Kashmir, Cashmere, Cashmeer, Kashmere, Kashmeer, Cashmir

Kashmir is like the face of a beautiful woman marked by an ugly scar. Offering a buffer zone to India and a wealth of resources to Pakistan, It is the bruised, abused, child that has been kicked about in a war of egos between two squabbling brothers. Kashmir still bleeds, insurgents still exist and India's military might has transformed it into an open prison, continuing to patrol its streets by day and night. Volatile and uneasy, governments have had the pretext to label Kashmir as one of the world's most dangerous places. Embassies warn of its dangers, insurance companies refuse cover and propaganda stops people coming here. We took an alternative route into the troubled state and discovered another Kashmir - one that was well worth the arduous journey that it took to get here.

It's a Family Affair
I've always wanted to visit Kashmir. According to research carried out by an uncle, the origins of my mother's family lie right here. I haven't had the opportunity to discover exactly where in Kashmir we come from, however, my grandmother claims that we are of Iranian descent and arrived some 500 years ago. My family are Hindu, however, it was the Mughals that arrived from Persia all those years ago – so the connection between my family and the religion it adapted is interesting, and something that I aim to investigate further. Watch this space.

Let's talk...
In case you hadn't noticed, I've been off the radar for a while. Call it writer's cramp, pure laziness, simply switching off or getting caught up in the mundane of life – I've been a naughty girl and not written for sometime. But I'm back, and I think you might understand why.

There are a million and one things to say about Kashmir. Coming here has sparked an energy in me that has been missing over the last few months. So before I go into the details, let's talk politics and get that out the way first.

Poli-triks
Realising the history of Kashmir, understanding its people and attempting to grasp its politics has confirmed the same thing again: That governments will do whatever it takes to divide, conquer and rule. Fear is the other thing: Give people enough reason to be afraid, and power will reign.

The veil that exists between Kashmir and the world has obscured its true colours. It's as if both the government and the insurgents want to cut Kashmir off from the rest of the world. Walk through the streets of Srinagar and you will have a tough time trying to find an Internet cafe. If you have a pre-paid mobile, then forget about using it because the signal is only available to those with contracted phones so that they can easily be traced. To an extent, culture too has been repressed, with insurgents putting an end to Srinagar's movie theatre some 10 years ago, cutting off any outside cultural influence. In fact the whole of the Jammu and Kashmir region – which comprises Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh – is almost off bounds in terms of communications. Kashmir is severely controlled – its communications, its government, its streets, its life and its people. During elections in Kashmir, supporters of the opposition were threatened or arrested, bringing to question the agenda of the so-called “world's biggest democracy”. Fear is control and control is power. The Indian government and elite have learned well from its British colonial rulers.

I have to admit, that if I had been travelling solo, I would not have ventured into Kashmir alone. I've been travelling with David for the last few months and he managed to convince me to join him on this Kashmiri adventure. We scanned the latest news and felt satisfied that it wasn't as intense as the Indian government likes to presume. A few grenades, the odd missing person, one or two protests – as long as you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time, not really too much to worry about. It's a volatile place ridden with undercover insurgents; however, their militant activity has been significantly reduced in recent years. Things are not like they used to be.

Back in 1990, India and Pakistan squared up to each other during the bloody Kargil War. The situation intensified to the extent that the two countries were on the brink of a nuclear war and had to be talked out of it by the UN. It's another example of India's willingness to sacrifice people for power and to do whatever it takes to maintain its stronghold on Kashmir.

India stripping Kashmir of its autonomy has created a civil war that can detonate at any given time. Over a bloodstained time-line, the Kashmiri people have realised there is no messing with the Indian government. It's no wonder insurgency kicked off in the way that it did in Kashmir. However, any retaliation – whether it be peaceful protest or guerrilla attack – has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent Kashmiris. If they protested in peace, they were faced by military gunfire. If they retaliated as insurgents, again, there was the high risk of a brutal face-off, while giving the Indian government a further pretext to maintain its military presence in Kashmir.

In fact that very insurgency triggered India's bill on the so-called “war on terror” - protested against by NGOs, including Amnesty International. Walk around Delhi and prepare to be frisked at train, metro and bus stations, at temples, hotels and restaurants. The Indian government is spending more on security and its nuclear weapons program than it is on education, healthcare and creating jobs. Nonchalant is the attitude of the Indian government and this is witnessed in the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are lying vacant within its pubic sector. Nobody bothered to take care of that slight mishap. When it comes to leading the investigation on acts of terror, such as the 2003 attacks on the Indian parliament, innocent people are convicted and savage legal battles fought to clear names. In other not so-fortunate cases, innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to death. In the meantime, the Indian government continues to rule Kashmir with an iron fist, and there is little that anyone can do about it.

The number of insurgents that crossed the Line of Control (above Kargil), to train as guerrillas in Pakistan is therefore not surprising. However, it is also a situation that has bred fundamentalist attitudes amongst young Muslim Kashmiris – driving them to the brink of insanity, driving them to commit irrational crimes against their own people, fuelling a civil war. My Kashmiri friends have been telling me that the situation with insurgents today is nothing in comparison to what it used to be in the nineties. According to Shasta, a documentary filmmaker who lives in Delhi, people were terrorized for anything the insurgents considered “dishonourable”. It was not uncommon for acid to be thrown in the faces of women, for them to be abducted, or for their legs to be shot if they were seen wearing jeans. In the meantime, the Indian government has carried out its own dirty tricks campaign as a military dictatorship. It demanded every family in any given village, send every male member – boy or man – to its barracks for interrogation of any insurgency-related activity. Many innocent men would be taken away and brutally tortured, firing them up to join the Kashmiri Freedom Movement (KFM) or to become insurgents. While they were being interrogated, members of the Indian military would charge their homes and in many cases, soldiers would rape and pillage their mothers and daughters. Family members of the convicted innocent tried to play it down, tried to convince the militants not to retaliate for it gave the Indian government even more reason to maintain its presence, and what's worse, spark a counter attack, meaning they'd have to flee their homes, their villages would be set alight by the army.

David and I spoke to a number of Kashmiris about their opinions on the situation. Some Kashmiris living in India disagreed with an autonomous Kashmir because it would make their lives in India, a living hell. Muslims in India are already treated with great injustice and the situation would only get worse. Others, such as the shopkeeper I spoke to had other views.

As I sat on the floor of his floating shop on Srinagar's Dal Lake, gazing at the wonderful colours of embroidered Kashmiri tops and shawls that lay sprawled before me, he hinted, “there is Afghanistan, Pakistan and China all around us.” In the meantime, David was seated in our shikara (traditional wooden boat) outside the shop talking to a young radical. A big strong man with his own shop selling intricate woodcarvings, he spoke of his hate for India and his passion for an independent Kashmir. He joked of plans to grow his beard and head for Goa this year to scare the Israelis! We found that quite funny, yet also recognized his angst as a Muslim against the world.

David and I came across another businesses man, a Kashmiri houseboat owner who declared, “I am Muslim, but I am Indian first and Kashmiri second.” The situation is complicated. There are too many livelihoods at stake and separation would not serve the interests of the millions of Kashmiris with businesses. Kashmiris in India are victimised enough as it is, for example, Arif, a 22 year old gentle soul from Srinagar, recalled the time a Mumbai hotel had told him Kashmiris were not welcome. He'd tried to get a hotel in the Muslim quarter and was given the same answer. Autonomy would create a situation much worse. In the meantime, it's also been argued that without India's military might, Kashmir does not have the capacity to defend itself and would be left open to attack from the greedy, preying eyes of countries in the north-east and north-west.

Kashmiri people are proud and (unlike Tibetans), hardly a nation of victims, proving their defiance in the face of blood, war, death and destruction. Young people that we spoke to, including a bunch of twenty-something Kashmiri boys, lamented freely of India. India is not Kashmir and Kashmir is not India. It is a state and a country and people and a language unto itself. The boys were adamant about the facts, raising their fists and speaking in anger about the open prison in which they live. “They killed 500 people last year during a protest in Srinagar”, one of them told me, “We don't want to be part of India, we are separate from them.”

Military Machine
Haji, our wonderful Kashmiri host, is old school. He has witnessed Kashmir during both its glory years and its years of war. Haji, in his sixties, runs the Brown Palace guesthouse in the picturesque village of Loripora, Pahalagam. He has a naturally cheeky smile and the mischievous glint in his eyes cannot go unnoticed. Yet he possesses a Sufi-like presence, floating not walking, appearing out of nowhere and surprising us every so often. “There should be no more war anywhere in the world, ever. Every country in the world should be free of the bullshit of war. So bad… So bad…And for what? Money? Power? Enough is enough… No more war…” he spoke with sadness. “The problem with young people,” he then began, “is that they were born in the nineties. They witnessed all these bombs and sniper attacks happening all around them, but nothing else. So what else can we expect from their attitudes? They have seen their friends and families get stuck in the crossfire. But that's all they've seen.”

From the barbed wire that tears across the Line of Control (LoC) and the groups of uniformed men that stand nervously twitching their rifles on the street corners of Srinagar - to the army barracks that are positioned at every kilometre or so along the 280 km road that winds up from Jammu to Kashmir - It has been estimated that there are some 120,000 military personnel stationed in Kashmir.

We'd been to the border ceremony in Amritsar some weeks before so witnessing the graphic reality of the situation that stood before us here in Kashmir, amplified its absurdity. The border ceremony in Amritsar involves a football stadium-like crowd of cheering Indians chanting nationalist slogans and waving Indian flags as army personnel goose-step across to the gate that divides the two countries, glare at each other, salute and goose-step it back. There was humour to be found in the whole she-bang (two idiotic brothers pulling faces at each other) - however that humour did not run deep enough to ignore the sheer stupidity of the joke and ridicule made out of a very serious situation that has already cost millions of lives.

India and Pakistan are two brothers that swear in the same language, eat the same food and enjoy the same sport – yet they want to blow the living daylights out of each other. This is the reality, so the only conclusion that we could arrive at was this: that this meaningless, futile exercise was instructed in vain to stir patriotic, nationalist feeling, and fuel racial and religious intolerance amongst the mostly Hindu crowd that watched the spectacle. One guy was shouting so hard that he'd almost lost his voice, yet carried on hollering, “Hindustan, Zinadbad!” (Long live India). The guards had to tell him to stay seated on a number of occasions. I felt like punching him. These are the kinds of dirty tricks played by the Indian government and its military machine. Nobody even knows why they hate who they hate. They just do it because of what they are told to believe. No one has attempted to understand the real plight of the Kashmiri people and the Indian media are the last ones to even try.

Experiencing Kashmir for the very first time brought back that memory of Amritsar and put the whole thing into an even clearer perspective. While insurgents are firing bombs and shells across the line of control into Kargil, guards from opposing sides are doing Hitler impersonations in Amritsar and entertaining thousands of brainwashed Indians and Pakistanis both sides of the border. As a shell explodes mid-air, catapulted across the Line of Control by an insurgent having an off-day, the crowd in Amritsar cheers. As a sniper rifle targets and kills two Indian officers in Srinagar, small children are running to the border gate with Indian flags as Bollywood songs blare from the barely audible, poor sound quality speakers. This is the reality of a stupid game of war that is happening in India today. This is the level of brainwashing that is taking place as the Indian government continues to control its people with anti-Muslim propaganda and everyday events featuring the all-star goose-stepping military brigade.

I realised to an even greater extent, that there was more to this wonderful, yet terrorized paradise than meets the eye. I wanted to ignore this brutal military presence, see past it and get to know its divine landscape, connect with its people and learn to appreciate the highly distinctive and refined culture of Kashmir.

Getting past Jammu
Rewards in life need to be earned. We were still at the Golden Temple and eager to get to Kashmir. To get there, we had to endure the ordeal of getting past Jammu.

We had decided fairly early on that Kashmir was on the cards. We opted for an alternative route into the state as opposed to following the tourist circuit from Dharamsala to Manali and up to Leh. It made sense to head up from Amritsar to Jammu and on to Srinagar and the Zanskar region, acclimatizing slowly en route to Leh instead of rocketing straight up over 5,500 metres of the world's second highest pass from 2000 to 3,505 metres.

The Golden Temple was nice, yet extremely intense and for me, a little too gold, especially by night, when its glow intensified under sodium floodlights. I preferred to see it by day, when its gold was more of a matte, modest colour. I had to stay an extra night, so David, who'd had enough by this point, shot off ahead of me to Jammu. I was to meet him in the next 24 hours. Our respective journeys revealed a conclusive perspective: Jammu was not Kashmir. Either that, or it did not represent the image of the Kashmir we had imagined. More on Jammu later.

But first – The Golden Temple
As clichéd as it sounds, India is indeed a country of contrasts. Leaping from the sea of turbans that milled about Punjab's Amritsar and its Golden Temple, to the pristine pine forests and emerald meadows of the Kashmir that lay ahead of us - was a surreal experience. It disclosed the difference between Kashmir and the rest of India.

The Golden Temple is a vast piece of architecture built four centuries ago and is made up of no less than 500 kilos of gold. People mill about 24hours of the day and night, walking studiously across its white marble pathways, gazing at the brilliance of the temple's reflection in the water, or simply meditating to the sound of prayer that continues around the clock. The stunning gold structure houses the Guru Granth Sahib – the Sikh holy book, which is ceremonially carried out each evening and put to bed.

David had left and I had befriended a psychologist from Spain and TV director from Poland. Climbing the steps of the temple, we reached a room that revealed where the crystal clear sound of music throughout the vicinity was resonating from. It was a surprisingly small room housing the musicians that sung religious hymns and played tabla and harmonium. Sitting and listening for a short while, the girls and I decided to ascend to the rooftop. It was evening time, there was a beautiful spiritual feeling in the air, the water glistened with the reflection of gold all around us and the full moon shone with all its vigour, illuminating each of us as we stood staring out across the liquid gold that and splendid architecture around us, mesmerised. The energy was charged.

There are four entrances into the Golden Temple, and despite their labels, nobody really pays any attention to the one they “should” be walking through – not that this is given any importance. The entrances for Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, is symbolic of religious tolerance in itself.

By day, we'd take off our shoes, cover our heads and make our way down to the dining area, where we'd pick up a plate and spoon, sit on the floor and get served chapatti, dal and rice pudding. I had the opportunity to sus out the city, scooting about in an auto sorting out errands. David suggested I meet him at his favourite dhaba (cheap chai and food place, traditionally started by poor people for poor people). It started raining a little, and then just as I remembered that it was monsoon time, the heavens exploded and it was water, water, everywhere. I waded through a knee-high sea of dirty rainwater mixed in with the mud and dirt of the streets and found David on the other side of the road. The water felt hot and I stepped precariously across the road, careful not to step into anything too unlikely. Wearing Sinbad trousers, a dress and a thin veil of a scarf around my shoulders, I looked and felt like a drowned cat.

This is Amritsar, the place where you can get fined for smoking on the street. David had become best buddies with the dhaba owners (probably because he's white and a man), so he smoked freely, while I took secretive tokes from his cigarette. Amritsar was beginning to get on my nerves. It was a place of contradictions; particularly with the restrictions it imposed yet gawking men and boozers on every street corner. Following the ridiculous guard ceremony at the Indo-Pakistan border, David and I both agreed it was time to leave. The girls and I awoke 4am the following morning to watch the sunrise over the temple. We got dressed and walked around its architecture and past the lengthy queue outside its main shrine where people waited patiently to make their praises. Again, I felt the urge to leave and booked a ticket for Jammu.

Recalling the events, it had been a fascinating, albeit, intense experience. Sikhism represented a positive socialist system. We had stayed at the temple premises for a small donation and had use of its super clean bathroom facilities. In fact, considering the mammoth size of the building, absolutely everything was immaculately clean with volunteers cleaning up around the clock. Nobody goes hungry in Amritsar either. The Golden Temple caters for one and all. The poor are not left to die and every beggar is welcomed as equally as every rich be-turbaned landowner. It was evident from the surroundings that many Sikhs had gone abroad, made plenty of money and returned with hefty donations that contributed to high-tech equipment such as the chapatti-making machine, which churns out some 1000 chapattis per hour. We had learnt that the Golden Temple receives around 15,000 visitors per day and some 10,000 staff and volunteers work here around the clock. An eager young Sikh man had spotted David of course, and given us an interesting tour, which included the enormous kitchens, and I felt like Thumbelina amongst it giant-sized pots, pans, and cookers. Three eventful days later, I took off like a bat outta hell. Kashmir was calling.

Escaping Jammu
Kashmir was calling but Jammu wasn't welcoming. Barbed wire and army barracks positioned at every other kilometre or so prepared me for what was to come. Every Indian train station that I've frequented has buzzed with tuk-tuk touts, rickshaw wallahs, garam chai wallahs, shoe shiners, street kids, college students, Rajasthani women (they're everywhere!), beggars, snack stalls, dogs, cows, horses... Commotion, y'know? Instead, I'd found myself in a place stripped of the usual colour, noise, smells and chaos to which I've become happily accustomed.

The first thing I see as I step down from the platform bridge is the barbed wire, a number of army vehicles and a splattering of uniformed men. I walk out of the station and through the car park and see not the usual procession of auto-rickshaws and clusters of drivers, but a handful of men loitering around the odd taxi.

The reception from the taxi driver prepared me for the hardcore Kashmiri mentality for bargaining. The car flew through the city, the driver stopping at intervals to ask directions. Paying him, I found myself entering what looked like a brothel. A long dark reception area with a cold wooden front desk housing a short fat man greeted me. He directed me upstairs. I could smell urine as I climbed the stairs. A couple lay in one of the rooms I passed and stared nonchalantly out of its half-open door as I walked by. I had wanted to freak David out with the words, “open up it's the Indian army!” I see a dark-skinned man with a thick moustache sweating profusely in a dirty wife-beater vest, shouting violently into a mobile phone and decide against it; opting instead, to knock discreetly.

“I was expecting room service at the very least!” I lamented as David opened the door. We knew we'd be out of the place in less than 12 hours so found it easy enough to take the piss out of everything around us. David had arrived the day before and had spent a good three or four hours hunting down the most decent hotel he could find. He was sure he'd heard of better looking brothels. At least we had a water cooler to relieve us of the smothering, hot and humid air. With its broken springs and stained, hole-ridden sheets, the lumpy bed didn't look too inviting either. In the first few minutes of entering, I couldn't even bring myself to go to the bathroom, letting out a short, sharp scream at the sight of the resident cockroaches in the toilet basin. David was on the floor, laughing, at my expense of course, and even more so when I exclaimed “I've arrived in these clothes. I'm sleeping in these clothes. And I'm leaving in them tomorrow!”

Walking around the town, I noticed that there was barely a woman on the street. This was one of those moments for David to transform into my husband. It helps. We felt the town fuelled with paranoia, its atmosphere hostile. There were gun shops with their “Save India” and “India is Great!” slogans. We happened to be staying in the Muslim ghetto of the city and by night, noticed the streets dramatically quieten down. At hearing anything sounding remotely like a gunshot, we pondered if it might be the beginning of some kind of commotion. The paranoid vibes of the place rubbed off on us, David answering a knock on our door with a knife in his back pocket and me hallucinating about men bursting in with AK47s.

Early evening however, had an Indian lull about it with cars tooting horns, people walking everywhere and small dhabas serving local fare to local people, their chatter spilling out onto the darkening street outside. We even saw a bull trying to mate with a cow in the middle of a busy junction next to a roundabout, causing a traffic jam! Only in India! And again, may I reiterate, that despite its geopolitical label as the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Jammu is not Kashmir.

Finding ourselves in the Hindu quarter, we came across a shopkeeper who models himself on the famous Bollywood actor, Amitabh Bachan. Proud of his obsession with his idol, he showed off some newspaper clippings featuring his fame to claim as the celebrated spoof star. He looked like an Indian Elvis, yet kept an air of nonchalance and pride as he served us two packets of Win cigarettes.

By 5.30 am the next morning, we found ourselves at the bus station raring to get the hell out the dodgiest town we'd experienced in India. The bus wasn't going anywhere until it was absolutely full and we were the first ones there. Five hours later we hit the road.

Kashmir Calling
I felt a magnetic pull towards the Kashmir I had imagined. It must have been a powerful magnet because the road from Jammu to Srinagar stretched for some 280km, taking us a good 15 hours to get there.

The landscape became green, wild and beautiful. We could detect the strong, sweet, pungent aroma of marijuana that incensed the air as we drove through the Kashmiri countryside. The surroundings changed as we took on an ascent and began to witness the panorama of the space as it stretched out wider before us and as valleys became increasingly visible, getting deeper as we got higher. Army barracks pierced the road every kilometre and we noticed marijuana plants growing freely - if not in the very premises of the military quarters, then outside of them, fluttering next to the barbed wire. It was an insane contrast.

The dramatic nature of the Kashmiri Himalaya came into view. Craggy rock faces, small white villages stuck into the bosoms of voluptuous mounds, bridges that connected the expanse between valleys, bright, psychedelic greens, the sheer drop as I looked outside the window and the huge incline ahead as the bus snaked into the infinite road ahead.

We stopped at a police check post and as the only two foreigners on the bus, were commanded to fill in a form with all our details. Is this what the Indian military has been putting Kashmiris through over the last 20 years? No, it hasn't. It's been putting them through much worse than we could ever imagine.

A small crowd formed as I smoked a cigarette with David outside a food place en route, some of them friendly enough to make polite conversation. In the all-male crowd, a short, podgy young man suddenly singled me out, declaring that as a woman, I should not be smoking. Maintaining a calm exterior, I threw the energy of my disdain upon him. “Are you disrespecting me in front of my husband? In fact I'd say you were also disrespecting my husband because he doesn't even tell me what to do. So who do you think you are to tell me? Why don't YOU stop smoking?” I hear a few laughs and claps around me. He suggested that we are friends and I tell him I'd rather be his older sister. Sister is preferred to friend and any man who thinks he can become a woman's friend is suggesting that she is easy because a woman does not accept just any man's friendship so easily – especially one like this. “I don't know you,” I responded, “so there's no way you can be my friend.” I heard a few voices agree with me as I walked away.

Srinagar
We arrived late at night and dived into the most decent hotel we could find. My Kashmiri friend, Shazia, is chauffeured around in her snazzy four-wheel drive. She smokes, swears, makes controversial documentaries, parties with a degree of modesty and during our entire time in Kashmir, not once did we see her in a headscarf. Walking around on the streets however, is another story. The women I noticed in the Dal Gate area where we stayed, were either covered head to toe in burkhas, or sported headscarves in a multitude of colours. They'd smile shyly, others would curiously stare until I smiled and graciously, they'd do the same. I opted for a headscarf too, but still felt the eyes of men staring right through my clothes. David reckons its because they are such a sexually repressed society. The scarf was a light cloth and even with that, I felt it as a weight on my head as I walked down the street trying not to let it fall off in any which direction. David insisted I float down the street without feeling conscious; wear it with style and glam up. So I did and I felt better.

Not many tourists
Touts are everywhere. Business has been dire so they'll do everything in their power to coerce you into buying a hat, scarf, shawl, shakira ride, houseboat, trekking expedition... A nail clipper perhaps? The nineties were an inevitably bad time and many Kashmiri people opened business in major cities across the subcontinent.

Despite being famed for the immensity of its beauty, Kashmir is off the beaten track. Not many a tourist in town! We bumped into about 10 over the six days we spent in Srinagar. One guy had arrived on an Enfield from Ladakh. He was the only person we spoke to, apart from Shazia of course, who happened to be visiting her parents in the city at the time.

Propaganda that supports the agenda of the Indian government has sparked wide disinterest in Kashmir as a place for travel. So you could say people were happy to see us, and even happier when they understood that we had arrived independently on a bus from Jammu as opposed to an organised tour – something that was common amongst most other people that we'd met during the month that we spent here in Kashmir.

In recent weeks, insurgents targeted two policemen with sniper guns. There was also a protest and police fired tear gas. A few people have been missing and Independence Day saw the big city shut down in defiance of its association with India. More recently, 50kg of explosives were blown up near the city jail, killing three people and injuring 10 others. Insurgent activity happens every now and again. It'll probably quieten down for a month or so. It's ideal to keep an eye on the news and stay out of site on public holidays. According to Asif, a gentle 21-year-old Kashmiri guy from Srinagar, during the nineties, the military had a shoot-on-site policy if anyone was seen on a public holiday, in particular, Independence Day. He predicts insurgency to flare up just after Eid. It happens every so often, usually as a result of military action. Last year five million Kashmiri people protested against human rights violations in the city of Srinagar. It was a peaceful protest that ended in a bloodbath when military fired on the crowds, killing some 500 innocent people. We were in Kashmir on the anniversary of the fatal protest and realised why every business was shuttered down in memory of the victims. Kashmiri people are fed up and frustrated. “I don't care if we are autonomous, or if we end up as part of Pakistan or if we continue to be a part of India,” Asif told us, “I just want peace in Kashmir.”

Military presence gives the place a sense of danger and uniformed men are often seen twitching nervously at their M16s. The local Muslim girls school is cordoned off from public view with towering walls and a set of imposing doors lined with wrought iron gates that barricade them in from the outside world. Meanwhile, the bridge outside the college building is protected by bulletproof glass and there is a cluster of armed men alertly watching every new face in town. Walking through the streets of Srinagar's old town, we head off into the city area and discover shops, wide streets and busy highways. There are major tourist hotels and some are cordoned off, again with barbed wire. A nice welcome for the unsuspecting American tourist.


A city that has seen everything
As Bashrat Peer says, “Srinagar is a medieval city living a modern war”. It is also a city of contrasts and we were eager to get away from this paranoid vibe and discover its true landmarks so we took off for the main mosque. It was a simple, cold building. We went round it twice and trekked off into the midst of the town, discovering the pathway to the fort that was built here during the Mugul times. Climbing higher, we discovered a mosque. Walking briskly through, we found our way to the highest point and swallowed in a panoramic, almost aerial view of the city of Srinagar.

I watched the city from above and tried to imagine the dramatic changes that have swept through its perimeters over centuries. From the existence of civilizations (the Nagas, Vedics, Burzahoms and even the Greeks), to several distinctive religions (including Buddhist, Hindu, Shaivist, Aramaic and Islam) – Srinagar is a special city, possessing a rich tapestry of cultures as it discloses today intricate architecture and wood carvings, papier mache, crewel embroidery, Pashmina shawls, ornate furniture and magnificent paintings, sculptures and not to mention, profound Sufi poetry. As we absorbed the nature of its spirit, the hypnotic call to prayer resonated across the city that sprawled out before us.

Another Country
Stepping into Kashmir is like stepping into another country and its situation was self-explanatory. We could read the frustration in the eyes of the young; see the sadness in those of the old and the desperation in the demeanour of every tout that tried to sell us everything under the sun. We witnessed it in the barbed wire, the bunkers, the police check-posts, the military vehicles, the armed men. Yet so profound is Kashmiri culture, that not even a brutal military machine could disguise its distinction from Indian culture. Kashmiri people are a world unto themselves. The language, the music, the religion, the art, the culture and the mentality and gestures of Kashmiri people themselves are a world apart from the rest of India. In fact every state in India is distinct. People, costumes, festivals, celebrations are different between one state and the next. However, Kashmir is something else and we began to understand its plight simply by seeing all that we could see around us.

Kashmir – a crime to bypass
I had a number of people that we were going to Kashmir. Their immediate response was, “be careful” or “why would you want to go there?” I answered the question with a question: How can I possibly come to India and miss out on the opportunity of experiencing paradise on earth?

It was well worth the trip and I would recommend anyone that is anyone, to put aside their prejudices, open their minds and discover Kashmir and its people for themselves. The Indian government has already done enough damage by injecting the fear factor and stopping people from travelling here.

I went for a coffee in a Leh restaurant recently and met two guys from Jammu who were working there. They found me fascinating for the fact that I am Indian and yet looked, dressed and spoke in a manner that they are not accustomed to. We ended up having a debate about the Indian government and its role in brainwashing the masses against Kashmiri people and Muslims in general. “They are all insurgents”, one was telling me, “and the government has equipped us with what we need to defend ourselves in case they raid our homes.” He was adamant: “Not only are they pro-Pakistan, but they are all going there for training.” I argued that the government has created that very insurgency by firing it up with the human rights violations that it's committed. “You'd probably end up as an insurgent yourself if your rights were taken away, if your city was pillaged, if your friends and family were caught in the crossfire. Do you even know what you're fighting about any more? Do you even remember how and why this was all even started? Read the fucking papers and see how you're being controlled!” It was a pointless discussion as it is not my place to change minds. People need to learn to think freely for themselves. They know what they know from their own experiences, so it was interesting to see the extent to which the minds of different groups of people have been effected.

Dal Lake
I happened to be in a shop trying to pick an embroidered Kashmiri top and headscarf (might as well get in with the local fashion!), while a bored David hung about smoking a cigarette outside. He'd managed to draw the attention of an old Kashmiri man, who'd coyly approached him for a cigarette. It turned out that the little old man was a shakira wallah. I popped my head out the shop at intervals to ask David's advice on colours and designs I'd chosen, while the little old man busied himself with discreetly getting business from David. Flustered that I was not getting any attention, I left the shop to join them, by which point David had been convinced to join the little old man on a shakira ride. Ghulam Mohammad is an 82-year-old shakira-boat owner and has been doing his job for 60 years. He took real pride in his role as a man who can make us very happy aboard his shakira. So charming and gentle was his manner, we just couldn't resist, and accompanied him to the shores of the magnificent Dal Lake.

Despite it's reputation as Kashmir's biggest tourist attraction, there is no denying the infinite beauty of its most famous lake. The Dal Lake spreads across some 50 square kilometres and is lined with hundreds of palatial houseboats, intricately carved wooden shakiras and floating shops that sell everything from precious stone jewellery and crewel embroidery shawls to hand-carved wood ornaments and the perpetual Kashmiri silk carpet.

Ghulam's translucent watery eyes filled with tears as he reminisced of the golden years in Kashmir, adding “I bought my shakira for 200 rs in 1945”, he told us “and then I sold it in 1949 for 600 rs. Very good price!” Working each day with his grandson, Tariq, a young, sweet-natured, gentle giant, Ghulam tries to bring in the clients for shakira rides across the Dal Lake. It's hard work rowing across that huge expanse of a lake and we felt guilty that a sweet old man like Ghulam was taking us around it. David and I took the oars and rowed until my arms nearly fell off. Apparently, we had rowed out further than any of the other shakira owners would dare. “No one comes out this far, they're all lazy young men,” he told us, “all they're good at doing is taking tourists literally for ride that's short in time and high in price.” The silence on the lake was golden, David and I mesmerised by the beauty around us, the vastness of the lake itself and the sound of nothing but nature. We transcended into a communal quiet, hypnotised into silence.

“You will be very happy. Here is a flower for beautiful Anu,” Ghulam gently broke the silence, passing a string of floating lilies that he'd collected from the lake and tied together for me. “Are you happy? I want you to be happy.” Arriving on the shore at the far flung side of the lake, Ghulam told us that he'd be very happy if we accompanied him to a special shop because it would help his grandson get a job there, even if we didn't buy anything. Walking down the wide, tree-lined, sunny street, it was evident that this was one of Srinagar's rather well to do areas. We arrived at large imposing gates, and walking through them, Ghulam received a salaam from the security guard. He was obviously a very well respected man in Srinagar. Walking down the 15-metre entrance lined with flowers, we reached the doors of a beautiful store, selling la crème de la crème of Kashmiri shawls, carpets, scarves and tops. These guys import to places like Nichols in London. They make Hermes look cheap. The shop manager spoke to David, ignoring me almost completely. His attitude failed to faze me as I busied myself picking out a number of shawls and trying them on. I found a beautiful sky-blue Kashmir wool jumper and immediately thought of my dad. It was 4,500 rs and worth about 300 quid in the UK. I didn't buy it, but knew I'd be back for it and that I'd bargain the arrogant shop manager down to a price that I wanted to pay.

The sun was setting as we returned to our shakira. It was a magnificent sunset, a golden yellow mixed with a vibrant orange glow and splashes of purple. Like a supernova, the juices of its colours splashed across the horizon, puffs of white cloud perforating the sky like a million tiny puncture marks. It lasted but 20 minutes and we gazed at the horizon until the buildings in the distant became silhouettes and the mosque on the other side of the city, illuminated in all its glory.

Tariq had just finished praying and had found time at stops between rowing to tend to his daily five-times per-day ritual. We took off for the shores on the other side of the lake, taking the oars from Ghulam and helping Tariq to row. Ghulam took a back seat and as we set off into the middle of the lake, he began chanting his prayers. We floated back into an amicable silence, feeling tranquil and at peace listening to the sound of his voice as darkness fell around us and as the city came to life for the short evening ahead.