Fear is palpable in the kutcha lanes that run parallel to Srinagar's Anantnag Road. People returning with the day's firewood or driving their flock home walk slowly. For a bunch of tourists from South India who came to see the paradise on earth, this was an uneasy calm after a fun horse riding session in Pahalgam meadows. “One SP is killed, five youth too at Dal lake,” says the teenaged horse trainer as he assists tourists on his thoroughbred. Then as a sequel he asks, “Are you married? I have a sister and nephews.”
The driver of our Winger, Altaf, had a measured calm which came in handy when our vehicle was surrounded by an angry mob. “We have grown up in the shadow of machine gun firing and grenades. Now when there is some fight on the road we go to see it,” he says. With stones in their hands and bloodshot eyes, the mob asks why we're visiting their village. Sensing that we were no more than a bunch of scared tourists, they let us go. Altaf refused to take his foot off the pedal sensing our fear and we drove into Srinagar leaving behind a dusty village road.
Never mind curfews, say the tourists here. This year, the place got 40 per cent more tourists who were as enthusiastic about a ride to the snowline in Gulmarg as about a trip to Sonemarg en route the Amarnath yatra.
Everyday affair
Sonemarg — the pit stop for people travelling to Leh, Kargil and Amarnath — is abuzz with travellers' tales. The bubbling brook offers pure water from melting glaciers to soak your feet and the lunch stalls have Maggi and boiled eggs. You decide to take a trek to the nearby residential area while waiting for the clearance from the Army to proceed towards Kargil. Halfway up the hills you are startled by gun shots. Then a pause... again a fresh round of ammunition reverberates in the valley and is drowned by the purr of the chopper above doing sorties. The firing range close by is harmless for people actually living under the shadow of extremists' violence and infiltration. The current teen generation has been witness to the Kargil war.
Seventeen years old, Ashraf studies in a boarding school with his siblings. He recollects how his hometown Kargil was affected by the war. “We could see fire bellowing out from behind the hills in front of our houses. There were many casualties. We all were moved to an army camp at a safe distance. It was difficult. Relief material began to pour from across the country after few months. We lost relatives in the attack from Pakistan. My uncle had gone to get milk and he never came back,” he says. Houses hit by rocket launchers from across the border and those in Dras yet to see their original structures are a witness to the war.
“The Pakistanis came to this lawn,” says the manager of a popular hotel in Dras. The range of the Himalayas behind him was where the firing happened, he says. “We all helped the army and also in getting back the body bags. Many civilians were lost too.”
Altaf, an old-timer of the village adds, “The Pakistanis' supplies ran out. Also our soldiers fought back well.”
Trying circumstances
A visit to this place and the respect for the Armed Forces goes up by notches. Living in difficult terrain, coming from different parts of the country with different mother tongues, they still share the bunker and understand communication is critical to the country's security. Before I embarked on the trip, I asked “Is Kashmir safe?” and pat came the reply, “Safer than Hyderabad”.
“It is,” agrees Ashraf, who aspires to be a chartered accountant. “Only what we need is infrastructure. For example in Kargil, we have few schools, one college and a basic hospital. All these too came after the war.” An Aamir Khan fan, Ashraf represents the new and bold generation of Kashmir that is ambitious and looking for a fillip. With so much to offer for a Nature-hungry traveller, Kashmir can rake in enough profit from tourism that can be used to develop even the remotest of villages. For now this is a heaven on earth hands down.
