Leaves Today, Gone Tomorrow

Shall I compare Kashmir to a summer&rsquos day After all, I did visit it just this July to photograph Sukoon Houseboat , when the apricots were plump and ready for picking and the meadows lush green. But as I step out of Srinagar&rsquos airport on an autumn October morning, the same chinar I recall waltzing in a viridescent coat in the summertime breeze is now haloed in gold and embellished with crispy yellowing leaves. Such is how seasons change in Kashmir&mdashviridian becomes sepia, verdant hills become icy mountains, and the artist who has painted Kashmir on a canvas befriends an entirely different palette.

This time too I pick up a fallen chinar leaf (today it is a pale yellow, then it was an olive green) with the intent to frame it beside its ancestor on my apartment wall, for both comparison and poetry.

J&ampK Tourism has invited me to showcase its autumnal garb. With my camera in tow and a three-day timeframe, I intend to make every still breathtaking. The mustard canopy showers me with leaves even as I drive to the home of fairies, Pari Mahal&mdasha Mughal terrace-garden built by Shah Jahan&rsquos son, Dara Shikoh, privileged by its Zabarwan range backdrop and its promises of the best vistas of Srinagar. I was here in July too, when the vantages recalled Van Gogh&rsquos A Wheatfield with Cypresses. Today it is more of the sombre Autumn Landscape (also a Van Gogh), but livelier.

While Pari Mahal is a bit fantastic, Nishat Bagh is a garden of joy. Built by the Dal in 1633 CE by Nur Jahan&rsquosbrother Asaf Khan, the place is an ode to postcard-perfect Kashmir, the kind flaunted by films such as Jab Tak Hai Jaan. I see children cavort about fountains, families picnicking beneath poplars, and the absence of both the cacophony and the humdrum of city life. And when I visit the Dal at sunset, I no longer find the familiar mist and the many shades of blue&mdashbut the substitute yellow is, quite literally, photography gold. It is under the reddening sky left behind by a dimming sun that I take in the view of a distant hill, then a lake and then a far-off bridge. Just at that moment, a shikara floats into my frame and all these elements together give me a perfect shot.

The next day, it is a three-hour drive to Pahalgam. Ask any photographer about the joy of watching a splendid landscape fly by your window as you scan every frame and assess whether it is worthy of your lens&mdashrather, if you are worthy of it. The same drive was warmer in the summer, but I still stick my head out the window and kiss the sweet air that now smells of apples, something that wasn&rsquot there then. (With each season, you lose some and you win some.)

From Pahalgam, it is on to Aru valley. My driver navigates carefully through hairpin bends and I imagine being seated in a comfortable camper with a cosy couch, sipping kahwa and savouring the view. Minutes later, my dream comes true in the form of a suitably warm, nutty cup enjoyed by the valley-side. I sit watching how at one end the sunlight seems to turn every leaf it sees a shade of yellow, as if burning them, and at another the chilly expanse of a snow peak makes for the background&mdash&lsquofire in the valley and ice on the peaks&rsquo.

A little later, I befriend a handsome pony. I am sad to realise that come winter, when tourists are scarce, he will become merely a plaything for children, enslaved by the cold. But winter in Kashmir, surely, isn&rsquot only harsh and gloomy. Come snowfall, every Kashmiri village becomes a winter sports venue.

The next day as I take the cable car from Gulmarg up to Kongdori mountain (approx. 3,000m), the higher Apharwat peak seems to be just a stone&rsquos-throw away. This is the closest I get to the snow, and dreams of scampering about powder. I sit on a boulder and try to touch the peaks. I&rsquom not able to&mdashnot this time. But then again, if autumn comes, can winter be far behind