So it was Sunday 28 October 1990 and I woke up on Dal Lake. This had to be one of the most peaceful places on earth. Except that it wasn't, of course.
I have culled the following from a website called the Overseas Pakistani Foundation Encyclopedia of Pakistan. It is a potted history of Kashmir which seems to condense things concisely:
"The history of Kashmir can be briefly summarized. The pre-Muslim period extends to 1320. From that year to 1560 (except for an anarchic interlude between 1323 and 1338) stretches a long period of independence under Kashmiri sultanates. Their decline promoted the ascendancy of the Chaks, who were of northern ancestry, until 1586. Civil unrest under the Chaks invited Mughal intervention. Kashmir was the ornament of the Mughal empire from 1586 to 1752. Then came Afghan rule, which lasted until 1819. In the latter years of this period, Kashmir was annexed by the Sikhs of Punjab, who ravaged the land. In 1846 the British handed over Jammu and Kashmir to a Dogra freebooter through a sale deed miscalled a treaty; Dogra rule lasted till 1947. The current era has seen Kashmir as a disputed territory, a theatre of insurrection and war. Until its status decided by its own volition, the state is likely to remain a scene of strife and potential explosion."
Above is one of seven postcards I sent home from Kashmir. The houseboat second from the left called Arizona was the actual houseboat I was on. The postcards I sent described my thoughts at the time and this is what I wrote:
"I have just spent the last eight days or so in the houseboat pictured second from the left overleaf. The furnishings were sumptuous and the food was excellent. Dal lake and the surrounding Vale of Kashmir are very beautiful. The mountains are very impressive too. I wish I could say that I had really enjoyed my stay there but, all in all, I don't think I did.
Problem number one is the prevailing situation over the creation of an independent state of Kashmir. From what I could gather from chats with, inter alia, my tailor (!), the area was once "owned' by a bad Maharajah who was ousted by one Sheikh Abdullah. At the time of the partition of India and Pakistan the Kashmir question was left open but Nehru promised independence after the people proved they could live in peace and stand on their own feet.
Sheikh Abdullah raised this with Nehru and he appointed a rival (a Hindu) to govern the State who promptly had Sheikh Abdullah slammed in clink. Since then the majority Muslim population has been ruled from Delhi (effectively) in the form of various Hindu governors. The talking is over and the people have taken up arms to achieve their end.
Srinagar is occupied by troops (rumoured to be 450,000) and most nights there are exchanges of automatic weapon fire and the odd bomb blast. Only the night before last five people were killed [I was writing this on my way back to Delhi aboard the "super fast" train from Jammu].
Normally I would support this kind of thing but I am a bit ambivalent. The fact is that those pressing for independence are fundamental Muslim fanatics. Not only that but also there are (I'm told) 185 different organisations fighting the army. Most of the "freedom fighters" are aged between 14 and 18 with older men doing the recruiting and training. The night before last a woman was killed for un-Islamic behaviour and there has been a call for all women to adopt complete purdah. This practice is, in fact, more in evidence here than even in eastern Turkey. the "militants" have already managed to close all the cinemas and have made a prohibition on alcohol. They have even clamped down on the manufacture and use of Kashmiri hashish.
On the other hand, the army has been guilty of some very heavy handed reactions to "terrorist" attacks. This is guerrilla war and needless to say the army can never see their enemy. As a result they go on the rampage burning shops and houses and killing innocent people. This will only harden the militants resolve and make it easier to recruit new members.
On balance I think it is clear that Kashmiris are different from other Indians. Their lands are fertile and their tourist industry (until now) very lucrative indeed. I consider their claim made out but I wonder what sort of "freedom" they will inherit.
Problem number two was the aggressive sales techniques of the hawkers of local Kashmiri arts and crafts. The thing is you can't get away from them, they hover around your houseboat in their shikaras and then barge into your living room and ask the most ridiculous prices for their stuff (three to four times as much as prices in the shops). You begin to feel like a prisoner on your boat and your "servant" helpfully arranges trips for you etc. Only when you do manage to get off the boat on your own do you realise that you are being ripped off,. I was paying 175 rupees per night all inclusive (35 rupees = £1) which doesn't sound bad does it? The fact is I could have got a houseboat for as little as 25 rupees per night. It also transpired that when I had been told that all the banks were closed this was a bare faced lie. Those persons involved in Tourism and souvenirs in Kashmir are the lowest form of thieves around. If the muslim fanatics do win through I hope they get rid of these parasites.
Problem number three: it was very chilly indeed and despite borrowing a thick jumper and a Kashmiri "poncho' I have caught a stinking cold.
Apart from that it's OK. I did get persuaded to buy a rug - very nice it is too - wool and silk (or so I'm told) and a Moghul pattern. A snip at £85. On top of that I got two copies of my M&S shirt made which are very good indeed and only cost £3 each. I bought some wooden elephant bookends and a nice cigar box as well as a couple of pencil cases. Finally, I picked up a Kashmiri sweater. I've put the lot into a wicker basket and will post them home from Delhi.
From now on it's going to be much cheaper, my total expenditure including accommodation, two lunches, cigarettes, drinks, newspapaer, 300km on a bus and super fast First Class rail accommodation has been less than £3 over the last two days. So it's swings and roundabouts.
I'm also going to make a parcel up of all the clothes and other kit which i don't need, particularly the stupid water purifier which weighs over a kilo and takes 15 minutes to purify two mouthfuls of water. Mineral water is widely available here in India and, of course, tea is in plentiful supply.
So far, still no tummy upsets nor any other problem (save this cold). The food I eat is mostly vegetarian (but I had fresh meat in Kashmir) and has been very good. Still the same weight as when I left.
Now, don't worry about me. I know there are problems in India. the place is falling to pieces - the Government may fall this week and there is certain to be more trouble over the Babri Masjid/Ram Janmabhoomi temple affair. I am keeping on top of the news and reading the papers. I won't walk into trouble. You never hear of tourists being injured in these riots, do you? That's because they usual take place in down town areas away from the touristic areas (on the other hand a Canadian tourist traveling on her own was allegedly gang rapes by soldiers).
As usual I won't call unless I am in trouble. It costs a fortune to telephone just to say I'm OK. So - no news is good news.
On the other hand I probably will call you from Kathmandu to wish you a Happy Christmas"
So that was my assessment at the time. I never found out at the time how much of what I had been told was true. I done a bit of checking. I seem to have had a problem inserting links into this Blog but if you go to here you will find the Human Rights Watch page called Behind the Kashmir Conflict. It would seem to be a fairly reliable source and confirms that things had been hotting up for about a year before I arrived and 6 months before I got there Direct Rule had been imposed. In 1990 there had been a mass exodus of Hindus known as Pandits.
All of the stuff I have read in checking out what I had been told does tend to confirm me in my view that what was happening then and that has continued since bears a remarkable similarity to conflicts going on in Afghanistan and elsewhere. I can't fathom it really. It is a very complex political problem but the fanatical religious dimension has hijacked the original cause and I'm not getting involved.
I woke up on Sunday 28 October 1990 and sat down at the writing table in the living room on the houseboat. Yes, it had a writing table, the furnishings were, as I wrote home, sumptuous. My task was to write a letter of condolence to my "grandmother". My "grandfather" had died. I use these terms loosely because neither were really my grandparents although there was some genetic link between me and the person I refer to as my "grandfather". He was in fact my real maternal grandfather's cousin. When my grandfather and grandmother divorced he had married my grandmother. So he was my step-grandfather. My grandmother died and he had remarried meaning the lady I was writing to was a sort of step grandmother but probably no more than my step grandfather's second wife. My real grandfather had also remarried and so I once had a "real" step grandmother too. Both my real maternal grandfather and step-grandmother had died some years previously.
Anyway, I sat down to write to Toeti (Tante Oeti) about how sad I was to hear about Boempa's passing. Boempa was his nickname. He had earned it because of the way he reputedly stomped around when he was angry. When I was very young, exactly the age in the photograph in the posting of 24 October 2007 called "The Beginning" we spent summer holidays with Boempa and Toeti at their house called t'Jachthuis in the woods near Breda in southern Holland. They were great holidays. The woods were magical and the house was lovely. It had a swimming pool. Boempa owned a company that made a potato snack called Nibbits. They say the snack was accidentally invented. The company's main business had originally been processing vegetables by drying them (I suppose for use in packet soups). Apparently part of the process of cleaning the drums used to dry certain vegetables was forcing raw potatoes through them and someone had the bright idea of frying the resultant puree. Hey presto! Onion (for instance) flavoured potato puffs! But I digress. I liked Boempa very much. He used to tell my brother Robin and I bed-time stories about a character he invented called Pu-Pu straight off the top of his head. I was sorry that he had died and that I couldn't make it back for his funeral. I finished my letter and and spent the remainder of the morning warding off salesmen coming alongside the houseboat in their shikaras.
I then boarded a shikara of my own for a tour of the lake. My "chauffeur" was Rashid who seemed to be on call for whenever I might need a lift to the shore. I liked Rashid, he seemed to be a genuinely nice, ordinary man. He didn't have anything to say but there was something about the way he just got about his work. He didn't seem to be judgmental or after anything extra from me. Sitting in the Shikara and gliding over the surface of the lake was an extremely peaceful experience.
What can I say except to apologise for the fact that the picture of the houseboats I took as we went by is out of focus. It could have been because I was trying to use the longer lens or because the shikara was moving or simply because I just can't take photographs.
Likewise the picture below which might have been a great picture had it not been out of focus. The light is good and the composition pretty good. It's just not focused. You go all that way and you agonise about not taking too many "snaps' and then the ones you do take aren't up to the mark. What's worse is that you don't find out until you get home months later. How I wish that digital cameras had been invented. You can take hundreds of pictures and check out the results straight away.
The curfew at 6.00pm meant that as the sunlight faded we had to go back and be confined to the houseboat until the morning.
