Pahalgam
Now I understand why Kashmir has been eternally renowned as "Paradise on Earth".
Srinagar to Pahalgam is but a three-hour journey that includes a jeep change in the town of Anantanag, otherwise known as Islamabad. The divine landscape of the Kashmiri Himalaya lies ahead of it. We arrived and David made me walk at least five kilometres! He insisted we trek around and find a location we liked as opposed to giving into tempting offers of lifts to specific guest houses by the touts that rounded on us the second we set foot on Pahalgam soil. It was good practice for the trekking expeditions that I'd decided I'd like to try.
I've never been trekking in my life. In fact, I have a tendency for taking the piss out of trekkers and have this image of them in anorak coats, sensible shoes, silly hats and hiking sticks. And binoculars. And Gore Tex trousers. And thermal underwear of course. They're strange creatures. Remind me of studious aliens with their fluorescent goggles, Northface rucksacks and illuminous bright orange waistcoats. David reckons that the ones I'm talking about are usually German, or that they're just posing as trekkers in their snazzy, high-tech gear.
I'm not the kind of person to say no to an adventure, even if it's something that I've never tried before. Well, apart from the kind of lunacy that involves bungee jumping, parachuting or base-jumping. Never say never though. I did manage to abseil down waterfalls in Nepal with Nicola and didn't really like it at the time, although in the aftermath, I did admit that I'd do it again. I've lived in southern Spain's Alpujarra – a range of 13 mountains sprawled out across the Granada region. They were immense in themselves, yet just a speck in comparison to what we were about to experience here in the Kashmiri Himalaya – so this was not something that I was about to miss out on.
We discovered the village of Loripora and found ourselves surrounded by vibrant green Kashmiri countryside with the snow-capped tips of the Himalaya Mountains peaking out from behind a stunning, picturesque landscape. We could hear the sound of the fresh water river rustling like the wind blowing thorough leaves and bounced over stones to cross it before walking through the tree-lined country road that led us to the Brown Palace Guest house – a place that kismet (fate) had brought our way.
We'd spoken to Ibi, the son of the owner and rafting fanatic privy to the odd tipple and smoke. In comparison to what others had tried to bribe us with, we were given an extremely good offer to go on an adventurous trek with his younger brother and trekking assistant.
Tales of Kashmir
I don't have an anorak or sensible camel coloured shoes. What I do have is a Bench snowboarder jacket and huge stomper boots that could kick an arrogant man's arse to Timbuktu. Along with a fleecy top and hoody, it was plenty for trekking. The minute we'd agreed, the boys busied themselves with preparing for the trek – packing sleeping bags, tents and food.
In the meantime, Haji, the owner of the guesthouse told us stories of Kashmir. “Business was so bad in the nineties that I had to go to Manali where I opened the Jungle Bungalow”, he recalled, smiling, “Sheep, goats, chickens, I think maybe one yak too, lived in the room downstairs, so we called it Jungle Bungalow.” He also told us of the time an Israeli client had gone missing. “His clothes were still in his room so when he failed to return on the second day, I called the police,” “My place was full of embassies, press, government officials! It was crazy! No one could find him. Then after two years, they found his body hanging from a tree. Nepalis had killed him in Parvati Valley.” Following the incident, Haji decided that he'd had enough of Manali and that it was time to return to his Kashmir to begin again, starting up the Brown Palace here in Loripora, Pahalgam. Business has been picking up slowly, but there are not enough tourists coming to Kashmir. “Slowly, slowly, things will get better, Insh'Allah.” Haji also recalled the time that he'd smuggled a Dutch journalist up to the dangerous insurgent-infested mountains at three in the morning. They were questioned by the rifle hugging young men just as they set up camp. Haji explained how he then convinced the insurgents that the journalist was around to tell their side of the story. He laughed as he told us of how they'd managed to give the insurgents the slip.
“BBC came and put a satellite in my garden! Right there!” he pointed to the spot, “can you believe it? They were broadcasting Kashmiri news from my place!” We laughed together at length. He'd been a rich man as well as a poor man, admitting that right now, he was just okay. “I've seen it all now. But more people should come to Kashmir. Some people though, they just don't know how to appreciate the beauty of what is here! It makes me mad! Especially Israelis! All they ever do is smoke. Smoke, smoke, smoke...” He said it in jest, but meant it. I can understand. Most Israelis that I have met are content with floating around India on the tourist circuit and going from place to place getting stoned.
We'd met Boaz and Ruth, a couple from Israel and found them positively charming, spending evenings talking about Palestine. They confessed to being sympathetic to the situation, but were far from pro-Palestine. I have met only two people from Israel that profess to being pro-Palestine. It seems the rest have been brainwashed by the Israeli government and transformed into a nation of assassins. They finish their compulsory time with the military and come straight to India to find solace, some of them losing the plot and flipping out while Jewish missionaries go around the subcontinent picking them up and sending them back home to recover.
Considering the fact that they're not very liked in the world, Israelis can still be commended for having the balls to travel, especially in areas where there is a large concentration of Muslims. Part-Italian, Boaz has a dual nationality, while Ruth, who's mother is English, has a British passport, which makes it handy when checking into hotels that declare in Hebrew, “Israelis Are Not Welcome.”
Aru – onwards and upwards
More on the guys later. We jumped into a jeep and drove to the small village of Aru, situated at the foothills of the mountains that we were about to ascend. Haji accompanied us up to the village and said, “Insh-Allah, we will meet when you return.” Two donkeys were loaded up and we set off, climbing an ascent that led up through the village and into the mountains.
So we did our first leg of trekking and about four hours later, arrived at base camp, which nested at 3,500 metres.
Kolohai Glacier
The following morning, David jumped up and down like an excited child, grinning insanely, speaking very fast in a high-pitched voice and trying to coerce me out of bed with coffee. I don't think you need me to tell you that David is a fanatic when it comes to mountains. Meanwhile, I'm not exactly a morning person, but managed to get myself together, brush teeth by river, eat breakfast and set off with the boys for the trek to Kolohoi Glacier. I was tired! It was too early! I wanted to sleep more! But as I learnt, there is no arguing with the mountains and you have to set off early if you want to get back before dark. Ten minutes later, they threw me onto Bul-bul the horse. Two hours later, I was able to open my eyes and walk. I found myself clambering over giant rocks like a mini figurine. The landscape had changed from a vibrant psychedelic green to a barren dessert of rocks.
We could see Kolahai Glacier from the camp itself. This is the illusion of the mountains. They're also deceptive, hostile, unwelcoming and unpredictable. It was a sixteen km trek that involved crossing a number of rivers, bouncing over giant boulders, scrambling over huge rocks and climbing dizzying ascents. David and Aja shot ahead and became tiny dots in the distance while Atta, Ibi's brother, accompanying me at a speed I felt comfortable. It became difficult to breathe but David had taught me a technique that involved breathing in through the nose and out from the mouth. We stopped for a break and Atta suggested smoking a cigarette. This is the Kashmiri solution to dealing with altitude. We could see the ice on the glacier and the two tiny dots – David and Aja - eagerly running across it to reach the other side. Climbing over a dessert of gigantic boulders and rocks is not easy; especially when you begin to feel tired because one slight mistake and you could end up with a splattered chin or broken ankle. We made it though, had lunch and sat around for about an hour freezing our balls off before taking off for the descent back down to the camp.
As we passed an unfriendly gypsy camp, two dogs began barking ferociously. Luckily they were tied to the shack and couldn't quite reach us. David nearly jumped on their heads as he bounced between the boulders. We stopped for chai at a friendlier nomad camp and welcomed the warmth of the stone house in which we sat. The mother prepared a hookah for herself as her daughter served us tea, her eyes burning holes in my soul the entire time. They spoke Kashmiri, so conversation in Hindi was off bounds. The experience was strange, yet nice. On the way back, three small gypsy children with beautiful translucent eyes and almost-blonde hair, squeaked on top of their voices, “Tawfee, tawfee, tawfee!” They wanted toffees. Luckily, we had some on us and to their sweet delight, distributed the few that we'd bought with us.
For me, the trek was an experience that I'd never really encountered before. It tested my resilience, strength and stamina, which for some reason had surprised David. He wasn't sure if I was brave or completely ignorant of fear, in other words, stupid! I was happy to get back to camp, where we walked about to loosen the muscles in our legs.
The poison that is “civilization”
The nomads, gypsies and tribal people of the mountains intrigued me most. Their way of life is far, far away from the world that I have known in the west, far away from a life they could never envisage. They are Free. Free from a corrupt system built on greed, power and money, free to live their lives in the only way they know how amidst the majestic glory of the soul-stirring Kashmiri Himalaya. The substance of their existence felt worlds apart. It made me realise how in our so-called “civilized” world, we suffocate in the vomit of an egalitarian society. In our contemptuous minds, we have tried to penetrate the beauty that lies in the simplicity of life, with the poison we term as “civilization”. As they try to ape their British colonial predecessors, the Indian elite continue to impose their so-called world view, feeling ashamed enough in the face of western ideals to pollute their own people and land; like the suffocating effect of a man tied to the noose of a horse running wild through a colossal of unforgiving thorns, shredding them to pieces. What I witnessed in the mountains was the dregs of beauty that remain. I imagined walking through the doors of a parallel world, visualizing the contemptuous, condescending and barbaric nature of a so-called superior civilization that succumbs to the expectations of an egotistical society with its brain-dead disposition to wasting away, replacing the necessity of returning to nature to realise ourselves, with washed out, faded dreams that aspire to a material world. We try and fail, left to be scraped up as garbage and dumped into the pile for losers. We succeed and forget who we are. The people I met in the mountains will never forget who they are.
Unforgettable
As we sat around our camp, small nomadic children suddenly appeared, and as they sat, watched us awkwardly from a safe distance. We beckoned them to join us and felt delighted to make conversation in Hindi with the brave few. Others were were subdued, quiet and extremely shy. One particular boy, about eight years old would not speak at all. According to one of the older children, he had lost his father in the previous year.
It was a beautiful day in the midst of the Kashmiri Himalaya and I reminded myself that this was the most unique experience that I'd encountered so far, and the beginning of an adventure that I will never forget.
Day 3 – Tar Sar Lake
It's day 3 and we're stuck high up in the mountains, so there's absolutely no way of going back down. Hooray! Well, that's not what I was thinking during the evil 50-degree gradient inclining from the foothills of the base camp to the narrow ridge that snaked around the mountain high above. We followed it round until we were faced by a fierce river, gushing about wildly about 10 metres below. I felt like a tightrope walker crossing it over a narrow, precariously thrown, wooden plank. At 4,800 metres, the altitude was higher than the previous day, making it both tougher to climb and difficult to breathe.
We found ourselves in the clouds with sudden abruptness. There were mystical green meadows all around. It was like landing in a magical and unknown land tucked away in the midst of the clouds. I almost expected to see some half-man-half-horse creature cantering elegantly across the misty horizon.
I also realised the schizophrenic nature of the mountains amidst the reduced visibility as we guessed the route to Tar Sa Lake. Legend has it, the lake behind Tar Sa is cursed and that an evil monster resides there. Anyone who visits the lake is cursed by the monster of the lake, so nobody dares to venture there, not Kashmiris, not Indians and not even the courageous nomads, tribes or gypsies that know and understand the mountains better than anyone.
We'd climbed some one thousand metres that day, so it was cold by the time we got to Tar Sa Lake. The 10,000 square metres of water that rippled serenely across the infinite liquid horizon in front of us wasn't exactly a pond. We had lunch and psyched up for the walk back.
Women don't trek!
A group of young Kashmiri men had joined us, one of them declaring, “women don't do what you are doing. They are not supposed to.” Great, I thought, I either ignore this prick or give him a piece of mind. I did the latter of course and ended up talking about the so-called code-of-conduct supposedly imposed upon women by the Qur'an. “If the Qu'ran dictates the way women should conduct themselves, it also makes reference to the way YOU, and yes, I mean YOU, yourself, should refrain from drinking like a fish and smoking hashish like it's going out of fashion in the way that I have seen you do. So I guess that makes you a hypocrite, meaning you're not in any position to judge or criticise others,” I replied before stopping myself.
Mountains bring people together
A shy young man of not so many words, Atta, who has a Sufi-like aura just like his father, Haji, had begun to open up to David and I, feeling comfortable in our company and appreciating the fact David had such a natural connection with the mountains. He even laughed at our jokes and confided that he enjoyed trekking with us. We asked him if he'd like to accompany us as a friend to Nepal for the Anapurna trek and his eyes shone with excitement.
Descending, we arrived at the furious river that we had crossed nearer the beginning of trek. The sun was hot so we took off our shoes and sitting on a short wooded area over rocks, soaked our feet in the icy water, smoked a few cigarettes, took some photographs and chilled out, absorbing the warm and gentle rays. It was a magic moment for us. Atta knew we were coming to the end of our trek together and felt sad.
Back to base
We had covered some 80km in four days and although I was happy with the experience that we'd had, I was also overjoyed at the thought of a bed and a shower, scampering down the flower-carpeted meadows like Heidi, leaving an exhausted Atta and sulking David, who was sad to leave the mountains, shuffling along slowly behind me. Wow. What an experience. I felt exhilarated with my first ever mountain trek in the Kashmiri Himalaya!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Six months later...
James Cameron described India as a “tormented, confused, corrupt, futile and exasperating place”, yet could not explain his love affair with the subcontinent to which he continued to return for more than 25 years.
I cannot even fathom the thought of leaving India right now. It's become an addiction. My love for India is unconditional. I mean, come on, it would have to be. Before I had left, I'd heard people say that you will either love it or hate it. Yet I must admit that not only do I love to love India, but I've also loved to hate it: Your train has been delayed another six hours; when it arrives it chugs at 20kmph for the first eight hours; you've asked 10 people for directions to the same destination only to be given 10 different answers; nobody knows where the postoffice is; you made a reservation and they have no record; the rickshaw wallah has decided to charge you double for no apparent reason; the exasperation you feel at the powertrips of pen pushing minor officials when you queue for an hour to fill in a form, wait another hour for a different clerk to stamp it, another to staple it and yet another to check it, until finally, you are told that you filled in the wrong form and need to wait in a different queue...
But what I have learnt is that to give way to anger is to surrender. What's more, despite how testy India can get, like a lover making it up for doing you wrong, she can also make you quickly smile again, charming you with scents, colours, beauty; with the hybrid that fuses rich, ancient mythologies and spirituality with daily living; with her ruins, temples and fascinating monumental architecture that tell stories of lost civilizations.
It's the place where the smell of incense mixes with burning cow dung as the waft of frying onions and a concoction of cumin, corriander, tumeric and saffron engulf your nostrils. It's the place where men and women distribute garlands of marigolds and jasmine for no apparent reason; where villagers take to the streets in celebration of a marriage, the groom on horseback preceeded by a brass band and proud young men throwing shapes they've seen in Bollywood movies as they dance ahead of the procession.
There is no other place like India. It is the birthplace of Ayurveda - The Knowledge of Life that is said to alleviate physical, mental and spiritual suffering; of mantras, mandalas, meditations and the asanas and prayanamas of the great sage, Patanjali. It is the birthplace of great writers and poets such as Ravindranath Tagore and R.K. Narayan, the scholar, G.V Desani, not to mention the world-acclaimed filmmaker, Satyajit Ray and the legendary composer and musician, Ravi Shankar.
It is also a country where even the most diverse groups of people will make a stand against the injustices that offend their beliefs and rights as human beings. As the writer-journalist Gita Mehta says, “Where else would a hundred thousand naked sadhus with matted hair break off their meditations and descend from their mountain caves to scale the towering gates of the Indian Parliament determined to breech the nation's citadel and ban cow slaughter....” and “where else would a mass of hermaphrodites and eunuchs march on the capital to demonstrate against family planning – on the grounds that it would statistically lessen their odds of being born?”
This is India!
This is the India that has delighted me, cajoled me, bounced me up and down on her knee like a mother does a child; it is the India that has had me tearing out my hair, had me in tears of frustration, driven me crazy and tested my tolerence in a hundered different ways. The heat, the people, the traffic, the chaos, the corruption, the propaganda, Bollywood and the mafia that runs it; the epic journeys that find you amidst the clouds and ice of mountains one day, and the scorching heat of a holy city the next ... Characters you attract, the reflections in their faces; the places you run to and the ones you run from, because once again, it is not the place you're running from, but yourself... It's a crazy world is India.
Six months more...
Six months later, I've got myself six months more. Like a cat on springs, I've landed on my feet at the shakiest times, so not only have I survived India, but India, to the great surprise of my comedian of a friend, David, has also survived me!
It's been a journey of the heart, mind and soul that's also brought haunting times as you face yourself and the things that you've spent the best part of your life trying to run from. Mother India gives you a good dose of tough love, taking you kicking and screaming on an emotional rollercoaster, bringing you to ask a million questions about yourself and about where you are going in life.
Spiritual Beings...
I was searching for a spiritual master and I found not just one, but a fair few of them. I once read that “The Supreme Self is our true identity, universal and divine.” We all possess it but we don't all realise it because it's not the easiest thing to find. I mean, how does one go about discovering the so-called Supreme-Self? Do we need to go to hell and back in order to discover it? I met a handful of what I can call “spiritual beings”, and it seems some of them have been to hell and back. Each one had a special characteristic that made them shine. Some of them possessed a conscious connection with the non-physical world. This is why India is so special. It helps you, you, you, you and you, see very clearly, your own true identity.
Learning...
India has felt a bit like a process where a scheme of things happen in order for you to learn a few things. I can say that I have learnt a few things about myself. For example, I, yes, that's me, Anu, have learnt a degree of self-discipline! Speech for example is something that I know we should all control. In the movie American Gangster, I remember Denzel Washington as Superfly, tell his brother, “the one with the biggest mouth in the room, is the weakest one in the room.” It's because speech happens to take up so much energy, which reminds me of something that I read: “Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words, instead of serenity, peace and bliss.”
Special friends that I met on travels informed me that I am a Blue Crystal Storm on the Mayan Calendar – a source of self-generating energy, that I bring art to the world and that I am a people connector. Sounds good, eh? But on the flip side, I also have trouble directing that energy in the right way and at times, it can come out all wrong when I try to do everything at once, or when there are too many people and I try to please everyone and forget about me. These are some of the things that I have realised about me.
Selfish in a good way...
But there's one thing that I've noticed about being in India: That it all ends up sounding a bit like me, me me. India has made me think about me and my life so much that it's almost selfish. In fact it's probably selfish of me for making you read this about me right now.
Yet while coming to India can be seen as one of the most selfish things a person can do, it's a kind of selfishness that can only be beneficial to the world (change yourself, change the world and all that malarky), and the people that you love. So on that note, I think my friends and family will be relieved to know that I'm going to spare them of my presence for a little while longer!
Dreams ... visualizations... realities...
Monitor my personal development over the past six months and you will see it ricochets up and down in the violent motion of the zig-zag pattern. I'm now aiming to sustain a living in India without sacrificing my personal freedom. To be free is the ultimate dream and I've met many inspiring characters that have given me the boost I need to never stop trying to achieve that dream.
I ain't through yet!
So I'm not through with India just yet. In fact I don't think I will ever be through with India. Others I've met are ready to move on to pastures new such as Thailand, China, Mongolia even, but me, I'm happy to stay here and suckle on the bosom of Mother India for as long as I possibly can.
Mother India has already taken me a good length of the way to the place I'd like to be. I've come so far, so there's no way I'm ready to stop and turn back around. Not today, not tomorrow. Maybe it could happen the day after, but it will take something very special to tear me away from this land of love.
I cannot even fathom the thought of leaving India right now. It's become an addiction. My love for India is unconditional. I mean, come on, it would have to be. Before I had left, I'd heard people say that you will either love it or hate it. Yet I must admit that not only do I love to love India, but I've also loved to hate it: Your train has been delayed another six hours; when it arrives it chugs at 20kmph for the first eight hours; you've asked 10 people for directions to the same destination only to be given 10 different answers; nobody knows where the postoffice is; you made a reservation and they have no record; the rickshaw wallah has decided to charge you double for no apparent reason; the exasperation you feel at the powertrips of pen pushing minor officials when you queue for an hour to fill in a form, wait another hour for a different clerk to stamp it, another to staple it and yet another to check it, until finally, you are told that you filled in the wrong form and need to wait in a different queue...
But what I have learnt is that to give way to anger is to surrender. What's more, despite how testy India can get, like a lover making it up for doing you wrong, she can also make you quickly smile again, charming you with scents, colours, beauty; with the hybrid that fuses rich, ancient mythologies and spirituality with daily living; with her ruins, temples and fascinating monumental architecture that tell stories of lost civilizations.
It's the place where the smell of incense mixes with burning cow dung as the waft of frying onions and a concoction of cumin, corriander, tumeric and saffron engulf your nostrils. It's the place where men and women distribute garlands of marigolds and jasmine for no apparent reason; where villagers take to the streets in celebration of a marriage, the groom on horseback preceeded by a brass band and proud young men throwing shapes they've seen in Bollywood movies as they dance ahead of the procession.
There is no other place like India. It is the birthplace of Ayurveda - The Knowledge of Life that is said to alleviate physical, mental and spiritual suffering; of mantras, mandalas, meditations and the asanas and prayanamas of the great sage, Patanjali. It is the birthplace of great writers and poets such as Ravindranath Tagore and R.K. Narayan, the scholar, G.V Desani, not to mention the world-acclaimed filmmaker, Satyajit Ray and the legendary composer and musician, Ravi Shankar.
It is also a country where even the most diverse groups of people will make a stand against the injustices that offend their beliefs and rights as human beings. As the writer-journalist Gita Mehta says, “Where else would a hundred thousand naked sadhus with matted hair break off their meditations and descend from their mountain caves to scale the towering gates of the Indian Parliament determined to breech the nation's citadel and ban cow slaughter....” and “where else would a mass of hermaphrodites and eunuchs march on the capital to demonstrate against family planning – on the grounds that it would statistically lessen their odds of being born?”
This is India!
This is the India that has delighted me, cajoled me, bounced me up and down on her knee like a mother does a child; it is the India that has had me tearing out my hair, had me in tears of frustration, driven me crazy and tested my tolerence in a hundered different ways. The heat, the people, the traffic, the chaos, the corruption, the propaganda, Bollywood and the mafia that runs it; the epic journeys that find you amidst the clouds and ice of mountains one day, and the scorching heat of a holy city the next ... Characters you attract, the reflections in their faces; the places you run to and the ones you run from, because once again, it is not the place you're running from, but yourself... It's a crazy world is India.
Six months more...
Six months later, I've got myself six months more. Like a cat on springs, I've landed on my feet at the shakiest times, so not only have I survived India, but India, to the great surprise of my comedian of a friend, David, has also survived me!
It's been a journey of the heart, mind and soul that's also brought haunting times as you face yourself and the things that you've spent the best part of your life trying to run from. Mother India gives you a good dose of tough love, taking you kicking and screaming on an emotional rollercoaster, bringing you to ask a million questions about yourself and about where you are going in life.
Spiritual Beings...
I was searching for a spiritual master and I found not just one, but a fair few of them. I once read that “The Supreme Self is our true identity, universal and divine.” We all possess it but we don't all realise it because it's not the easiest thing to find. I mean, how does one go about discovering the so-called Supreme-Self? Do we need to go to hell and back in order to discover it? I met a handful of what I can call “spiritual beings”, and it seems some of them have been to hell and back. Each one had a special characteristic that made them shine. Some of them possessed a conscious connection with the non-physical world. This is why India is so special. It helps you, you, you, you and you, see very clearly, your own true identity.
Learning...
India has felt a bit like a process where a scheme of things happen in order for you to learn a few things. I can say that I have learnt a few things about myself. For example, I, yes, that's me, Anu, have learnt a degree of self-discipline! Speech for example is something that I know we should all control. In the movie American Gangster, I remember Denzel Washington as Superfly, tell his brother, “the one with the biggest mouth in the room, is the weakest one in the room.” It's because speech happens to take up so much energy, which reminds me of something that I read: “Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words, instead of serenity, peace and bliss.”
Special friends that I met on travels informed me that I am a Blue Crystal Storm on the Mayan Calendar – a source of self-generating energy, that I bring art to the world and that I am a people connector. Sounds good, eh? But on the flip side, I also have trouble directing that energy in the right way and at times, it can come out all wrong when I try to do everything at once, or when there are too many people and I try to please everyone and forget about me. These are some of the things that I have realised about me.
Selfish in a good way...
But there's one thing that I've noticed about being in India: That it all ends up sounding a bit like me, me me. India has made me think about me and my life so much that it's almost selfish. In fact it's probably selfish of me for making you read this about me right now.
Yet while coming to India can be seen as one of the most selfish things a person can do, it's a kind of selfishness that can only be beneficial to the world (change yourself, change the world and all that malarky), and the people that you love. So on that note, I think my friends and family will be relieved to know that I'm going to spare them of my presence for a little while longer!
Dreams ... visualizations... realities...
Monitor my personal development over the past six months and you will see it ricochets up and down in the violent motion of the zig-zag pattern. I'm now aiming to sustain a living in India without sacrificing my personal freedom. To be free is the ultimate dream and I've met many inspiring characters that have given me the boost I need to never stop trying to achieve that dream.
I ain't through yet!
So I'm not through with India just yet. In fact I don't think I will ever be through with India. Others I've met are ready to move on to pastures new such as Thailand, China, Mongolia even, but me, I'm happy to stay here and suckle on the bosom of Mother India for as long as I possibly can.
Mother India has already taken me a good length of the way to the place I'd like to be. I've come so far, so there's no way I'm ready to stop and turn back around. Not today, not tomorrow. Maybe it could happen the day after, but it will take something very special to tear me away from this land of love.
Mission Nepal with David and Nicola!
Me and Nic!
Picked up Nic from airport and we got a dodgy cab back to our dodgy hotel. The panoramic views of the rubbish dump festering in the heat outside our hotel didn't exactly give off a pleasant smell and felt a far cry from the freshness of the Himalayan range that lay just a few hours away.
Nic's from France, part-English, part-Chinese and lives in Barcelona. She's been my partner in crime for many a moon now. It all began in the Big Smoke during the days when we'd speed on speed through the London Underground to dingy, dodgy sqwats and psytrance parties across the city's underground scene. The Fridge, The Mass, Brixton Academy, George 4, Prince of Wales, Tysen Street Studios, Vauxhall warehouses, ex-government buildings, we were there! We've both evolved over time, but she continues to remain my ultimate partner in crime.
Stoner Princesses of the City
Me and Nic are the stoner princesses not just of the city (Kathamandu), but of the people (all guys) that we're hanging out with right now. Even our room is pink and we only have to walk up one flight of stairs. Nic's been in Nepal a few days now and we've spent a lot of time horizontal, watching movies and catching up. Sometimes we don't move for days, ordering coffee, beer and food to our room and taking it in turns to make breakfast joints. The other day, Nic actually cried while watching the movie, Spiderman! It was that scene right at the end when Spiderman's enemy is lying wounded and they become friends just before he dies. It must have felt like a pretty intense scene to Nic, but come on, It's SPIDERMAN!
So as you can imagine, it's been super swell to re-link with my partner in crime! Six weeks or six months, it doesn't take long to fall back into that Anu-Nicola mode. Here's a conversation we recently had...
Me: Nic..
Nic: what..
Me: You gotta call your uncle and tell him we can't make it. He can't see us in this state.
Nic: He's not my uncle
Me: Whatever. We can't go to a formal dinner looking like this.
20 minutes silence
Me: We've been horizontal all day nic, and look there's no more beer. Maybe we should try and move...
Nic: Mmmm... Oh.
27 minutes silence
Me: are you gonna call your uncle or what?
nic: he's not my fucking uncle!
10 minutes silence
Nic: What am I supposed to do?
Me: Go downstairs and use the phone
22 minutes later
Nic: Okay, come on, we've got to do something today.
Me: What shall we do?
Nic: Let's walk aimlessly around the city.
37 minutes silence
nic: but let's make another jay first
me: you do it.
nic: nooooo, you do it...
Francisco enters the room with Jerry and Pete. They all stare at us with blank expressions.
Francisco: (sounding totally blasé and unsurprised). You two are still lying in the same position I left you in four hours ago.
Me: Let's get the fuck out of Kathamandu, this city's driving me insane
31 minutes silence
Nicola is either staring into space or examining the yellow patch on the ceiling with a great level of intensity.
27 minutes later
Nic: I wanna go to the jungle...
*****
Les Aventeurs Psychedelique du Nicola e Moi!
Dodgy
So we found our first psychedelic trance party in Nepal. Dodgy or what! A private bus arranged by organisers took us up steep, nail-bitingly narrow and windy roads to a secret location in the Pokhara mountains with views of the Phewa Lake deep down below.
One of the organisers, Giri, had told me that his parties were geared for foreigners only. I found out why when it got invaded by a bunch of locals pissed off at the amount of money organisers were making from having a party on their land.
The organisers tried to convince us that the locals were the bad guys, but they couldn't have been further from the truth. Inevitably, the music was switched off and the decks packed away after Giri and his cronies recieved a bamboo massage that they had probably asked for. Considering the numbers that were there I suppose it was worth their while at 2000 rupees a pop.
You could say that Giri is slightly psychotic. He stopped the bus and a load of guys jumped off to place huge stones at wheels of said bus to stop it sliding backwards. In the meantime, he proceeded to scream, “I wanna check all your fucking tickets! Any motherfucker without a ticket is getting kicked off this bus! You think you can make a fool out of me? You think so? I run this show, so don't fuck with me!”
Russian Roulette
A Russian girl with balls of steel gave him a piece of her mind, “Shut the fuck up! I have a gun in my bag and I'm gonna put a bullet through your fucking head if you ask to see our tickets again!” He responded: “Any mother fucker wants to kill me, I give them $50,000 to do it now! Just try and kill me and I'll kill all you mother fuckers without a ticket! I'm the mafia here in Pokhara, I run this fucking place!” The guy was steaming. His eyes were bloodshot and he was sweating profusely. I think he was probably a “bit” agitated because he needed a fix. We all stared at him with frozen smiles, trying to make the situation appear a little lighter, but it was evident he was also trying to show off and that in itself gave us some peace of mind.
Mountain Madness
Luckily, a European DJ who calls himself DJ Quick fixed the music situation with a load of banging psychedelic trance CDs / MP3s, taking over the sound system when the decks were packed away. The music on CD was better than the live sets. We boogied until about 8am and then trekked back down the mountain. It was an exhausting yet challenging mission. You could say we did our first (and only) trek through the Nepalese mountains. Steep, narrow pathways surrounded by thick jungle shrubbery (felt a bit like Lord of the Rings at the time) continued to cascade down for about three hours until we got to the foothills and finally found some flat terrain, landing in a tiny teashop.
The locals were bemused but it was impossible to speak. Stillness was bliss as we sat there sweating, tripping from the experience, and feeling far, far away... A sweet Nepalese woman handed out bananas until Nicola managed to muster enough energy to say, “water”. You could say it was quite an experience.
Chasing Waterfalls
From Pokhara to a place about half way to Kathamandu, me and Nic joined a group of others for a waterfall abseiling adventure. They call it “Canyoning” and they've only started doing it in Nepal for the first time this year. Did I shit myself? Of course I did! The initial trek to the top of the cascading waterfalls took about 40 minutes. We climbed into wetsuits, put on our helmets and were shown the rope technique for abseiling down. The waterfalls got bigger and bigger and the grand finale was about fifty-four metres high.
Don't shout at me.
I didn't quite get the hang of it to begin with and the instructor was shouting at me like an army official as I hung precariously from a piece of rope. It's his job to shout, but he didn't need to shout when I'm hanging just inches away from him! His shouting only confused me so I told him to speak to me with respect!
Anger comes from fear...
Even though they had grand plans to lower me down, there was no way I was going to let them do that to me with everyone else watching down below. I'd felt anger but realised my anger was coming from fear, so I pulled it together and abseiled down all on me own-some, yay! To be honest, I was pretty relieved when the day was over, but also felt a sense of achievement. Would I do it again? Hell, yeah!
David! (Daffyd!)
The adrenaline junkie that he is, David definitely made the right choice when he made that spontaneous decision to drop in on me and Nicola in Nepal! We linked up with David for a jungle safari escapade at Chitwan National Park in Sauhara, south of Pokhara, right after our waterfall adventure. You could say that David, like Nicola, is also my partner in crime. He loves to climb mountains and is out here for the long term to travel both Nepal and India. Me and David have put up with each for a good few years now so I guess you can say that he knows me a little too well at times! But I also know him and I have a feeling that this adventure to India that we are about to embark is going to be full of plenty of thrills and spills! David is also determined to drag me up Everest come October when I aim to be back in Nepal to renew my Indian visa. We both have a sense of adventure and the ability to be totally blunt each other. We're also fairly independent as individuals, so if he wants to go his own way, he knows that he can, and vice versa. Unlike me, David is highly organised and well prepared. He's also clued up and sensitive, yet has ability to unleash the monkey within (doesn't take much), which is why we can wind each other up without worrying about offending the other. Daffyd, dear Daffyd, do you know what you're getting yourself into here?!
Jungle Tiger Combat Girls (and Boy)!
The feeling that comes with experiencing a jungle safari and elephant bathtime in Nepal with two of my closest friends is not something that I can describe. Imagine a tin can with a tiny marble being shaken about inside it – that's me, the marble; or a metal ball in a pinball machine - again, that's me, the ball, ricocheting about the place like a lunatic - well that's how I felt inside. I had to contain myself you see. It was one of my biggest challenges as David's arrival was a surprise for Nicola...
Chitwan National Park is about nine hours south of Pokhara. The jungle spreads across 936 square kilometres of lush, vibrant green vegetation. We discovered weird and wonderful plants, including one leafy specie known to be good for diahrhea and which tasted like Granny Smith apples. We saw rhino, deer, monkeys and birds, but unfortunately, to our great disapointment, we didn't come across any tigers or cobras.
Trekking through jungle was followed by elephant safari. We were ram
sacked by the branches of towering trees. Until you're actually sitting on the elephant itself, you don't really imagine to be so high off the ground. In fact to get on the elephant herself, we had to climb up what I can only describe as an elephant-rocket launcher thing. She was absolutely humungous, yet so sweet, not to mention, feminine in the way she appeared to pirouet when she scratched her back legs!
Bathtime with Puja Kali the Magical Elephant
I seem to have a fear of absolutely everything sometimes, but these experiences are good practice to get over those fears. I mean, how on earth can anyone be afraid of an elephant that's as soft, gentle and as sweet as Puja Kali? Nicola and David had already experienced their elephant bathtime, so now it was my turn and they practically bullied me, forced me, in fact, physically pushed me on to that elephant. I finally got on and realised that she was surprisingly hairy, her skin a hard, leathery texture. The guy maneuvering her was evidently having the time of his life doing this job. I guess now, I can understand why.
Puja Kali also happened to be David's elephant. Remembering him from the day before, she greeted him with her trunk. The experience was immense. She strode into the water dunking right in and sending me flying. Climbing back on, she gave me a bathtime of a lifetime spraying me numerous time and clearly having a fine time! I was somewhere else, somewhere in elephant paradise, and loving every single magical second. I can't wait to go back to Chitwan Park to meet Puja Kali once again!
Picked up Nic from airport and we got a dodgy cab back to our dodgy hotel. The panoramic views of the rubbish dump festering in the heat outside our hotel didn't exactly give off a pleasant smell and felt a far cry from the freshness of the Himalayan range that lay just a few hours away.
Nic's from France, part-English, part-Chinese and lives in Barcelona. She's been my partner in crime for many a moon now. It all began in the Big Smoke during the days when we'd speed on speed through the London Underground to dingy, dodgy sqwats and psytrance parties across the city's underground scene. The Fridge, The Mass, Brixton Academy, George 4, Prince of Wales, Tysen Street Studios, Vauxhall warehouses, ex-government buildings, we were there! We've both evolved over time, but she continues to remain my ultimate partner in crime.
Stoner Princesses of the City
Me and Nic are the stoner princesses not just of the city (Kathamandu), but of the people (all guys) that we're hanging out with right now. Even our room is pink and we only have to walk up one flight of stairs. Nic's been in Nepal a few days now and we've spent a lot of time horizontal, watching movies and catching up. Sometimes we don't move for days, ordering coffee, beer and food to our room and taking it in turns to make breakfast joints. The other day, Nic actually cried while watching the movie, Spiderman! It was that scene right at the end when Spiderman's enemy is lying wounded and they become friends just before he dies. It must have felt like a pretty intense scene to Nic, but come on, It's SPIDERMAN!
So as you can imagine, it's been super swell to re-link with my partner in crime! Six weeks or six months, it doesn't take long to fall back into that Anu-Nicola mode. Here's a conversation we recently had...
Me: Nic..
Nic: what..
Me: You gotta call your uncle and tell him we can't make it. He can't see us in this state.
Nic: He's not my uncle
Me: Whatever. We can't go to a formal dinner looking like this.
20 minutes silence
Me: We've been horizontal all day nic, and look there's no more beer. Maybe we should try and move...
Nic: Mmmm... Oh.
27 minutes silence
Me: are you gonna call your uncle or what?
nic: he's not my fucking uncle!
10 minutes silence
Nic: What am I supposed to do?
Me: Go downstairs and use the phone
22 minutes later
Nic: Okay, come on, we've got to do something today.
Me: What shall we do?
Nic: Let's walk aimlessly around the city.
37 minutes silence
nic: but let's make another jay first
me: you do it.
nic: nooooo, you do it...
Francisco enters the room with Jerry and Pete. They all stare at us with blank expressions.
Francisco: (sounding totally blasé and unsurprised). You two are still lying in the same position I left you in four hours ago.
Me: Let's get the fuck out of Kathamandu, this city's driving me insane
31 minutes silence
Nicola is either staring into space or examining the yellow patch on the ceiling with a great level of intensity.
27 minutes later
Nic: I wanna go to the jungle...
*****
Les Aventeurs Psychedelique du Nicola e Moi!
Dodgy
So we found our first psychedelic trance party in Nepal. Dodgy or what! A private bus arranged by organisers took us up steep, nail-bitingly narrow and windy roads to a secret location in the Pokhara mountains with views of the Phewa Lake deep down below.
One of the organisers, Giri, had told me that his parties were geared for foreigners only. I found out why when it got invaded by a bunch of locals pissed off at the amount of money organisers were making from having a party on their land.
The organisers tried to convince us that the locals were the bad guys, but they couldn't have been further from the truth. Inevitably, the music was switched off and the decks packed away after Giri and his cronies recieved a bamboo massage that they had probably asked for. Considering the numbers that were there I suppose it was worth their while at 2000 rupees a pop.
You could say that Giri is slightly psychotic. He stopped the bus and a load of guys jumped off to place huge stones at wheels of said bus to stop it sliding backwards. In the meantime, he proceeded to scream, “I wanna check all your fucking tickets! Any motherfucker without a ticket is getting kicked off this bus! You think you can make a fool out of me? You think so? I run this show, so don't fuck with me!”
Russian Roulette
A Russian girl with balls of steel gave him a piece of her mind, “Shut the fuck up! I have a gun in my bag and I'm gonna put a bullet through your fucking head if you ask to see our tickets again!” He responded: “Any mother fucker wants to kill me, I give them $50,000 to do it now! Just try and kill me and I'll kill all you mother fuckers without a ticket! I'm the mafia here in Pokhara, I run this fucking place!” The guy was steaming. His eyes were bloodshot and he was sweating profusely. I think he was probably a “bit” agitated because he needed a fix. We all stared at him with frozen smiles, trying to make the situation appear a little lighter, but it was evident he was also trying to show off and that in itself gave us some peace of mind.
Mountain Madness
Luckily, a European DJ who calls himself DJ Quick fixed the music situation with a load of banging psychedelic trance CDs / MP3s, taking over the sound system when the decks were packed away. The music on CD was better than the live sets. We boogied until about 8am and then trekked back down the mountain. It was an exhausting yet challenging mission. You could say we did our first (and only) trek through the Nepalese mountains. Steep, narrow pathways surrounded by thick jungle shrubbery (felt a bit like Lord of the Rings at the time) continued to cascade down for about three hours until we got to the foothills and finally found some flat terrain, landing in a tiny teashop.
The locals were bemused but it was impossible to speak. Stillness was bliss as we sat there sweating, tripping from the experience, and feeling far, far away... A sweet Nepalese woman handed out bananas until Nicola managed to muster enough energy to say, “water”. You could say it was quite an experience.
Chasing Waterfalls
From Pokhara to a place about half way to Kathamandu, me and Nic joined a group of others for a waterfall abseiling adventure. They call it “Canyoning” and they've only started doing it in Nepal for the first time this year. Did I shit myself? Of course I did! The initial trek to the top of the cascading waterfalls took about 40 minutes. We climbed into wetsuits, put on our helmets and were shown the rope technique for abseiling down. The waterfalls got bigger and bigger and the grand finale was about fifty-four metres high.
Don't shout at me.
I didn't quite get the hang of it to begin with and the instructor was shouting at me like an army official as I hung precariously from a piece of rope. It's his job to shout, but he didn't need to shout when I'm hanging just inches away from him! His shouting only confused me so I told him to speak to me with respect!
Anger comes from fear...
Even though they had grand plans to lower me down, there was no way I was going to let them do that to me with everyone else watching down below. I'd felt anger but realised my anger was coming from fear, so I pulled it together and abseiled down all on me own-some, yay! To be honest, I was pretty relieved when the day was over, but also felt a sense of achievement. Would I do it again? Hell, yeah!
David! (Daffyd!)
The adrenaline junkie that he is, David definitely made the right choice when he made that spontaneous decision to drop in on me and Nicola in Nepal! We linked up with David for a jungle safari escapade at Chitwan National Park in Sauhara, south of Pokhara, right after our waterfall adventure. You could say that David, like Nicola, is also my partner in crime. He loves to climb mountains and is out here for the long term to travel both Nepal and India. Me and David have put up with each for a good few years now so I guess you can say that he knows me a little too well at times! But I also know him and I have a feeling that this adventure to India that we are about to embark is going to be full of plenty of thrills and spills! David is also determined to drag me up Everest come October when I aim to be back in Nepal to renew my Indian visa. We both have a sense of adventure and the ability to be totally blunt each other. We're also fairly independent as individuals, so if he wants to go his own way, he knows that he can, and vice versa. Unlike me, David is highly organised and well prepared. He's also clued up and sensitive, yet has ability to unleash the monkey within (doesn't take much), which is why we can wind each other up without worrying about offending the other. Daffyd, dear Daffyd, do you know what you're getting yourself into here?!
Jungle Tiger Combat Girls (and Boy)!
The feeling that comes with experiencing a jungle safari and elephant bathtime in Nepal with two of my closest friends is not something that I can describe. Imagine a tin can with a tiny marble being shaken about inside it – that's me, the marble; or a metal ball in a pinball machine - again, that's me, the ball, ricocheting about the place like a lunatic - well that's how I felt inside. I had to contain myself you see. It was one of my biggest challenges as David's arrival was a surprise for Nicola...
Chitwan National Park is about nine hours south of Pokhara. The jungle spreads across 936 square kilometres of lush, vibrant green vegetation. We discovered weird and wonderful plants, including one leafy specie known to be good for diahrhea and which tasted like Granny Smith apples. We saw rhino, deer, monkeys and birds, but unfortunately, to our great disapointment, we didn't come across any tigers or cobras.
Trekking through jungle was followed by elephant safari. We were ram
sacked by the branches of towering trees. Until you're actually sitting on the elephant itself, you don't really imagine to be so high off the ground. In fact to get on the elephant herself, we had to climb up what I can only describe as an elephant-rocket launcher thing. She was absolutely humungous, yet so sweet, not to mention, feminine in the way she appeared to pirouet when she scratched her back legs!
Bathtime with Puja Kali the Magical Elephant
I seem to have a fear of absolutely everything sometimes, but these experiences are good practice to get over those fears. I mean, how on earth can anyone be afraid of an elephant that's as soft, gentle and as sweet as Puja Kali? Nicola and David had already experienced their elephant bathtime, so now it was my turn and they practically bullied me, forced me, in fact, physically pushed me on to that elephant. I finally got on and realised that she was surprisingly hairy, her skin a hard, leathery texture. The guy maneuvering her was evidently having the time of his life doing this job. I guess now, I can understand why.
Puja Kali also happened to be David's elephant. Remembering him from the day before, she greeted him with her trunk. The experience was immense. She strode into the water dunking right in and sending me flying. Climbing back on, she gave me a bathtime of a lifetime spraying me numerous time and clearly having a fine time! I was somewhere else, somewhere in elephant paradise, and loving every single magical second. I can't wait to go back to Chitwan Park to meet Puja Kali once again!
Uncle Nepal!
The thought of traveling three-hours by donkey cart to happy clappy doo-dah was too much, so me and Francisco gave the Rainbow Gathering a miss and made a beeline for the Nepalese border instead.
Emiliano the Universal Wanderer
We met Emiliano along the way. He's a wannabe baba and a lost soul from Mexico who spent days walking barefoot around the jungle. Emiliano made a spontaneous decision to come with us to Nepal. Spiritual about everything, he leaves everything in the hands of the universe and floats about with a romantic vision of the world. I think at times, his approach does get the better of him and this was one of those times because we discovered he was completely strapped for cash. We helped him as much as we could and I advised him to take care of himself because the universe will not get rid of that gangerine on his foot! Emiliano is a very special person and it hurt me to see him hurting himself like this. So I took him to the doctor to get him fixed and left him at the border. Maika, a German girl I recently traveled with said that if our connection is profound enough, we will meet at least twice. I hope that one day I get to meet Emiliano again.
David the Psychedelic Canadian
With his bright psychedelic shirts and dry sense of humour, David the psychedelic Canadian was a comical character to travel with. We spent the best part of a week with David and did nothing but laugh, smoke and joke at everything we saw. He does these mean impressions of Borat and we spent most of the time being silly. He has a great sense of humour and found my version of the Canadian national anthem to be highly amusing! David is 45-years old and imports leather jackets from Thailand for Harley Davidson freaks in Canada. He's also into jewellery and seems to know his stuff. He was highly enthusiastic about taking us to a strip club in Kathamandu. I was totally up for it, but to David's disapointment, the novelty wore off, so we ended up at a Nepalese dancing girls club instead.
Nepal – the up side
People
The people are beautiful, they smile from the heart, and they are kind, genererous and helpful. You could say the people of Nepal are “same-same but different” to Indians - meaning they say yes to everything and are so polite that they wouldn't dare offend you by telling you that they don't know, prefering to send you off in the wrong direction instead! It's adorable but can get on your goat, so after some time, you learn to pressure them politely into admitting whether they really do mean yes or no when they give that wobble of the head.
Kathamandu
A concentrated bubble of intensity, Kathamandu is like a toned down version of Bangkok. With its “shower bars”, stripper joints and dancing girls clubs, it has a seedy charm and by night, all you hear is the sound of live rock music blaring from bars and pubs. Everything shuts by around 11pm, but there are some pretty cool joints to go hang out. Kathamandu is brimming with life in the daytime too but you find yourself dodging traffic every second you walk down the street. It's chaos personified, but if you've seen Delhi, then this really is nothing!
The rest...
Nepal really is a very beautiful place. The scenery is pure magic and you will be glued to the window as your bus journeys through the mountains, bringing you views of sweeping valleys, gorges, powerful rivers and a voluptuous landscape. There's also plenty of adventure sports, jungle safaris, elephant bathtime, lots of Buddhist stupas, great shopping and nice smokes.
Nepal – on the down side
What do in Kathamandu?
First and foremost: the power cuts! What to in Kathamandu? No power no shower, 24 hour! Now I know why they say this! It goes off about 9pm every night and the city is overcome with darkness, bringing out many a dodgy dude. The vampires come out at night, but even they have a curfew with the streets so quiet by 11pm, that you could hear the sound of a pin drop.
Expensive
You have to pay for everything in Nepal, so in a word, Nepal is EXPENSIVE. At $25 and $50 for a two and four week visa respectively, it costs top dollar just to stay in the country. Kathamandu, Bandipur, Pokhara, Everest, Anapurna, Chitwan – these are the main tourist areas and everything within them is geared up for tourists with too much money and not enough time - once again, making Nepal an expensive destination for the discerning traveler. Guide books for going off the beaten track are crap. You could probably do it though, but it's worth getting friendly with some of the locals to check out the best spots first.
If you want to see the Himalayan range, then you pay for the Anapurna Trek, the Everest Base Camp trek and other treks, so it's a bit like paying just to be in the nature. Small villages such as Bandipur have become top tourist destinations for trainspotter trekker types. In fact we spent a good amount of time taking the piss out specky anaraks in sensible walking shoes and baseball caps (worn back to front).
Small and quaint, Bandipur is home to the Newari tribes of Nepal, but it seems that alongside the guesthouses, restaurants and cafes, they too have become part of the tourist attraction.
Unless you like trekking or adventure sports, there's not really much to do in Nepal. Adrenalin junkies will love how white water rafting, abseiling, canyoning, paragliding etc is available on tap, but once again... it'll cost you top dollar baby!
At bars, cafes and restaurants, they add a 10% service charge, V AT and TAX. You also have to pay to enter various squares around the main city of Kathamandu, and the food is plastic tourist shit that costs a shit load of money.
Political climate
The political situation has been volatile in Nepal for the last decade. The current climate is prone to road blocks and mass Maoist demonstrations, so like me, you could find yourself stuck on a bus for eight hours, and sharing a seat with nine others in the baking heat because some idiot has decided to park his truck across the road. Nepal is probably the only country in the world with two armies and the Maoists and government are currently in cahoots over power, revealing the levels of corruption in the country.
Emiliano the Universal Wanderer
We met Emiliano along the way. He's a wannabe baba and a lost soul from Mexico who spent days walking barefoot around the jungle. Emiliano made a spontaneous decision to come with us to Nepal. Spiritual about everything, he leaves everything in the hands of the universe and floats about with a romantic vision of the world. I think at times, his approach does get the better of him and this was one of those times because we discovered he was completely strapped for cash. We helped him as much as we could and I advised him to take care of himself because the universe will not get rid of that gangerine on his foot! Emiliano is a very special person and it hurt me to see him hurting himself like this. So I took him to the doctor to get him fixed and left him at the border. Maika, a German girl I recently traveled with said that if our connection is profound enough, we will meet at least twice. I hope that one day I get to meet Emiliano again.
David the Psychedelic Canadian
With his bright psychedelic shirts and dry sense of humour, David the psychedelic Canadian was a comical character to travel with. We spent the best part of a week with David and did nothing but laugh, smoke and joke at everything we saw. He does these mean impressions of Borat and we spent most of the time being silly. He has a great sense of humour and found my version of the Canadian national anthem to be highly amusing! David is 45-years old and imports leather jackets from Thailand for Harley Davidson freaks in Canada. He's also into jewellery and seems to know his stuff. He was highly enthusiastic about taking us to a strip club in Kathamandu. I was totally up for it, but to David's disapointment, the novelty wore off, so we ended up at a Nepalese dancing girls club instead.
Nepal – the up side
People
The people are beautiful, they smile from the heart, and they are kind, genererous and helpful. You could say the people of Nepal are “same-same but different” to Indians - meaning they say yes to everything and are so polite that they wouldn't dare offend you by telling you that they don't know, prefering to send you off in the wrong direction instead! It's adorable but can get on your goat, so after some time, you learn to pressure them politely into admitting whether they really do mean yes or no when they give that wobble of the head.
Kathamandu
A concentrated bubble of intensity, Kathamandu is like a toned down version of Bangkok. With its “shower bars”, stripper joints and dancing girls clubs, it has a seedy charm and by night, all you hear is the sound of live rock music blaring from bars and pubs. Everything shuts by around 11pm, but there are some pretty cool joints to go hang out. Kathamandu is brimming with life in the daytime too but you find yourself dodging traffic every second you walk down the street. It's chaos personified, but if you've seen Delhi, then this really is nothing!
The rest...
Nepal really is a very beautiful place. The scenery is pure magic and you will be glued to the window as your bus journeys through the mountains, bringing you views of sweeping valleys, gorges, powerful rivers and a voluptuous landscape. There's also plenty of adventure sports, jungle safaris, elephant bathtime, lots of Buddhist stupas, great shopping and nice smokes.
Nepal – on the down side
What do in Kathamandu?
First and foremost: the power cuts! What to in Kathamandu? No power no shower, 24 hour! Now I know why they say this! It goes off about 9pm every night and the city is overcome with darkness, bringing out many a dodgy dude. The vampires come out at night, but even they have a curfew with the streets so quiet by 11pm, that you could hear the sound of a pin drop.
Expensive
You have to pay for everything in Nepal, so in a word, Nepal is EXPENSIVE. At $25 and $50 for a two and four week visa respectively, it costs top dollar just to stay in the country. Kathamandu, Bandipur, Pokhara, Everest, Anapurna, Chitwan – these are the main tourist areas and everything within them is geared up for tourists with too much money and not enough time - once again, making Nepal an expensive destination for the discerning traveler. Guide books for going off the beaten track are crap. You could probably do it though, but it's worth getting friendly with some of the locals to check out the best spots first.
If you want to see the Himalayan range, then you pay for the Anapurna Trek, the Everest Base Camp trek and other treks, so it's a bit like paying just to be in the nature. Small villages such as Bandipur have become top tourist destinations for trainspotter trekker types. In fact we spent a good amount of time taking the piss out specky anaraks in sensible walking shoes and baseball caps (worn back to front).
Small and quaint, Bandipur is home to the Newari tribes of Nepal, but it seems that alongside the guesthouses, restaurants and cafes, they too have become part of the tourist attraction.
Unless you like trekking or adventure sports, there's not really much to do in Nepal. Adrenalin junkies will love how white water rafting, abseiling, canyoning, paragliding etc is available on tap, but once again... it'll cost you top dollar baby!
At bars, cafes and restaurants, they add a 10% service charge, V AT and TAX. You also have to pay to enter various squares around the main city of Kathamandu, and the food is plastic tourist shit that costs a shit load of money.
Political climate
The political situation has been volatile in Nepal for the last decade. The current climate is prone to road blocks and mass Maoist demonstrations, so like me, you could find yourself stuck on a bus for eight hours, and sharing a seat with nine others in the baking heat because some idiot has decided to park his truck across the road. Nepal is probably the only country in the world with two armies and the Maoists and government are currently in cahoots over power, revealing the levels of corruption in the country.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Rishikesh Land of the Baba
From Ice to Fire
Jumping from ice to fire in a matter of 24 hours is no joke. Diving into the sweltering heat from the finger-numbing ice vapours of the mountains has taken its toll and acclimatizing is trippy.
Land of the Baba
They're everywhere and it's difficul to tell which ones are real. One of them tried to sell me some hash today. He was a cool baba and gave me the spiritual sign of hands together raised to the head when I told him I was sorted.
“Wanted” Can you perform tantric sex? Are you able to stand on your head, stick out tongue and make series of strange sounds? Can you make smoke fume from nose, ears and arsehole and juggle testicles at same time? If yes, then read on!
Professional Baba wanted to take care of da cool runnings of tings in tourist hubs of India. Must have long beard and dreadlocks. Chillum and supply of hashish is essential to spiritual validity. Proven track record must include abiity to transform Self into various forms and travel to different parts of country at same time. Must be at one with self, have ability to elevate off ground, stand on finger, suck big toe and smoke chillum with nostrils, again, at same time. If you are a natural in front of camera, can give Oscar-winning performance when blowing from chillum and out-smoking the idiot filming you, then this is the job for you! Those afraid of bollocks smacking into arse when running butt-naked into holy rivers need not apply. Please send a smoke signal to...”
Propa Baba
Thought we'd try and do a competition involving Oscar for the most promising, authentic looking baba
We found him before we even started looking...
He was sitting on the floor covered from dreadlock to toe in the blackness of the street, sooted up to the eyeballs with snakey things swirling around him while spasmed out in yogic position pulling freaky faces... It happened during a fleeting second when we sped past him on the street in the rickshaw that took us towards Laxman Julha.
Rishikesh
Mother Ganga flows from the locks of Lord Shiva who meditates in the Himalayan range that crosses Himachal Pradesh from east to west. The Ganga rushes into the state of Utteranchal straight from the source. It remains fresh, clean, pure but changes into a murky colour as it gradually stretches into Varanasi, where it becomes a polluted hotbath of deadbodies and excrement. It's the holy river invaded by millions and Varanasi being one of the holiest places in India makes that part of it the most polluted in India. Most spiritual parts of India are polluted because of the billions that converge, yet Rishikesh is something else, pure in the physical as well as the spiritual world.
Bathing in the Ganga
Been in India nearly six months and my resilience continues to be put to the test. I realised that I'm still running around like a whirlwind, even in Rishikesh, where you're meant to allow the waters of the Mother Ganga relax you and take your mind to another place. I felt I'd cheated myself out of the experience because we were about to leave and I still hadn't gone to bathe. Luckily, Francisco dragged me in a few hours before we were due to head for Nepal and even dunked me in fully clothed.
Shall we terrorize the hippies with some psychedelic trance?
So we're heading to Nepal. Rainbow Gathering is enroute so might as well pop in and terrorize the hippies with some psychedelic trance, especially since it's now becoming increasingly clear that we're not gonna make it to Mountain Madness, the big psytrance festie happening near Thamel in Nepal.
Mountain Madness
Think we gonna create our own mountain madness instead... especially when I get to Katamandu to link up with Nicola! Partners in Crime come together! Let's rock with it baby, let's move, let's groove, let's fire it up, let's give it some welly! Josep leaves, Maika as well and Francisco will be off at some point too... A surprise guest is also on his way to India... It's gonna be a brand new phase of my journey... Adventure!
Jumping from ice to fire in a matter of 24 hours is no joke. Diving into the sweltering heat from the finger-numbing ice vapours of the mountains has taken its toll and acclimatizing is trippy.
Land of the Baba
They're everywhere and it's difficul to tell which ones are real. One of them tried to sell me some hash today. He was a cool baba and gave me the spiritual sign of hands together raised to the head when I told him I was sorted.
“Wanted” Can you perform tantric sex? Are you able to stand on your head, stick out tongue and make series of strange sounds? Can you make smoke fume from nose, ears and arsehole and juggle testicles at same time? If yes, then read on!
Professional Baba wanted to take care of da cool runnings of tings in tourist hubs of India. Must have long beard and dreadlocks. Chillum and supply of hashish is essential to spiritual validity. Proven track record must include abiity to transform Self into various forms and travel to different parts of country at same time. Must be at one with self, have ability to elevate off ground, stand on finger, suck big toe and smoke chillum with nostrils, again, at same time. If you are a natural in front of camera, can give Oscar-winning performance when blowing from chillum and out-smoking the idiot filming you, then this is the job for you! Those afraid of bollocks smacking into arse when running butt-naked into holy rivers need not apply. Please send a smoke signal to...”
Propa Baba
Thought we'd try and do a competition involving Oscar for the most promising, authentic looking baba
We found him before we even started looking...
He was sitting on the floor covered from dreadlock to toe in the blackness of the street, sooted up to the eyeballs with snakey things swirling around him while spasmed out in yogic position pulling freaky faces... It happened during a fleeting second when we sped past him on the street in the rickshaw that took us towards Laxman Julha.
Rishikesh
Mother Ganga flows from the locks of Lord Shiva who meditates in the Himalayan range that crosses Himachal Pradesh from east to west. The Ganga rushes into the state of Utteranchal straight from the source. It remains fresh, clean, pure but changes into a murky colour as it gradually stretches into Varanasi, where it becomes a polluted hotbath of deadbodies and excrement. It's the holy river invaded by millions and Varanasi being one of the holiest places in India makes that part of it the most polluted in India. Most spiritual parts of India are polluted because of the billions that converge, yet Rishikesh is something else, pure in the physical as well as the spiritual world.
Bathing in the Ganga
Been in India nearly six months and my resilience continues to be put to the test. I realised that I'm still running around like a whirlwind, even in Rishikesh, where you're meant to allow the waters of the Mother Ganga relax you and take your mind to another place. I felt I'd cheated myself out of the experience because we were about to leave and I still hadn't gone to bathe. Luckily, Francisco dragged me in a few hours before we were due to head for Nepal and even dunked me in fully clothed.
Shall we terrorize the hippies with some psychedelic trance?
So we're heading to Nepal. Rainbow Gathering is enroute so might as well pop in and terrorize the hippies with some psychedelic trance, especially since it's now becoming increasingly clear that we're not gonna make it to Mountain Madness, the big psytrance festie happening near Thamel in Nepal.
Mountain Madness
Think we gonna create our own mountain madness instead... especially when I get to Katamandu to link up with Nicola! Partners in Crime come together! Let's rock with it baby, let's move, let's groove, let's fire it up, let's give it some welly! Josep leaves, Maika as well and Francisco will be off at some point too... A surprise guest is also on his way to India... It's gonna be a brand new phase of my journey... Adventure!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Mountain Madness
Darkness of Dharamasala...
According to Karan, a lonesome Indian trekker I met in Kalpa, monks in robes command an air of respect, especially monks in Dharamasala. He says they’re a fake comparison to the indigenous Buddhist monks of Spiti, that you bow to the robe and they hide behind it while living the high life of spirituality afforded to them as Tibetans in exile. Apparently the DL is none too pleased with the monks of Dharamasala. He doesn't like their materialistic attitudes. They're a tourist attraction and they know it. Many run successful guesthouses and businesses in the area, taking away the authenticity of their monkness and replacing their auras with business sense and an appetite for money. They're everywhere and make a strange contrast to the local Tibetan rude boys that hang out on the street corners of Mccleod Ganj. Wanted an insight into the dark side of Dharamasala, the flip side of what's meant to be one of the world's most spiritual places and boy did I get it...
His name was...
Funnily enough his name was Karma. We befriended him the day our bus pulled into Dharamasala about a week ago. Spoke to him on various occasions and he knew where we were staying. One night he came over to sell us something we didn't want and took my camera in the process. I didn't cry but I wanted to. It was some kind of fucked up lesson that I guess I need to learn something from because this is the second time my camera has been robbed in India. This time a junkie took it and he goes by the name of Karma. Ironic?
I'm with Garcia Lorca on this one:
Estan los viejos cuchillos tiritando bajo el polvo. Antonio Torres Heredia, hijo y nieto de Camborios, va con bara de mimbre a Sevilla a ver los toros. Moreno de verde luna anda gallardo y garboso, sus empavonados bucles le brillan entre los ojos.
Kalpa – Getting up-close and personal with the Himalayas
It took about 16 hours to cross over from Dharamasala, down to Shimla and then up to the east side of Himachal Pradesh to a place called Kalpa, a small mountain village just above Rekong Peo. We were up close and personal with the Himalayan range known as Kinnaur Kilash. The mountains washed away the pain of losing my camera. This is the place Shiva resides during the winter months to meditate on marijuana. Magnificent, and imposing, I felt the full power of the Himalayas! Sweeping views of valleys that never seem to end, vertical drops that take your breath away and an awesome close up view.
The Himalayas stretch from Ladakh to Spiti and then cross over to Nepal and reach out to Mount Everest. Our guesthouse was looking right at Kinnaur Kailash, north-east of Himachal Pradesh. We could have taken a five hour bus that took us further north to Narkon and then trekked for about four hours to see the Tibetan border - but we didn't. There's always next time. It was cold but the sun was shining for about two days. Connected with the locals. They're the most distinctive people that I've come across. They're the pure, untouhed, indigeneous tribes of the land, planted, watered and grown on this terrain. Their culture, way of life and rituals that include animal sacrifices, drinking the apple and barley wine of the region and smoking; the way they are so true to themselves and their sense of spirituality - it's what makes these people so pure.
If God is a DJ...
Himachal Pradesh is just one big voluptuous mountainous region. It's a trek to go north and the further you climb, the more oriental the people begin to appear. If God is a DJ then this is the proof. It's a full power play off, the goddesses in eight-arm action on the decks controlling the elements, the planets, the molecules, the earth, the plants, the chemicals that come from them, the mix of ingredients that make the chemicals; they is moving the earth, the water, the wind, the fire... In comes Karma, makinh it an unpredictable set as they crank it up, winding the rhythm, playin' with the power.
Plants, animals and so I hear, mermaids too, they live and die and live again. Their fossilised remains wash onto the shore, their souls melting into the froth of the waves that ascend into the sky as the sun heats the day. Condensation freezes into clouds of ice that settle on the tops of mountains. The sky thunders, spring arrives, bringing rain that melts the snow that brings water that flows into rivers across into the Motherland. People swirl across the land, cradling their love, loss, anger, pain, happiness, hopes for the future, wishes and dreams, their fears, their fight for life and their fight in life. True to their tribes and untouched by the world, there are also those that keep it real - makin it a full-power, high-voltage, super-charged mix!
How the India experience feels in a nutshell so far...
I've been jumping across the country like a rabbit on speed. A few days here, a week or 10 days there, making spontaneous decisions and hitting the road before finding the next place to settle for a short time once again. I need to be still and meditate on nothing. Sometimes I'm emotional, othertimes, disillusioned, lonely and sad. Then there are times I feel like the happiest person alive, indestructable, invincible, I'm on cloud nine and feel myself ascending higher and higher. My personal experiences with people and places dictate the state of my mind, bringing me greater learning and development. I also feel the freedom. It carries me across India like a little bird and suddenly I'm exhilarated, excited, in love with the world and everyone in it. I'm full of beans, energy and bursting with light like never before. I've been doing different things with different people and following the flow. But I wanna settle down now. I want to nest in one place and just stay there forever. I'm tired and emotional, I miss my family and I miss my friends and I miss the people I have met along the way. It's time to rest for a while.
According to Karan, a lonesome Indian trekker I met in Kalpa, monks in robes command an air of respect, especially monks in Dharamasala. He says they’re a fake comparison to the indigenous Buddhist monks of Spiti, that you bow to the robe and they hide behind it while living the high life of spirituality afforded to them as Tibetans in exile. Apparently the DL is none too pleased with the monks of Dharamasala. He doesn't like their materialistic attitudes. They're a tourist attraction and they know it. Many run successful guesthouses and businesses in the area, taking away the authenticity of their monkness and replacing their auras with business sense and an appetite for money. They're everywhere and make a strange contrast to the local Tibetan rude boys that hang out on the street corners of Mccleod Ganj. Wanted an insight into the dark side of Dharamasala, the flip side of what's meant to be one of the world's most spiritual places and boy did I get it...
His name was...
Funnily enough his name was Karma. We befriended him the day our bus pulled into Dharamasala about a week ago. Spoke to him on various occasions and he knew where we were staying. One night he came over to sell us something we didn't want and took my camera in the process. I didn't cry but I wanted to. It was some kind of fucked up lesson that I guess I need to learn something from because this is the second time my camera has been robbed in India. This time a junkie took it and he goes by the name of Karma. Ironic?
I'm with Garcia Lorca on this one:
Estan los viejos cuchillos tiritando bajo el polvo. Antonio Torres Heredia, hijo y nieto de Camborios, va con bara de mimbre a Sevilla a ver los toros. Moreno de verde luna anda gallardo y garboso, sus empavonados bucles le brillan entre los ojos.
Kalpa – Getting up-close and personal with the Himalayas
It took about 16 hours to cross over from Dharamasala, down to Shimla and then up to the east side of Himachal Pradesh to a place called Kalpa, a small mountain village just above Rekong Peo. We were up close and personal with the Himalayan range known as Kinnaur Kilash. The mountains washed away the pain of losing my camera. This is the place Shiva resides during the winter months to meditate on marijuana. Magnificent, and imposing, I felt the full power of the Himalayas! Sweeping views of valleys that never seem to end, vertical drops that take your breath away and an awesome close up view.
The Himalayas stretch from Ladakh to Spiti and then cross over to Nepal and reach out to Mount Everest. Our guesthouse was looking right at Kinnaur Kailash, north-east of Himachal Pradesh. We could have taken a five hour bus that took us further north to Narkon and then trekked for about four hours to see the Tibetan border - but we didn't. There's always next time. It was cold but the sun was shining for about two days. Connected with the locals. They're the most distinctive people that I've come across. They're the pure, untouhed, indigeneous tribes of the land, planted, watered and grown on this terrain. Their culture, way of life and rituals that include animal sacrifices, drinking the apple and barley wine of the region and smoking; the way they are so true to themselves and their sense of spirituality - it's what makes these people so pure.
If God is a DJ...
Himachal Pradesh is just one big voluptuous mountainous region. It's a trek to go north and the further you climb, the more oriental the people begin to appear. If God is a DJ then this is the proof. It's a full power play off, the goddesses in eight-arm action on the decks controlling the elements, the planets, the molecules, the earth, the plants, the chemicals that come from them, the mix of ingredients that make the chemicals; they is moving the earth, the water, the wind, the fire... In comes Karma, makinh it an unpredictable set as they crank it up, winding the rhythm, playin' with the power.
Plants, animals and so I hear, mermaids too, they live and die and live again. Their fossilised remains wash onto the shore, their souls melting into the froth of the waves that ascend into the sky as the sun heats the day. Condensation freezes into clouds of ice that settle on the tops of mountains. The sky thunders, spring arrives, bringing rain that melts the snow that brings water that flows into rivers across into the Motherland. People swirl across the land, cradling their love, loss, anger, pain, happiness, hopes for the future, wishes and dreams, their fears, their fight for life and their fight in life. True to their tribes and untouched by the world, there are also those that keep it real - makin it a full-power, high-voltage, super-charged mix!
How the India experience feels in a nutshell so far...
I've been jumping across the country like a rabbit on speed. A few days here, a week or 10 days there, making spontaneous decisions and hitting the road before finding the next place to settle for a short time once again. I need to be still and meditate on nothing. Sometimes I'm emotional, othertimes, disillusioned, lonely and sad. Then there are times I feel like the happiest person alive, indestructable, invincible, I'm on cloud nine and feel myself ascending higher and higher. My personal experiences with people and places dictate the state of my mind, bringing me greater learning and development. I also feel the freedom. It carries me across India like a little bird and suddenly I'm exhilarated, excited, in love with the world and everyone in it. I'm full of beans, energy and bursting with light like never before. I've been doing different things with different people and following the flow. But I wanna settle down now. I want to nest in one place and just stay there forever. I'm tired and emotional, I miss my family and I miss my friends and I miss the people I have met along the way. It's time to rest for a while.
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