The Kashmir Paradise

There are so many things about Kashmir that you might think you know and yet you don't. There is so much more to its culture than the terror struck residents and yet the picture that comes to mind is first of suspected terrorists and only then of the beautiful locations.

One of my friends recently visited Switzerland. She met a local who recognised she was from India and told her in their conversation that Kashmir is as beautiful as Switzerland, but Bollywood has slowly shifted to Swiss locations to avoid the turmoil and excessive security of militants in Kashmir. Now, every now and then, you would see helicopters shooting Bollywood movies in the Swiss Alps.
Well, the added security from the Militants is what keeps Kashmir terrorism free all these years. The fact is, that the land had been under constant conflict for about 12-14 years. It will take its own sweet time to develop. During our entire journey, our tempo traveller was stopped about 2-3 times a day at checkposts and our entire luggage was checked. And here, if you flunk a red light, you may not get a ticket, but you might become a suspected terrorist.

Our driver, Yasir was a fourth generation Muslim. His Great-grandfather converted to Islam. When they converted, they changed their first names, but retained their last name, Bhatt. Yasir officially worked in the Forest Department, but he worked as driver to earn more, and used some of that money to bribe officials to keep him on roll the Forest Department. We hardly met any local who was a Hindu in the Kashmir valley. Reminds me a little of the movie Khamosh Pani starring Kirron Kher.

On a separate note, why don't people understand that their convenience for a second is going to cost nature a 100 years to compensate for it. The availability of chips and bottled water has increased and so has the litter on picturesque places. People should understand that the people in Kashmir are not rag pickers, and neither is the Govt. going to follow them every where like a superman carrying a broom stick, cleaning up behind them, everytime they enjoy the beauty of a river side and throw used bottles and chips' packets there. Ask the people, and all they have to say is, this place is beautiful, but it is dirty, and then they casually swing off the used water bottle right there with the other trash, trash that has been there for years, and will be there, reminding us of the hypocrites that we are. More so, I saw people throwing empty wrappers into the Dal lake, even when they could see a dust bin installed by the Municipality of Srinagar, just meters away from them.

On a separate note again about Kashmiri men, they are so handsome. Every restaurant that we ate in, had a handsome Kashmiri waiter waiting on us, every horseman that we hired, had handsome angular features.
Some people would argue that Kashmiri women are also beauties. I cannot argue against or for it, as I didn't see a lot of women on my trip. First, as is the case with most Indian states, due to the skewed sex ratio, there were obviously lesser women on the streets. Secondly, some of them were covered in a burqa, others in a hijaab, so their beauty was not evident on the first sight. Hardly you would find a woman dressed like Sharmila in Kashmir ki Kali, flaunting her beauty. That, according to locals, is the outfit worn by brides in their weddings. 

I took special notice of a horseman who took me to Aru valley. I was on the horse back and he was guiding the horse. I got to know a lot from him. He had just completed his 12th from Pahalgam and had enrolled in Srinagar university for an undergraduate medical course spanning three years. He said that times were different when the 'hukumat' belonged to Ghulam Nabi Azad. Aru (the village), before Azad, had schools only upto 5th, and Pahalgam had schools upto 10th. With his onset, the schooling advanced upto 10th in Aru and upto 12th in Pahalgam. But since Omar Abdullah acquired the 'hukumat' the education scenario has been stagnant. There are more disturbances everywhere. 


Well, one thing to note, the official language in academics in Kashmir is Urdu, so all the locals were very well versed with Hindi, Kashmiri and even understood and could speak understandable English.


Another notable character we met was Gul Chacha. He was our local guide at Gulmarg. He was an old man with a limp. More about him later....

Goa: April'2011

Palolem beach: I was living my dream. I was sitting on the shore and waves were splashing onto me. My eyes were closed and I could feel the vast expanse of the ocean in front of me. The endless ocean, taking me into its lap and giving me.. the time of my life. Everyday when I practise yoga, I imagine that I am sitting on the sea shore and relaxing. And here I was, experiencing it in reality. I asked myself, you have this beautiful place in front of you, all waiting to be captured in your mind like a picture, why have you kept your eyes closed? I smiled and opened my eyes...

Frankfurt: 5th Mar: Last Day in Germany

Last day in Germany. Settled all the expenses. The office administrator, Renate showed us an album with with photos from India. She is 53 now, and her boyfriend went to India last year on a month long trip. He went to famous cities in North India, like Delhi, Agra, Pushkar, Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Kolkata etc. Apart from the famous monuments forts etc, the main subjects of his photos were mostly cows on the streets, destitute children, the colourful clothes of women, and the garbage dumps :). Renate was explaining each photo with awe and was asking us whether we see such garbage dumps from our homes in India as well. One photo was of a board besides Ganga, and said 'Keep our Ghats clean'. Renate was specially amused at this and she said that although the ghats were very dirty, people were taking a bath in it. She told me that in Germany they have a certain standard for the amount of germs/bacteria a water body can contain. I explained that the Ganga being a holy river, people specially like to add all sorts of offerings to its water, so it is very tough to maintain it clean.

So with all these lovely memories in mind, I prepared to take my long flight back to my wonderful country... India.

Paris!!! 4th Mar

We headed out straight to the Louvre in the morning. It was the 1st Sunday of the Month and entry was free, but the line was long. We got inside, got ourselves a map of the museum, and it was huge. 4 floors within the museum, each of them so big! We decided to cover them in order. We soon realised that if we wanted to cover everything the same day, given the the museum closes at 6 PM, we just had time to skim through everything. So we did. But even with that, we felt we were falling short of time. There were so many things forcing us to keep looking at them, but we had limited time. We saw French and Greek sculptures, Egyptian artefacts, Mesopotamium relics, Moats of castles etc. Then we reached the paintings section and after covering a long gallery of paintings, we finally reached the Mona Lisa. It stands alone on a tall wide wall, surrounded in the room by a lot of other amazing paintings. Some of them, huge, very big, as big as walls, and the walls were tall and wide. My favourites among all the paintings I saw was 'The consecration of Napoloen III'.
After this, and skimming through other things, we searched for the inverted pyramid, we found it after asking a few people, some of whom didn't know what we were talking about.

After this, we headed on to the Notre Dame. It had started drizzling again by this time. We thought even today our visit to Eiffel would be worthless due to all the clouds that surround it when it rains. Notre Dame is a very big cathedral, and I attended my first Mass, at 6PM. I was expecting it to be revelationary, but it was all in French, and I couldn't understand a word. Moreover, it was similar to the Hindu artis, with diyas and a lot of smoke.

Found an Indian restaurant again , and ate there. It had started raining very hard by now. By the time we finished dinner, it at least stopped raining, but it got really cold, with strong winds, probably the worst weather to visit Eiffel. But nevertheless, we decided to go. To our surprise we didn't find any queue there, could be because it was a Sunday and local people weren't there, could be because of the weather, but we got a direct entry into Eiffel. A lift took us to the top of the tower. There are 3 floors to the tower, the 1st, 2nd and the top. The 1st and the 2nd are aproachable by stairs. We stopped at the 2nd floor 1st. It was very windy and very cold, but the view was awesome.

Then we took the lift and went on to the top floor. The  top floor is further very higher than the 2nd floor, and so much more windier. But there is an enclosed space where you can stand and look at the view 360 degrees. It was very cold, and very windy though. There is also an upper part of the top floor which is not enclosed withing glasses, so it was rustling with the sound of the strong winds. There is also a small room which was the apartment of Mr Eiffel.

Paris!!! 3rd Mar

PARIS!!!
So we decided yesterday that we would go to Paris for the weekend. The train tickets had become expensive, but nevertheless, we took an early morning train. The subways in Paris are the oldest in the world, thus they are not as clean as the ones in Frankfurt or Delhi, and also look really old. But everything is very well connected. The metros and subways in Paris are not govt. owned. They are run and maintained by different companies. So if you wish to change metro routes, you might have to take long walks.

What Dad told me was very true. People in Paris are cold. On the other hand, Germans are very friendly. Wishing everyone on their way, in the lift, or in a restaurant. Paris is not like that. Being a cosmopolitan, it has people from all over the world living there. A major chunk of the population comes from Africa and some from Asia. Germany on the other hand has very few people.

On this first day, we visited Sacre coure, sacred heart (of jesus). This is the highest point in Paris. Beautiful church, got a hat and scarves from the street shopping places. Another thing noteworthy here was a square filled with local artists and their paintings. These were local artists selling their art for a charge over there. They were making portraits of people etc.

Had lunch in an Indian restaurant: Sarvaana bhavan. Trust me, the dosa and gulab jamun made me feel like in heaven. I gorged on them like anything. It was getting tough to walk after that.

We saw the Arc De Triumph, the India gate of Paris. We saw a Mercedez showroom with awesome mercedez cars, mercedez merchandise like caps, t-shirts, vanity cases, pens, folders, all for exhorbitant prices. This was on the most expensive street in Paris, the most expensive street in the world I suppose, the one overlooking the Arc de Triumph.

The weather was not the best to visit Paris, it had been cloudy and it had started drizzling by now. So we decided to see two of the most known places of Paris by night. We went to the Louvre museum and it looks beautiful at night. We headed on to the Eiffel to see it under the night sky. Forunately, by that time the clouds had dispersed a little. The tower looks amazing, standing with dignity amidst Paris. there is also a sparkling lights show (thats what I have been calling it) held every hour. If you were a watching the Eiffel from a distance as to be able to see its full length, it would seem like the tower, dazzling with yellow light all over, is now sparkling with stars, twinkling all over the tower's body. It looks just amazing. We didnt go on top of the tower, in the hope that tomorrow the weather would be better. There was a long, long, line anyways.
We ate at a French restaurant, where I ordered Crepes, thinking i would like them as much as i liked them in Bangalore. But as expected, the ones I ate earlier were Indianised, with Mango syrup fillings, chocolate fillings etc. Here there was just one veg Crepe, with plain cheese fillings. and it was not even sweet :(.

Frankfurt: 2-March

We are going to paris tomorrow!! Lena and Steffi helped us book the e-tickets. We are going to stay at Ankit's friend's place there in Paris. And I am not going to visit Insead. i should feel guilty perhaps thinking of the longer term, but i don't want to feel guilty.

Had lunch at Flammebelle again.

Frankfurt: 1st March

Nothing special, lunch at Vapiano again and no dinner, slept off early.

Frankfurt: The leap year day

Lunch at Vapiano! I have fallen in love with the Pastas at this place

We had a person, Alex, from the Zurich office with us today. With him, some of us went to a nice dinner place called The Urban Kitchen, whose branches can also be found in India but in a totally different avatar. I am not sure if it is the same chain, but the font style of the name was definitely the same.

We talked a lot about weddings and customs in our countries. Teased Ankit a little on him being engaged. Alex put forth a true point, which all of us know but unknowingly deny to accept. All customs in weddings tend to signify the fact that the bride's ownership is being handed over from her father to the groom. In Christians, walking down the aisle with the father is an example. In Germany, traditionally, the groom has to formally ask for the bride's hand from her father. Not that he would say no or something in today's generation, it's more of a formality now-a days, but still exists. In India, the concept of Kanyadan... same. I got to know another interesting fact as to why sea food is considered vegetarian in some countries. In Christianity, people are forbidden to to eat meat on Fridays, so they manage with sea food. Anyways, I ate veg pasta.

We experienced a 'German After Work party'. Huge dance floor, some people with glasses in their hands, and moving in the name of dancing. Had grown very stuffy inside there due to the number of ppl. It was fun dancing with Carol and Steffi and Milly. The party happens every Wednesday at a place called the Living, starts at 6PM and lasts upto midnight.

Frankfurt: 28th Feb-Tuesday

lunch with the team, ate French  Flammeküche. This is sort of a very thin crust pizza, can be classified as a 'papad' with delicious toppings. dinner mexican. Mexican tomato soup is amazing. 

Frankfurt: 27th Feb- Client meeting

Lunch with clients, then burger-american doughnut style. We rode to the place in BMW at an average speed of 100 kmph. Dinner at a turkish place. Turkish cuisine is similar to Indian, being spicy so it was a refreshing taste.

Rhinegau, Germany: 26th Feb- German rivers

Another holiday in Germany and we decide to take another train, but this time in another direction. We decide to go on a trail along the river Rhine. The Rhine river valley is famous for its vineyards, and the local farmers often offer wine tasting. After about an hour on the train, we reached a small town called Rudesheim. Anticipating a grape laden beautiful place, we stepped out of the train. Small town, not many people. We caught a path to get to the top of a hill and followed a trail. This place is supposed to have vineyards, which it did, but unfortunately, we didn't realise we were visiting it in the wrong season. All we found were empty vineyard fields with only stubs of what would be supports of grapevines. But nevertheless, being surrounded to the ends by such fields on the hills was a unique experience altogether.

It was cold already and it started drizzling soon after. All along the path, we were accompanied by the mighty river Rhine on our left. We could see a lot of carrier ferries on the river. There is no river bridge connecting the two cities located right across the river and cars are transported by these huge ferries. There was also a ruined small castle situated on a hill top besides the river.

A very pleasant experience during the trip were all the German people we met on our way. Germans are very friendly by nature and all the people we met (mostly couples on a similar hike as we were), greeted us. We also chatted with two aged couples who were on this hike for a health walk.

We reached a smaller town of Assmannshaussen. All these small towns have their names written in large letters on the top of the hill that they are situated on, just like you would expect in Hollywood. This was a very colourful small town of Germany. So colourful that it resembled a fairytale land. But it was all closed! We could see no person on the streets. After long, we saw a person and we asked him about the town being all closed. He told us that it was a Winter Sunday and everything is closed, not even a single restaurant would be open. Well this place probably had all people who owned vineyards and thus they need not work all time as we need to ;)

Germany is so loaded with awesome cars! In Frankfurt cars like Mercedes, Volkswagons, Audis, Porches, Ferraris, and BMWs are common, but even in this small town, all cars were worth admiring, cars that are a luxury in India! Admiring awesome cars was one of the best things of our stay in Germany.

Heidelberg: 25th February- The castle

Saturday. Ben (our AC) advised us a few places we could visit over the weekend and we followed his advice. This was going to be my fist time on a European train: they are cleaner and faster. So, we took a morning train to Heidelberg. All that we knew about the place was that there is a castle that we were going to visit. I guess that much was enough to get us going. It had just rained when we got there and the weather was cloudy, with everything around us washed and fresh. We walked into a tourist info centre where the lady was very jovial. She was very glad to explain everything about Heidelberg and handed us a map marking the places we would want to visit, and the buses we could take to get there and get back. Then she commented that on our way back we will cross a street which is dangerous because it has shoe shops. As expected, Ankit and I looked puzzled. She explained that ladies love shoe shopping so it is going to be dangerous for Ankit's credit card. :) She must have wanted to make a subtle joke. Probably everywhere in the world people just assume that a girl and a boy together must be a couple.

Well, anyways, we started our journey, hopped on a bus, got to the foot of the mountain on top of which stands the Heidelberg castle. The view was beautiful, the weather was awesome, it was cold, about 3-4 degrees C, mild breeze, cloudy and a little damp. The audio guide was a good addition for understanding the experience of being in an ancient European castle. It is autumn right now in Europe, so the trees were all spared of the leaves, but the terrain was beautiful. A river, Neccar, flows bisecting the town adding to the beauty. For lunch, I had Swiss cheese soup, which was kind of nice, German cheese noodles.

After the sumptuous lunch, we headed out for a trail for walking, proudly called 'philosophy walk'. I had eaten too much cheese, although I also walked a lot so it was sort of compensatory.

The highlight if the trip had been the lovely weather and the old city of Heidelberg. Getting to see an old European city for the first time can be pretty exciting, as it was for me. This was the only city that was not destroyed during World war 2.

Not being very hungry, we ate at Mc Donalds, where we had just one option for a veggie burger, but it was delicious.

Frankfurt: 24th Feb- Arrival in Germany :) 1st day...

My flight from Delhi to Frankfurt was via Bahrain. So when I landed on the Bahrain airport, the first thing I noticed was McDonalds Bahrain. We had 2.5 hours to be spent at the airport before we could get the connecting flight. We found a long bench each and slept off. It was a night flight, so slept most of the time. Ate 3 times: dinner, dinner and breakfast at 5AM EU time.

One thing that was new for me was the fact that India exports a lot of cheap labour to the Gulf region, and so these flights via the Gulf region are filled with people that give you a feeling that you are travelling in a local Haryana travels bus from Delhi to Rohtak.

We landed in Frankfurt soon after, and our phones were not working. The plan was that we would be contacted by the taxi driver. Now that this couldn't happen, we were sort of stuck at the airport for about 1.5 hours, after which we decided to take a train. Reached hotel, reached office, took lunch at a Thai joint, Germanised Thai-I didn't like it. Dinner at some restaurant on Zeil street. In the name of vegetarian, they only had fried potatoes and salad.

I noticed a few things: The Germans are very disciplined. They respect traffic lights, pedestrians cross only when it is green for pedestrians, cars stop well behind the stop line, and the best part: there is a separate track for the cyclists everywhere, lying somewhere between the road and the pavement.

And I have just one tap in my hotel room: for washing hands after answering nature's call, for washing my face and for drinking. My room is compact and nice, with all modern amenities like TV with only German channels and only EU style plug-points. Thankfully I have a converter.