The land of eternal romance. Review on Patnitop

The mere thought of travelling to Kashmir is daunting for many. Perhaps not without reason for all that we have come to hear about the place & its somewhat less than restful environment. Infact I have met many who would want to give their life to go there (no pun intended) but stop short after the mere thought. They fear is obviously without reason - but hey think of this, more people die on the roads of delhi due to accidents that those who get killed due to gun shots in the valley ...!

A thought , is it not ?

I have travelled Kashmir more extensively than most Kashmiri's have. Name the places & I have been there. And survived a period of over a year of this eternal romance that you start after you be there for the first time.

Let me do some name dropping here - Bandipora, Kangan, Sopore, Anantnag, Kupwara, Handwara, Kargil, Shopian, Kunzer, and ofcourse, Srinagar (pronounced as 'Siri nagar'. And each of these places gives you so much to fall in love with. The natural beauty is something that has been written about enough (though nothing ever written about it could ever be enough). There is also enough and more about local craftsmanship that will leave you spell-bound (the carvings on the walnut bark is nothing short of magical). However the beauty that I saw in the eyes of the local folk was the one that left a most telling mark on my life.

There are those who have been fighting for a 'cause' (and no I am not going to debate about that in this piece - will just take it as a 'given' for the time being) and there are the others who have got caught in the middle of that fight. Its the eyes of those (the later) that tell the story. Those eyes tell you the story of fear, the story of reconciling to fate; the story of hope & in that story of hope, glipmses of their romance with their lives.

There could not be a more 'brave' people than those who I refer to; brave & beautiful. For these local folk nurture the hope of beauty & the romcance of life beneath the showerings of the fiery 'chinar' in the pink of autumn.

The beauty of Kashmir, no doubt, is also its people. Traditionally one of the most hospitable, most kind & most loving. That is what made it the mecca of tourists that swarmed every square inch of that land. Pitty, strife has taken some of that away.

But then beyond burnt houses & a shattered social fabric, in the din from far away there are today seen sparks of hope; weary eyes that have been waiting to see the land returning to its erstwhile peace & romance; are begining to see light.

And that to me is the real reason to travel there ... !