Srinagar Swing: Smooth landing, and a bumpy ride into city

By Rahul Banerji

Flying into Srinagar and thereafter making an exit from the airport was not quite along expected lines, the arrangements making for a quick but slightly painlful process.

All passengers flying in have to undergo an RT-PCR test before being allowed into Srinagar. Till then, things are going swimmingly. The luggage is out an on the carousel even before us, the golf bag leading the parade.

As we file out, a long line of desks await. Hand over boarding card, submit place of stay details, phone numbers etc. Our handler if a bit of a comedian and generously hands out sanitiser when we ask.

“It’s free. When something is free, everyone is welcome,” he says with a grin. “No skin off my back,” in other words.

There have been warnings aplenty about the Covid swab but nothing quite prepares you for the real thing. Tilt your head back, and wait,

When the swab goes it, it feels like my eyeball and part of the lower brain have been stabbed. A bit like Ronnie O’Sullivan’s cue taking the opening wallop at a snooker world championship match.

Eye-watering experience, that.

Pot-holed streets

Anyway, in less then 15 minute we are out and loaded into the waiting transport. It’s the fasting month of Ramzan and early in the morning so the Srinagar streets are deserted, but in terrible condition.

Craters, pot-holes from Mars, bumpsies and whoopsies follow till we reach what is to be our base for the next few days.

Commanding officer Anjali is up to speed straight away. “Breakfast n 10 minutes and then we are out, Those who are late get less time at the table.”

Wow!

So it’s off to the famed Tulip Festival, where the blaze of colours and shapes takes the breath away. And of course, there is also a mandatory recreation of the Silsila scene at this garden with slo-mo action, fluttering duptta and all.

Brooding darkly over the colourful tulip beds and adjoining Botanical Garden is a large structure halfway up an adjoining mountain. “That’s Pari Mahal,” a helpful gardener says. “Dara Shikoh built it as a school.”

There are shades of Poe in that structure, no real menace, just a dark shadow. It’s probably the effect of a 3 am wakeup call and too much of Tolkein but is certainly is a striking presence.

When we finally get there, driven by the indefatigable Anjali, it turns out a lot more. A seven-tied garden, each level built on the one below and supported by a series of arches and menace is suddenly the last word you would think of.

The Dal Lake spreads out in a panoramic vista, the nearby golf course in an emerald presence, and the mountains ringing the valley come into sharper focus. Shikoh the scholar had an eye.

Hunger games

By now, thoughts of philosophy and bloody ends to scholarly Mughal princes are rapidly fading in the face of a more immediate demand. Hunger.

The Mughal Garden (no idea why we picked that after visiting Dara Shikoh’s school, I promise) offers us a thali, a half plate of which proves too much for three hungry Bongs to tackle.

The rishta, gushtaba, tabak-maaz and rogan josh are just what fatigued tissues have been demanding, and it’s off to the Dal Lake with renewed vim and vigour.

It’s almost day’s end and Yasir, out shikara man is late for his evening fast-breaker and prayers. Deciding to lend a hand proves to be worthwhile exercise and I have already applied to out boat guy if he needs an unpaid apprentice.

And continuing with the Tolkein theme, the shikara is propelled by a paddle with a leaf-shaped end. The kind Frodo and the surviving Walkers used to cross Anduin into Mordor on their Elvish boats.

Of golf, more next time.

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