and behind, atleast in one direction, marvelling at its beauty. The sunlight, the clouds, they dance around these mountains making you click away like crazy. What makes this view of the mountains even more special, is ofcourse the Dal Lake. 

Okay at the end of this day's post, a little confession. The water wasn't this blue, actually it was a murky green (the reason in the next post). This colour is the result of technology, a setting of my camera.