Azure tipped mountains reflect a thousands hues of blue into the waters of the tranquil shadowy weed-ridden Dal lake. Morning prayers from the white domed single minaretted mosque, the Hazaratbal, resound through the till then silent confines of the valley. Darker tones give way to gentle blues as our boatman Lasa, surges the shikara forward with his spade shaped oar. Dawn awakens to the music of a thousand birds and ducks swim by, as a fisherman waits patiently to catch his breakfast. A brown cheeked kingfisher swoops into the air and then maneuvers itself skimming the water for gnats as dapchicks make morning dives into the water in pairs disappearing and reappearing with tiny tadpoles in their beaks.


[A curious Bulbull]



This is what our driver. Shakeel must have meant when he told us, "Kal dekhna, aap Jannat mai uthen gai" [Tomorrow morning you will wake up in paradise] . This was not the Srinagar we read about in the papers or see on the news channels. This is not the Srinagar of curfews and bandhs, of grenade attacks, of bomb blasts, of shoot outs, of encounters, of security checkpoints and bunkers, of armed men in uniform, of abandoned buildings, of sniffer dogs, of military convoys, of lurking fear and of 6000 missing young men. Sadly natural beauty is indifferent to the human suffering.




[Generations at a threshold]

Frozen in a fifteen year conflict between separatists, armed foreign insurgents and a stretched security force, Srinagar looks like a place in the middle of a war zone, In many way it is a city under siege, a city that has almost lost its spirit. The victim, the ordinary Kashmiri, is left alienated by his own country and an army that was sent there for his protection. As a guide in the Kashmiri mountain resort of Gulmarg told me, "Hum kya boll sakte hai Bhaisaab, hamare awaz cheen lai gai hai. Humare mathe par ek calank chap gaya hai" (We have can't say anything brother, our voice has been taken away from us. Our foreheads have been branded)

Kashmir in the days I spent there struck me as a paradoxical paradise - a place of outstanding natural beauty and a beautiful people and a place of visible sadness. 1989 is the year that is entrenched in the minds of the older Kashmiris. It is the year that everything changed for them and so they bring up comparisons of the situation before militancy and after militancy.

The situation in the valley is getting better. For one, the tourists are returning and the once empty decaying houseboats in the Nageen and Dal lakes are once again brimming and mostly “sold out”. Tourist buses are back ferrying,at this time of the year, mostly Gujarati tourists on to their next destination. There are good signs when the smiling man at the reservation desk tells you that it is the first time in nearly two decades that all the hotels in Gulmarg are fully booked for the month of May and June. I am also told that there has been a steady reduction in the army and paramilitary forces in the last few years. There is sporadic violence by militants but is mostly targeted at the army. The Kashmiris nonchalantly are quick to remind me that this is a global phenomenon with similar incidents in Mumbai, Delhi, London, Lisbon, etc.

Dig deeper into the historic consciousness of Kashmir and you will find a rich and intelligent heritage often forgotten by its troubled present.

The Kashmiri poet Azad wrote against religious fanaticism :

“Pray, announce to all the Kashmiri the
secrets thou hast confided to Azad,
After casting away childish frivolities of Kufir and Deen
The light from the candle is for all;
Hindus and Musalman
In this vast expanse of Oneness
Who is my kin, and who a stranger to me?
A Musalman is to me as good as a Hindu;
My deen is fraternity, my dharma is oneness.
My light is meant for one and all…..”

The Chinar Tree is the symbol Kashmir and its known to take a thousand years to reach its full size; my only hope is that it takes less time to heal the wounds of Kashmir.

In the words of Shair-e-Kashmir, the poet Mehjoor:

“Arise, O Gardener !
Let there be glory in the garden. Once again !
Let the rose bloom again
Let Bulbuls sing of their love again !
The garden in ruins,
The dew in tears,
The roses in tattered leaf-
Let roses and Bulbuls be kindled anew with life !”

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Two canoes lay in pursuit of our lone shikara. A loud Kashmiri confab is exchanged as the two boatmen row with increasing vigour. One of the boatmen has obviously won as the other boatman discontinues his pursuit. Dal Lake is a floating garden of sorts and what garden (floating or otherwise) is complete without flowers. The lone canoe is painted a wild jaipuri pink and is one the many floating tourists traps on the Dal. On the side of the boat I read, ‘Prop : Mr. Bashir alias Mr. Wonderful Flowerman’ . The name seems to be a remnant of the flower-power sixties. His canoe is a tiny sampler of flowers.



“I sell flowers madam and gentlemen”, he spurts out in an English accent born somewhere between Kashmir and England.

'I have blue sunflower seeds and lotus seed.’

‘How bout some bulbs? I got tulips, daffodils. Very good and colourful’

'What lotus seeds have you brought?'

'I have six-colour lotus seeds. And wild orchid and wild tulip.'

‘I have not brought any money with me.’

'You buy and send me the money later.'

‘Here’s a wild iris for the beautiful lady.’



I am beginning to wonder if yellow daffodils will ever bloom in the Mumbai.

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Harzatbal’s call for morning prayer had woken me, replacing my usual cell phone alarm as the sound of the night. I now find myself sitting on soft cushions of a long flat-bottomed boat with a canopy above my head, while my parents and sister recline opposite me, peering out from under their blankets to protect themselves from the chilling early morning breeze. Behind them a small, tightly built figure is propelling us slowly forward with a spade shaped oar. Another man soon joins him beyond the shores of Hazratbal mosque, this time baring a flask with tea. This is our first morning in Srinagar and hot sweaty Mumbai is now but a distant memory.


[Hazratbal Mosque is one of the holiest shrines in Kashmir and its known for the Moi-e-Muqaddas (The Sacred Hair of the Prophet]

As we slowly move forward past quaint fishing villages, under the high Karakoram range on one side, the world floats by in shades of blue and the Dal lake seems like a long, wide, lazy, paradise. A paradise,though lost in conflict, is in reality unchanged by it. The english name board fitted on our shikara, 'Stranger in Paradise', seems so very apt. The valley it seems is too resilent to be shaped by violence.


[Srinagar by the Dal Lake]


[A quaint little fishing village on the banks of the Dal Lake]

A pair of brown cheeked Kingfishers perch themselves elegantly on a pole, ignoring us as we slip slowly through endless beds of floating weeds.
As we go under a rickety wooden bridge we witness a clutter of canoes and hear a distant sound of voices.


[A grey heron sifts through the marsh on Dal Lake]

As we move forward we reach the chaotic scene of what in Srinagar is known as “the floating market”. Life in Srinagar revolves around the Dal lake. Whether it is children going to school, women going shopping or vegetable vendors selling their produce, it all happens on the lake. Therefore, it did not surprise me to find an entire floating vegetable market.


[Floating Gardens on Nageen Lake]

I will leave you with some more pictures.


(The boy with the intense look)


[Vegetables exchange hands on the floating market]


[Money follows the sale]


[Fresh Raddish]

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I decided to explore the theme of Abandonment purely through medium of photography.


[A decaying wooden spiral staircase. For the best effect see large.]

All of my life I have been caught in places I don’t belong. As a child I would dive into the furthest reaches of the family photo album to see what ancient photographs that had been taken, categorised, plastered, passed down and then forgotten. I decided to use this lifelong handicap and convert it into photography. Wielding a camera at last I had a license to explore the many wonderful, forgotten corners of the landscape and people’s lives and life around me. There is so much beauty in the overlooked details of our world.

















Note : All images can be viewed large by tabbing into a new window.


On a secondary note, I'll be offline for the great part of the next two weeks, as I'm off to Kashmir.

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A rusting wire mesh fence holds on to a large painted sign. On the ground below, in the enclosure created by the fence sits a somewhat emaciated shadow of a dog. Even though it is evident from his current state that life has not been kind to him, this fact has not dimmed the twinkle in his brown puppy eyes. I walk towards him and place my hand against the wire mesh and he after sniffing me with his wet nose gives me an affectionate lick.

If you are wondering what the sign says it is a plea to you and me:

"I may be a beautiful puppy or an old doggie not so beautiful but wecannot speak. We can only cry and be timid and afraid because human beings have treated us so badly. Please do not let us. We will give you so much love, in return ask for so little………

But please if you have it in your heart stop the suffering and adopt us. We will never let you down or trouble you. All we need is love and care."

As I walk away an abandoned Dalmatian starts barking from the next enclosure. I take a step towards him and see the fear in his eyes as he takes two steps back
These are the scenes from the Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Memorial Animal Hospital at Parel,Mumbai… The dog shelter here is managed by the SPCA.

Uma of IndianWriting did a great post on the place a few months back. [link]

I lived across the road, behind the hospital,many years back and the place still conjures up vivid memories. This was the time when circuses with animal performances where still prevalent in Bombay [before the ban; though I am not sure the ban is being enforced effectively]. Animals rescued from around Bombay found themselves in the hospital. I enjoyed walking around the grounds of hospital [since security was quite low and still is] looking at the variety of animals present- camels, sloth bears, buffaloes, cows, elephants, etc. It was like a scene out of one of those documentaries you see on Animal Planet.

Here is a story I heard on visiting the hospital recently.


Meet Kaveri



A head peers out from above a bush of purple blooming bougainvilleas. She looks down at me from behind her long eye lashes. Meet Kaveri, the camel, who was brought to Bombay from Hyderabad to be sacrificed for Eid. Luckily for her she was rescued by the SPCA and brought to the "cattle" ward of the hospital. Kaveri as it turns out was pregnant. In February this year she gave bird to a healthy calf (not in the picture).
[link]

A heart warming story don't you think ?

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The frequency of my occasional visit to the refrigerator seems to have increased. Just a moment ago I took the 12 calculated steps to the kitchen and had the strange Pavlovian urge to lick my lips. As my outstretched hands opened the door of my frost-free my eyes grew bigger and saliva dropped from the corner of my open mouth. All this at the sight of gold.... golden mangoes. Momentarily the searing heat, the 75% humidity, the sweat, did not matter. All that mattered was the luscious explosive flavour of India's favourite summer fruit - the mango.


[Mother and son duo, arrange the seasons first set of Mangoes]

It may astonish you to know that the mango, Mangifera indica L., India's most celebrated of fruits, is a member of the family Anacardiaceae-notorious for embracing a number of highly poisonous plants. All the same the fruit that has its name, Aam, derived from the Sanskrit word meaning "of the people" lives up to its name and is truly the "aam aadmi ka phal" (forgive the pun - translates to "common man's fruit).

Be it 'Bombay Yellow' ('Bombai'), 'Malda' ('Bombay Green'), 'Pairi', Safdar Pasand','Suvarnarekha' , 'Langra', 'Rajapuri', 'Alphonso', 'Bangalora', 'Dusehri', 'Gulab Khas' , 'Fazli' ,'Safeda Luck now' and 'Banganapalli', you will find all these mango varieties in Mumbai at some time or the other during the season.


Mumbai is often the first urban stop of the mango so I decided to pay a visit to Crawford Market to welcome the first crop of mangoes this summer season has brought us .

Here are some pictures


[Fresh mangoes, fresh from Ratnagiri Maharashtra.]


[A Restaurant tempts possible customers with cold Aamras. Aamras is mango pulp usually consumed with meals]


[Sorry these are not Mangoes but Pomegranates. I'm told their great anti-oxidents and help prevent heart disease]

If you are reading this post in the States these golden beauties are coming to a grocery store near you, courtesy Mr. Bush and his Nukes for Mangoes deal.
I will take your leave now, as I make another visit to the fridge.

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An Early morning breeze creeps up the shallow saline creek, the salt coupled by the drying fish behind me adds to the smells. I'm in Versova, a beach in the Mumbai suburb of Andheri. This beach faces on the Arabian Sea and is home to population of Mumbais's fishing community. Versova in the morning makes for quiet a scene as the fishing boats arrive back from their early morning expeditions. The fish mostly shrimp, bombay duck, shark, is then unloaded and shipped off to the nearest fish market.





The "fish" in the picture is Bombay Duck. The Bombay duck (Marathi: bombil) is, despite its name, a lizardfish. It is native to the waters between Mumbai and Kutch in the Arabian Sea, and a small number are also found in the Bay of Bengal. The fish is often dried and salted before it is consumed. If freshly caught, it is sometimes eaten fried in a batter; and in its dried form, it is commonly eaten in a curry. It is also prepared as a pickle. The bones of the fish are soft and easily chewable. It's absolutely yummy I tell you. You haven't been to Mumbai if you not eaten fried bombil or bombil fry as we call it.







[CROSSPOSTED ON Mumbai Metroblogging]

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The Brahminy kite spirals downwards, descending faster into a vertical dive, till warmer pockets of air pull him up again, steadying his wings as he perches himself on a tree in an attempt to escape the torrid sun. Working men relaxed in the shady corners as the mid-afternoon sun brazed my skin brown. For many of us who do not have
to do hard work outside, and who have summer leisure time on ourhands, escaping the heat is not the goal. Luxuriating in it is. I am sure you have heard the Noel Coward refrain , "Mad dogs and English mengo out in the midday sun." I am not an Englishman but I might as well be a mad dog for I love the harsh sunlight. Therefore I had decided to forsake "steamy" Mumbai and brave a day in the dry Pune heat to
explore the old city once more.



As I have said before I tend to romanticize things from era gone by that I have never experienced and no one else may ever experience again. The central core that makes Old Pune is one such a place, a place of character lost in a myriad of peths, decaying wadas, huge banayan trees and temples. Old Pune to me is where time stops but the traffic does not, is where the people return your smiles and the
decaying wooden facades are not just gateways but time machines into an India of the past. Sadly heritage structures are the number one casualty in the growing concretization of the city. Many such remnants of the Pune's rich past are slowly disappearing.


[These are the gates of Nana Wada. Nana Wada, which was rebuilt during the British era with typical neo-Gothic arches. Only a part of the original wada remains to this day]

[Part of Nana Wada has converted in a muncipal school called the New Bharat Marathi School. The school was formed over a century ago by some rich Marathi cultural reformer]


Like Bombay's Girgaon is divided in wadis [read Khotachiwadi], Pune is dived into Peths [burrows]. The old city is divided into 18 such Peths- interestingly some of which are named after the days of the week in Marathi: Shaniwar peth, Ravivar peth, Somwar peth, Budhwar Peth - just to name a few.

This excerpt you a sense of the ethos in Old Pune.

Peths were almost self sufficient units of administration, except for the watch and ward which was under the town kotwal. Each peth had a number of wadas (mansions) of the rich and some even had surrounding walls like Rasta wada. There were weekly as well as permanent markets, gardens, orchards and a number of temples. Wells supplied water needs and there were four drinking water systems. Highly efficient, these were a system of aqueducts bringing potable water from as far away as Katraj and
Kondhwa to the heart of the city for the public and water was collected in a system of howds or tanks. The river supplied the rest of what was needed.
Some street fronts were an unbroken façade of beautiful wadas with their ornate windows and carved brackets, balconies and beams. Some of these streets had the smaller courtyard type houses with the ground floor used as shops, offices or workshops, while the owners lived on the storeys above. The scale was low, often not n more than two storeys.

The government wadas (mainly used as offices, record stores) were large and there was atleast one in each peth. There were also stables for elephants and horses and the artillery factory (Shukrawar Peth). Lanes were narrow except in some newer peths like Rasta Peth.

There were no grand vistas or procession ways. The only grand public space was the front of the Shaniwar Wada and the surroundings of Parvati Hill with its man-made lake and garden at its foot, and the complex of temples on top.

[Source : Pune, Queen of the Deccan, by Jamala Diddee]


[Children at New India Marathi School. There were a real smart bunch they were. I asked them what they wanted to be when they grow up and I got the usual answers - doctors, engineers (specfically computers), scientist etc. ]





[Street musicians at Budhwar Peth.]


[A Tailor and his jovial guest.]

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