KASHMIR :PARADISE UNFOLDS

PARADISE UNFOLDS

Reshmi R Dasgupta


WOMEN engrossed in tending cattle or doing housework simply had no time to stand and stare (like their hardworking sisters elsewhere in India) but the men did, unsmilingly . Older men and women the only ones who seemed to still stick to traditional Kashmiri attire as against the ubiquitous shalwar-kameez for both sexes and Iranian-style headscarves for the women looked at us pensively as if saying, They too shall pass... And in every village, stacks of planed willow staves awaited metamorphosis into cricket bats!
Only a fair, rosy-cheeked woman selling bread at one of the countless village bakeries we passed seemed to have time for a chat. She gamely explained the various kinds of bread the Kashmiris ate according to the occasion and time of day ranging from a flatbread to macaroon-shaped buns to even a sort of doughnut. Indeed of bread there was plenty, but some of the rest of Indias most polluting habits seemed to have fortuitously found no hold here: paan and paan masala. Result: sparkling clean walls and environs!
Most of all, everywhere, simply everywhere, nature astounded us with her bounty.... It was a journey through paradise for Rs 18 a 55 km-odd train ride through verdant landscapes that seemed unchanged for centuries. I was surprised that more visitors did not opt for this hassle-free way to take a peek at another face of Kashmir.
As our red and blue train zipped along, a patchwork of eye-wateringly green rice-paddy fields zigzagged into the distance as hazy blue mountains looked down benevolently. Next season, golden yellow mustard flowers would bring forth another visage... Tall, thin poplars and luxuriant willows marked farm boundaries, their narrow frames offset by the grandiose spread of the royal chinars, heavy and wide with antiquity. Streams gurgled every few hundred yards, and birdsong marked a departure from city sounds.
When we got off the train and walked down the high railway embankments not usually the most savoury of paths we were greeted by a profusion of wild white daisies and purple thistles, not to mention ganja plants with their distinctive leaves! Further down, there were acres of orchards walnut , apricot, almond, apple their boughs already laden with ripening fruit. Smiling indulgently at my city-slicker exclamations at seeing walnuts still in their fruit stage, one of our armed escorts reached out and plucked me a couple, still in their fleshy casings. Was I in Eden No, Kashmir.
Thats why, an official informed us that a militant had been eliminated in an encounter not far from a neat, new station we stood at. The windows of another station had been broken some days before by locals angered at something that had nothing to do with the railways at all. Warnings about unattended bags were repeated over the intercom. The CRPF jawans at intervals along the track and at important bridges, also warned of the snakes that inevitably lurked in this Eden, but it was hard to dampen my feeling of exhilaration.
How could anyone be anything but excited at seeing a playful spring curving amid the walnut trees as boys splashed around, and then realising that it is the mighty Jhelum or Vaith as the Kashmiris call it, harking back to its Sanskrit name Vitasta Or seeing walnuts piled up on market floors like peanuts during a Delhi winter Or hearing the wrinkled Noor Mohd Bhat insist that just three strands of precious saffron from his crocus fields in Pampore would be enough for any biryani or sweet dish....
There was also a sense of serenity. Through the wide windows of the train I saw another reality of Kashmir, a reaffirmation that life goes on regardless in countless villages, even if the cities reverberate to the beat of geo-politics . Coaches containing normal people trying to live normal lives college girls on day trips, a bent-over village craftsman laden with wares for the market , middle-aged ladies on shopping expeditions underlined that thought.
Above all, the very fact that this train plied up and down the troubled valley thrice a day without hindrance or violence (even when everything else is brought to a halt) showed that the yearning for normalcy was as real as other more vocal aspirations .
My train-ride through paradise was truly a revelatory experience ....