Kashmir is back in business

Places are never exactly how you remember them. Even a year can put enough time and distance between you and the place that was, if you are a good nostalgist. So it is somewhat disconcerting when Kashmir in 2012 turns out to be (discounting a couple of malls and Srinagar&rsquos first set of traffic lights or radio cabs) the Kashmir of 1987.

Stories of Ghulam Quadir (&ldquothe politest cab driver anywhere&rdquo), my first brush with snow (also my first brush with frostnip), views of the near-frozen Dal from our vantage point at Hotel Gulmarg (now Heemal) on curfew nights &mdash I grew up knowing that the winter of 1987, despite the early political rumblings, was not the winter of discontent for the peripatetic Banerjees. On a brief return to the valley in the spring of 2010 &mdash even with tourism on an upward trajectory &mdash I felt the air thick with resentment. By June that year, civil unrest had spilled out on to the streets, yet again.

Cut to 2012 the skies are clear and the tourist is king. I arrive auspiciously at the beginning of the month of Ramzan. Days after the &lsquoyatris&rsquo and days before the long weekend ahead of Independence Day, when all flights (at an all-time high of thirty-one) to Srinagar are overbooked. This brief respite from the deluge of tourists &mdash a staggering one million and counting &mdash means that Mohammed Shafi, the shikarawala, has time to discuss his now buoyant life plans and the lifting of international advisories. And to offer, bashfully, the news that for the first time in years, he&rsquos made a lakh and fifty in a single, prolific summer. A summer that has also encouraged &mdash following reports of tourists sleeping in cars and buses &mdash homes in some of the leafiest neighbourhoods to buff old samovars and air out annexes and bungalows boarded up for years. Even Boulevard Road, that handsome girdle of the Dal, has shed some of its uniformed stiffness and sandbagged jowls happily besieged, as it is now, by Punjabi Rasois and shudh shakahari Vaishno Dhabas.

Yet the Big Picture isn&rsquot so much about the valley being in the crosshairs of mass tourism or the letting up of violence, as it is about Kashmir rediscovering itself. So much so that six days and almost a thousand kilometres later, I won&rsquot be halfway through the list of &lsquonew&rsquo places the state&rsquos PR machinery has been gushing about at sundry tourism fairs. A serious failing indeed, given the idea was to go gallivanting beyond the pages of the average sarkari brochure.

In my defence, I did gallivant. Stopping between the bullet points on the itinerary to take in achingly beautiful places whose names even Mushtaq, my very own Ghulam Quadir, hadn&rsquot heard of. Of the names I do know now, and I am reluctant to part with, Budgam district&rsquos Doodhpathri (pronounced Dwadhpathri in Kashmiri) is one. Not on our original list of to-dos, it&rsquos at the insistence of photographer Javeed (&ldquoIt&rsquoll be better than Gulmarg, you watch&rdquo) that we leave Srinagar on a morning as irresolute &mdash now sunny, now not &mdash as I am about the detour. The felled trees in the lower reaches only make it worse. But my confidence hits a particularly rough patch when, on the last few kilometres uphill, our doughty Innova turns into the Mars Rover. (Although, by the time you visit, the road-under-construction signs should have disappeared.) Suddenly, without warning, the wildflower-spangled, intensely green meadows come rolling at us.

Barely contained by the mossy green hills, the grasslands give way to more grasslands. Alpine wildflowers beget more wildflowers. And packs of handsome wild horses graze fixedly, unruffled by two groups of local tourists. The meadows eventually wind up at a riverbed. I am transfixed by the nomadic Gujjars &mdash and they&rsquore transfixed by me. For we&rsquore both tourists here.

On to Gulmarg &mdash that classic Kashmiri comforter that Doodhpathri seems to have bested. Sleepy, spreading, pretty Gulmarg seems so exhausted by its wintry adventures that it prefers not to preen until it&rsquos knee-deep in snow again. The one place that is playing up its charms this season though, is but minutes away. Cut away for decades by a roll of barbed wire, the valley of Nagin made headlines when it was released from its twenty-two-year-long confinement a few months ago. Still garrisoned and watched &mdash thanks to its proximity to the LOC, just 15km away &mdash Nagin is now tourist-friendly between 8am and 4pm.

We arrive at five minutes to four, so it takes much wheedling and flashing of press cards before the boom barrier is lifted. Not half as expansive as the meadows of Budgam, Nagin is just as remote and beautiful. Its aloofness is deepened by the absence of electricity and mobile phones. Here too, we find the hunkered-down homes of itinerant Gujjars, herded up from Baramulla every summer, not on horses, but in small trucks. Outside one such cluster of hobbit-like homes, I find seventeen-year-old Rubina huddled with her friends. Laughing and humming to keep hunger at bay before the call for iftar is sounded, Rubina doesn&rsquot mind not having a television or a second-hand phone. Partly because her only point of urban reference &mdash unlike the men in her tribe, who often work labour-intensive jobs in Srinagar or Pahalgam in the colder months &mdash is languid Gulmarg and a few smaller village-towns in the lower valley. But once she&rsquos married, she tells me in grave confidence, it&rsquos Srinagar she really wants to see.

By the time Gulmarg&rsquos first five-star hotel, the Khyber Mountain Resort & Spa, opens its doors this October, the Gujjars will be halfway to Baramulla. Rubina won&rsquot get a chance to see the new ski-lift, which started last season, ferrying bright puffa jackets up to Mount Aphrawat. But until then &mdash till the chinars are bronzed and the saffron harvested in Pampore &mdash evenings will continue to be wood-smoked at Nagin.

At some point during the trip, I begin to resent all such autumnal thoughts. I know summer&rsquos summer in Kashmir, but somehow the idea of India&rsquos most flamboyant fall seems infinitely more attractive. Mostly because I&rsquom going to miss it by a saffron strand. How I wish I could channel the spirit of Thomas Moore (who wrote The Vale of Cashmere without so much as stepping off the Continent), painting the valley with my imagination &mdash just once before I leave &mdash in deep oranges and honey-dipped tones.

I know better than to launch into a mawkish ode to Kashmir. But a small log cabin with a flaming red door brings me tantalisingly close to literary harakiri. Not two kilometres from the din of the touristy and overbuilt Pahalgam Road, en route to the village of Aru, Traveller&rsquos Hut marks the midpoint of my journey, and ends up becoming my touchstone to judge the rest of the trip by.

Planted in a green bowl, by a raging Lidder, the Hut&rsquos diminutive size belies its power over guests. There&rsquos something about the slumping shoulders of overhanging hills and the white noise of a river snaking into a distant cleft in the valley that can debilitate the most well travelled among us. It casts such a spell on me, for instance, on a glowing yellow evening that sticking mayweed in my hair, chasing butterflies or sitting on a rock bang in the middle of the snowmelt feels like the only logical thing for an adult to do. Pen, paper, computers, deadlines, editors&helliphuh

It is this sense of nowhere-ness, this frozen-in-timeness that the countryside seems to have clung to through the long years of strife. But while such isolation may have saved the valley&rsquos landscape from indiscriminate plunder so far, it hasn&rsquot had quite such a benevolent effect on the state&rsquos tourist infrastructure. Or, for that matter, on its rapidly crumbling heritage. Conserving and preserving monuments can be tricky at the best of times, but here in the valley, the challenges are unimaginable. Disappointed by the state of the ruins at both Parihaspora (now hemmed in by engineering colleges) and Awantipora near Anantnag, I expect little from Naranag&rsquos little-known stone temples, not fifty kilometres from Srinagar in the Ganderbal district. A base camp for trekking to the Gangabal Lake, Naranag proves to be among the better-preserved monuments.

Although a shadow of the grand temple complex it once was, even today it&rsquos possible to see why Kalhan reserved high praise for it in the Rajatarangini. With the exception of an unsightly corrugated tin roof on one of the &lsquoconserved&rsquo temples, the massive interlocked stones, the fluted pillars and the tank where the children from the nearby village take a dip can still hold a history buff in thrall.

Naranag also owes much of its charm to its high perch in the Kangan belt and the Wangath river which runs through the gorge below it. Off the main tourist drag, it&rsquos only the most persistent researchers and trekkers &mdash apart from the Kashmiri pundits who immerse the ashes of the dead at Gangabal &mdash who find their way here in the warmer months. And sometimes a young Madiha, emboldened by the newfound fragile peace in Kashmir, comes riding pillion in a pink salwar. Braving the bad roads on her fiancé&rsquos motorbike, it&rsquos solitude she&rsquos after (&ldquoIn Srinagar, Nishat is teeming. So is Shalimar.&rdquo). Does she know who built these temples Um, no, but they&rsquore old, very old, she says. With no signboards to suggest that there are Shiva temples here or that King Lalitaditya Muktapida built them in the eighth century, who can blame her.

The Mughal garden at Verinag also revels in its relative anonymity. Believed to be the source of the Jhelum, the teal spring here belies the hostile history of the Anantnag district. Not en route, really, to anywhere, it mostly draws local crowds. Which is possibly why, on an afternoon of roza, the new government-run café, with its khatambandh ceiling and bay windows, is notable mostly for its empty chairs. But with the best cup of tea, with cinnamon and milk, to be had anywhere in Kashmir and spanking new JKTDC cottages on rent, surely the tourists will come.

On our way back to Srinagar again, we halt at Dachigam. The valley&rsquos best known national park, thick with trees and birdcall, Dachigam, unlike Verinag, has had no trouble with footfalls. Overrun by picnic parties until June this year, the park is now off limits to all except those with a permit from the Regional Wildlife Warden&rsquos office in Srinagar.

Back in Srinagar, even a city this polite seems rushed and noisy. There&rsquos a traffic jam at the Dal Gate Perhaps a fallout of the political rally held earlier in the day, even two years ago, it would have caused the average tourist some heartburn. Today, the mundaneness of living, of buying sivayi for the next morning&rsquos sehri or coaxing a buyer to take home an &lsquooriginal&rsquo pashmina, overrides all other impulses.

In a city that still doesn&rsquot have a movie theatre to call its own, several small, but significant improvements are immediately apparent &mdash even from my chinar-shaded tea table at the Lalit Grand Palace. While a helium balloon for tourists rises above the Dal in the distance, the two-season-old Vivanta by Taj preens on its high perch next door. Unperturbed, like the man on the street, the Lalit goes about its business, hosting Gujarati weddings and guests of more nationalities than ever before.

Over my last few hours in Srinagar, I decide to visit the dun-coloured lanes of Ganpatyar in the Old City. Here, where the road ends and the Jhelum begins, the two-month-old Lal Ded Memorial Cultural Centre rises in red brick on the waterfront. Home to an official in the Dogra regime, a large part of the building, originally featuring marked classical Western European influences, was pulled down in 2008 to build yet another unsightly mall. Had J&ampK Tourism and Intach not intervened, food courts would have been crawling, where now there are displays of Numdah and Ari work, Jamawar shawls and Khanyari tiles, pottery and silver Sarposh and Traem. It could do with better curating and proper publicity, but residents like Preeti and her father Mohanlal are coming anyway.

Part of a family of Kashmiri pundits who continued to live in this sensitive corner of the city, Mohanlal proudly tells anyone who&rsquoll listen that three generations of his family, including his shy teenaged granddaughter, have studied in the school that the building once housed. Preeti though can&rsquot be bothered to chat. Flitting from one corner to the other, it&rsquos the fragments of her childhood she collects. Silent on her political opinions and guarded about her past, it&rsquos a moment of rare indulgence when she admits, &ldquoYeh toh phir wohi Kashmir hai&rdquo.

Off-beat paths

Snowbound for most of the year, few tourists visit the valley of Gurez in the remote northwestern corner of the state, close to the LOC. Partly because, like all good things, a trip to Gurez cannot be rushed. You need at least five days for a round tour. And although there&rsquos been talk recently of promoting eco-tourism here, change is a while coming. Until then, this unspoilt terrain held together by snow-capped mountains and peopled by the Dards is a great place for a camping holiday.

Although the gardens of Kokernag in the Anantnag district and Achabal in Budgam are only sixty-odd kilometres away from Srinagar, they also remain somewhat away from the radar always a good reason to visit a place.

The valley of Bhaderwah, south of the Pir Panjal range, is a pitstop for Kailash Kund pilgrims in August. But by September it slips back into its quiet, restful routine. Beginning this year, Bhaderwah (bhaderwah.com) offers the option of staying at local homes and going whitewater rafting or angling.

New addresses

Srinagar

In tony, quiet Rajbagh, siblings Zulfikar and Yasmeen Hussain have just started welcoming guests to a charming bungalow right across from their family home. With several windows to let in the garden, mornings are particularly delicious here. Tariff Rs 5,000, including breakfast, for each of two floors with two bedrooms, a living area, bathroom and kitchenette Contact 9906505354

The lovely Asma Shahmiri now rents out bedrooms in a bungalow, which mirrors, both in style and spirit, her home next door. Off the main road at Baghat, near the airport. Tariff Rs 4,500, including breakfast Contact 9469042459

Pahalgam

Only two kilometres from Pahalgam, Traveller&rsquos Hut is miles away from its din. This spare but warm log cabin by the Lidder is just as charming as the valley it is planted in. Tariff Rs 7,000 for the hut with four rooms and a living area. Contact 9419010780

Aru

Another recommended place is Rohella Guest House in the village of Aru (10km from Pahalgam). Tariff Rs 1,000 doubles Contact 0193-6211339, rohella.brinkster.net

Gulmarg

The Vintage prides itself on being the most modern hotel in town now. Tariff from Rs 10,000 Contact 0195-4254582, thevintage.in

When it opens this October, the Khyber Mountain Resort & Spa will be Gulmarg's first five-star property. Tariff Rs 11,000 doubles Contact 8713800051, khyberhotels.com

Kashmir in the fall

We don&rsquot have to tell you that Kashmir is lovely in any season. But there&rsquos no season more quintessentially Kashmiri than harud. Of course it&rsquos about the beauty of the flaming chinars but there are at least three other reasons to visit the valley between September and early November. With the temperature hovering around 20&degC in the day, and rarely dipping to below 10&degC at the dead of the night, the weather is never better. A relief from the warmer days &mdash often touching the 36-37&degC mark midsummer &mdash this is also when there&rsquos a dip in the tourist numbers. But the clincher it&rsquos saffron season in Pampore. Time your visit to coincide with the harvest in late October or early November.

Trip enhancers

Years of ferrying customers, many of them journalists, has armed the reticent but reliable Mushtaq (9419062408) with all the skills that the venerated London cabbie is credited with. He knows every inch of the countryside and every imaginable shortcut too.

For an impromptu late-evening shikara ride, call Snowcabs (0194-2432432, snowcabs.com), Srinagar&rsquos brand new radio taxi service.

A new addition to the capital&rsquos skyline, the helium balloon in the Zabarwan Park offers great views of the city and its lakes. Hovering at 350ft for ten minutes costs Rs 500. Kids can also opt for a &lsquo3D Fun&rsquo film on sharks (Rs 60 for 25min) or reverse bungee (Rs 60 for 3min).

Also, visit the new Lal Ded Memorial Cultural Centre at Ganpatyar. Keep an eye out for the section on key elements of the Kashmiri architectural styles, such as dubs, pinjara-kari and khatambandh.

Those interested in traditional embroidery, save an afternoon for the Craft Development Institute (cdisgr.org) in Nowshera.

For more adventurous activities, call Yaseen Tuman at Mascot Travels (9419005714, mascottravels.com). With six different mountain ranges in the state, there are plenty of places to go gadding about. There&rsquos also the option of a three/four-day river safari on the Jhelum.

History buffs can call upon the services of the venerable Muzaffar Andrabi at Kashmir Caravans (9419052026, kashmircaravans.com). A man who knows his Kalhan from his Bernier, he&rsquos also privy to the valley&rsquos lesser known gems.

The information

Getting there

Several airlines, including Jet Airways, IndiGo, GoAir and SpiceJet, fly direct to Srinagar from Delhi (from approx. Rs 6,200 return) and Jammu (from Rs 5,500).

Getting around

There are taxi stands on the main boulevard in Srinagar. But hotels and houseboats also arrange for taxis. Charges vary from Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 for a day. For shorter distances, you can flag down autorickshaws. Shikaras charge about Rs 300 for an hour.

Where to stay

Srinagar

High-End The Lalit Grand Palace (doubles from Rs 12,500 011-44447474, thelalit.com) is Srinagar&rsquos grand old dame. I stayed in the hotel&rsquos heritage wing, with elaborate wooden staircases, exquisite carpets and a general air of imperiousness. A room with a view, my windows opened out on to the rambling gardens marked by stately chinars and apple trees laden with fruit at this time of the year. The Dal glistened courteously in the distance. I also spent a considerable amount of my time at the al-fresco Chinar Garden restaurant, which serves a very memorable nadru yakhni. The latest marquee is Vivanta by Taj &mdash Dal View (Rs 15,100 for doubles 0194-2461111, vivantabytaj.com) on the Kralsangri Hill. Sweeping views of the Dal are its prime draw. If you&rsquore keen on a houseboat stay, book into WelcomHeritage Gurkha Houseboats (doubles Rs 7,000, inclusive of all meals 2421001, welcomheritagehotels.com) on the Nigeen Lake.

Mid-range Hidden behind a flourishing garden, it&rsquos easy to miss the Green Acre (doubles from Rs 4,000 2313848, wazirhotels.com). Run by the gracious Wazir family, it offers well-appointed rooms in Rajbagh. Recently revived by the Hussain family, the Dar-es-salam (doubles from Rs 4,500 2427803, hoteldaressalam.com), bang on Nigeen Lake, has fourteen charming rooms.

Budget Rooms at the Nigeen Club (Rs 2,500 2452690/1, nigeenclubresort.com) are hard to come by &mdash club members and guests of the state get first dibs here. But try hard. For the club&rsquos chinar-shaded lawns command some of the best views of the lake.

Gulmarg

Hotel Highlands Park (doubles Rs 8,000, including breakfast 9419413355, hotelhighlandspark.com) lords it over a pretty corner of Gulmarg and has a lovely, atmospheric restaurant. Some of the rooms look a bit tired, though. You can also try Hotel Hill Top (doubles Rs 5,000 0954-254477, hilltophotelgulmarg.com) or Heevan Retreat (from Rs 6,500 0194-2501323, ahadhotelsandresorts.com).

Pahalgam

Spread over two acres along the Lidder river, Pahalgam Hotel (doubles Rs 9,500 01936-243252, pahalgamhotel.com) is a popular choice. So is Senator Pine-n-Peak (doubles from Rs 7,500 0194-2501323, ahadhotelsandresorts.com), adjacent to the golf course.

Where to eat

Tourists looking for a Kashmiri meal in Srinagar are often led to the Mughal Durbar on Residency Road. But the low-profile Mehfil nearby does just as good a job. Patronised by the locals, their rista is light and toothsome. If you&rsquore feeling brave enough to try a wazwan &mdash an elaborate meal served at weddings &mdash walk in the opposite direction from Mughal Durbar and at the first traffic light, ask for directions to the Kareema Restaurant. Tucked into a scruffy lane, it serves a truncated (but still large) wazwan &mdash tabaq maz, seekh, methi korma, rista, rogan josh and gushtaba. Head to Imran Cafeteria at Khayam Chowk for kebabs in the evening.

In Pahalgam, room service always scores over a meal in town. But if you can drag yourself away from your window by the river, TroutBeat on the main thoroughfare is where you ought to go. Prices can be steep, but I didn&rsquot mind paying Rs 500 for my buttery, lemony whole Trout Meuni&egravere. While in Gulmarg, try the Garden Grille or 1860 at The Vintage hotel or order a rogan josh at Hotel Highlands Park.

Where to shop

Apart from the Kashmir Government Art Emporium, put your bargaining skills to good use at Polo View Road, Budshah Chowk and Lal Chowk. I shopped for food gifts in Rajbagh at Shehjaar Bazaar, run by a local NGO (jkhf.in).

Circuits

Heritage Srinagar alone has enough to place Kashmir in a historical and cultural context &mdash visit the shrines of Hazrat Bal, Jama and the Khanqah Shah Hamadan, walk from Maharaj Gunj to Ali Kadal lined with charming examples of Kashmiri architecture and visit Iftikar Jalali&rsquos well-preserved old house in Zadi Bal (0194-2424064). The Buddhist site of neighbouring Harwan and the megaliths at Burzahom, Parihaspora, Naranag, Awantipora and the sun temple at Martand are the other pitstops of history.Leisure Gardens of the Mughal Gardens in Srinagar, Pari Mahal is a personal favourite Nishat Bagh, Chashma-i-Shahi and Shalimar Bagh complete the royal quartet. Also consider making day trips to the gardens of Kokernag, Achabal and Verinag.

Adventure Srinagar, Pahalgam and Gulmarg have some of the prettiest golf courses in the country. Trekkers can retrace the well-trodden Vishensar, Gangabal Lake and Kolahai routes, while anglers can drop anchor upstream by the Lidder.