Search Kashmir

Tinsel Workers. Kashmir-Jammu.Then-Now.

2012-01-28T12:21:00.000-08:00

"Photograph of tinsel workers in Jammu & Kashmir in India, taken by an unknown photographer in the 1890s. This image shows three seated workers with the tools of their trade. The tinsel wires are made of silver, or silver coated with gold leaf, and made into a bar in the shape of a candle, which is then forced through a series of holes on a steel plate to obtain increasingly fine-gauged lengths. Traditionally the wire was then wound onto a reel, as seen in the photograph, attached at the other end to a jantar, another steel plate, which allowed for futher refining of the gauge, and wires no thicker than a hair were obtained this way. A tola (180 grains of metal) usually produced 600 to 1,200 yards of wire."
via: British Library

The frilly things seen dangling in the above photographs are the Atah worn by Kashmiri pandit women in their ears (more often around the time of marriage festivities). These are not usually made of metal wires anymore, instead they are now made of synthetic (Sulma/Tilla) threads. And since there aren't many Atah wearing Pandit women left in valley anymore, the trade of these shiny things (along with some other shiny things like 'shiny golden' Kangri, employed for some ceremonies during marriage rites) has now moved to Jammu.

2012. Link Road. Jammu.

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Gold Diggers of Jammu

2012-01-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

Not as famous as the giant gold digging ants of our state, these guys scavenge the drains of Jammu city's Jain Bazaar for gold that inevitable finds its way into the drains while being processed in shops. The drains of Jain bazaar are leased out to various people for gold digging.

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Winter Neighbours from Kargil

2012-01-27T10:35:00.000-08:00

I like the way Jammu looks in winter. Last year, the neighbours were a couple of college kids from Drass who played cricket on the roof-top all day long. This years its the family of a stone-crusher worker from Kargil.

With her grand-daughter, Saima. She was the one who started the conversation.
'Aap ka Naam kya hai'.
That according to her grandfather is the best she can manage in urdu till now.

Believes it is right that the girls should be married young.
'If boys go 'haywire' no one asks anything, but the world stops in case of girls.'
I have no clue why he picked this subject to open talks with me but I believe he must have been talking to my father lately.

Working on a necklace of beads and a sweater for her grand-daughter

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The T.N. Madan Omnibus

2012-01-27T09:25:00.000-08:00

I read most of the essays in this book during my daily commute in Delhi Metro. On some days I did come across Pandits in transit while reading this book. Young men going to work, or returning from work, old women with their gold danglers, the dejhoors. going to relatives, or returning home. At various times while reading this book these thoughts did occur to me, these old thoughts, 'I was born in a household where relations had names like Raja Papa, Aunty Mummy, Sahba Nanu, Bairaj Nanu, Nanu, Bhabhi, Didi, Babli Didi, Nishu kay Papa and so on and so forth. What strange ways to denote relationships! Notations that hardly give any clue about the true nature of kinship. Why this encapsulation? I now know that Pandits deemed it inappropriate to call people by their true names in terms of pure kinship terminlogy. I recalled a funny discussion between my Uncle and grandmother about 'correct' time for filing finger nails. It's the Bhattil way, as I now know. The Pandit 'do and don't' prescribed and follwed by Pandits. Their way of life. Our way of life explained in a complex set of dos and mostly don't. I remember the frown of my nani occasioned by me jumping over some old ladies legs! The ye lagni karun frown. I remembered my questioning, my whys. I now realize that the self-doubt, the questioning, is also Bhattil. I now understand the meaning of 'Havelyat ti Dasdar', a term often deployed by my grandmother. I recalled that one of the most crucial events in my grandmother's life was indeed the division of a Chulah. It happened sometime in 1970s, but an event she still recalls like it happened yesterday – how after death of her mother-in-law all the women of the clan set-up their own hearths. She would often talk how the division was done, how the corners were set. I recalled my own half-hearted attempts to draw a sketch of the house in which I was born. And then in this book, I found the floor plan of a typical Pandit household, and even-though the house I was born in was in the city and the plans laid bare in this book were based on Pandit houses in rural areas, I realized all the Pandit houses were essentially designed the same way. The kitchen, the stairs, the temple room, the Wooz, the brand, the Thokur Kuth...all had a fixed probable spot in the Pandit floor plan for a house. I read the reason for the intense love a Pandit has for his physical house, and not just the concept of it. I recalled my attempts to draw my family line (I could barely get past the 4th line). In one of the essays I read the author lament about the fact that barely any of his subjects could trace his family tree beyond 3rd or 4th genertion. Lamentations, there are quite a few in this book, old laments uttered like they were a judgement on the present state of Pandit affairs, laments one still hears, laments like, 'They are an unorganized leaderless group, proud of their past, confused about their present, and uncertain of the future.'* And yet I couldn't help but read this book like it was a grand celebration of life and a celebration of man's heroic efforts to make sense of it, to make sense of his constructs and the ensuring environments.

The essays in this book are based on a pioneering field study carried out by T.N. Madan in 1957-58 in twin village hamlets of Utrassu-Umanagri (still remembered as Votaros-Brariangan by Pandits), 12 miles east of Anantnag. The essays, catalogued in this book under 'Family and Kinship: A Study of the Pandits of Rural Kashmir', were first published in 1967 and have since been re-published a number of times. Back when the writer started his studies, there were only a handful of anthropological studies of Indian communities avialable (most notably 'Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India' (1952) and 'Changing Kinship Usages in the Setting of Political and Economic Change among the Nayars of Malabar' (1952)) but with his writings and more so by his approach, Madan added new dimensions and opened new frontiers for further such studies. Given any other community, writings of this nature would have been treated as a Bible of sorts and yet Madan remains least quoted an authority on Kashmir. He remains a well known name (a cousin informed me that he is the father-in-law of Bhajan Sopori's son) but I suspect his work remains not so widely read within the community about which he wrote. His writings (and his life) ought to be the toast of the community. But, this sadly isn't the case. Why should the student's of his birth state not be encouraged to sample his writings and as an assignment try and write along similar lines on their own social set-up? I mean here is a man who in the aftermath of 1990 never waivered from objectivity, this even after witnessing his subject material dissolve at a pace perhaps never witnessed by any social scientist in the world. The Pandits of Votaros-Brariangan are now scateered in Udhampur, Jammu, Delhi and even US. The temple around which the villages were build was destroyed in 1992 in the aftermath of Babri Masjid. (The delicious irony, the village was set by a sanyasi, a renouncer). Even though his sadness at all this loss is quite visible in his later writings (in prefaces and introductions to various later editions of the book, and in his various later essays on Kashmir issue ), and even though he acknowleges the dagger of communalism digging deep into the hearts of even his own near and dear ones (his sister, who actually can claim to be the first person to have written an anthopological paper of Pandits of Kashmir, post 1990 became an 'Anti-Muslim' [read this interview from 2009]), even as he wrote about 'no hope', his own faith on hope, in people and more importantly in 'written word' never weavered. That is courage. Scholarship. Without doubt such as a man deserves respect and his writing ought to be not just respected but read and engaged with.

I completed reading this book in Jammu, just a few days away from my Mekhal ceremony and my sister's wedding. After I finished reading the book, I read out the proverbs (collected by him during his field study) given in this book, in my broken tongue, to my grand-mother, her daughter-in-laws and sons. Between them, they managed to complete almost all the proverbs before I could even get to the second word. There was much wonder and laughter. My wonder and their laughter. The reading session even drew the interest of my grandfather who is slowly loosing his memory. Later, a grand-aunt (FaFaBroWi) burnt some Izband in a Kangri while singing. 'Izband Kangiray Tiss Tiss Droy, Sharika Aayay Lol Barnay' and then they all went back to singing leelas of Parmanand and Krishna Razdan, digging into their lyrics books and memories. I write all this while warming my feet over a Kangri, wrapped in a laif, even as the afternoon winter sun in Jammu is at its magnificent best.

Tok and Bricks. Jammu. 2012.

Photographs from the book -"Utrassu-Umanagri"(1957-58)

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Initially Madan wanted to do a study of 'values' among the pundits of Kashmir but was advised against it by his mentors. But after proving a typical Kashmiri Pandit to be a householder who has little time for thoughts of renunciation, in the next set of essays cataloged under 'Non-Renunciation: Themes and Interpretation of Hindu Culture', Madan moves to values and goes on to explore the associated themes at length. The most interesting of these is the essay on 'Asceticism and Eroticism'. Here he innovatively chooses to study works of fiction to present his thesis - three works specifically: Bhagvaticharan Varma's Hindi novel Chitraleka (1933), U.R. Anantha Murthy's Kannada novel Samskara (1965), translated into English by A.K. Ramanujan, and Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar's Marathi novel Yayati (1959), rendered into Hindi by Moreshvar Tapasvi.

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Epilogue to the book offers Madan's memories of 'Growing up in a Kashmiri Hindu Household'. It was a shock to know that he too grew up on the story of 'Gagri Gagri', a sad tale of a lady mouse who lost her ear in a domestic fight over missing khichdi. It's a story I too grew up on. My grandmother still remembers it, in parts. As I asked her to sing me a line, my favorite line, in which the lady mouse has her ear blown by a Kajwot thrown by her husband, one of my aunts (Anita Didi, FaBroWi) filled in with her favorite part, where the husband tries to convince her to return back to her. The ending of the story (death of the lady mouse, as recounted by Madan) came as a surprise to Anita Didi. But then she agreed that the ending was appropriate as the heavy pleading by the husband made more sense in such a scenario. [This story is going on my 'to do someday' list. Inputs are welcome.]

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The T.N. Madan Omnibus
The Hindu Householder Family and Kinship: A Study of the Pandits of Rural Kashmir
Non-Renunciation: Themes and Interpretation of Hindu Culture
(2010, Oxford University Press. Rs. 750. flipkart link )

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*Madan was in fact describing the impact of land re-distribution on the Pandits of rural Kashmir in 1950s: “An instance of the lack of solidarity among Kashmiri Pandits may be seen in their attitude to the recent political and economic changes in the State. These changes ghave had, among other consequences, the effect of endangering the economic sovlency of the Pandits. All households that owned more than 23 acres have lost the land exceeding that limit to their tenants; the tenant's hare on agriculture produce has been raised, benefitting the Muslims more than the pandits, because not may Pandits have been tenants; and government jobs have been thrown open to the Muslims on a favoured treatment basis. In the face of the rising economic and political power pf the Muslims, it might have been expected that the Pandits would evolve a common approacch to their relations with the Muslims; but they have not. They are divided into two opinion groups; those who want to co-operate with the Muslims and work for a united village community, and those who want to seek protection from the govenment as a religious miniority. They are an unorganized leaderless group, proud of their past, confused about their present, and uncertain of the furture.”

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Dal Diving, 1954

2012-01-20T11:02:00.000-08:00

Female, Swimsuits and Swimmers. Another thing missing in contemporary images of Kashmir.

I came across this photograph in 'Guide to Kashmir', a tourist brochure published by The Tourist Traffic Branch, Ministry of Transport New Delhi, 1954.

[Complete Booklet To Be Posted, soon]

From 'Honolulu' to 'Heena'.

I believe I spotted a 'bathing boat' named Heena at the same spot, in 2008.

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Kashmir by Charles W. Bartlett

2012-01-19T11:21:00.000-08:00

English painter Charles W. Bartlett (1860-1940) visited Kashmir in 1913 as part of his 18-month world tour. Later, based on his travel sketchbooks and journals, he went on to paint some really pieces of art in Hawai.
Here is Kashmir by Charles W. Bartlett.

Dal Lake, Kashmirby Charles W. Bartlett, 1916

Village Temple, Kashmir by Charles W. Bartlett, 1919
(Above two via: hanga.com)

Kashmir Family, 1935
(via:frazerfineart.com)

Mother and Child, 1916. Perhaps the best of his work. Or perhaps one of the finest paintings on Kashmir. Or just an image of Madonna. Or an image of Kashmir. Proverbial Maej Kasheer.
(via: robynbuntin.com, do check it out for more details on this paiting)

Kashmiri men often speak of Kashmiri women as bacha parast, devotees of child. Almost a response by women, a Kashmiri proverb goes,'Halaluk ya haramuk, panani dambik nav reth', Legitimate or illegitimage, nine months of one's own womb.'

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Vintage Ladakh

2012-01-18T11:49:00.000-08:00

Photographs of Ladakh region from 'Beyond the Pir Panjal life and missionary enterprise in Kashmir' by Ernest F. Neve (1914, first published in 1912).

Zoji La Pass

Moulbe Buddha

Lamoyora Monastery

Rock art Khalatze dated 200-300 B.C.

Alchi Temple

Leh Palace view

Town view of Leh

The Dance

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A paintings of Leh from 'Travels in Ladâk, Tartary, and Kashmir' (1862) by Henry D'Oyley

Panorama Leh

Village of Hensko near Photo La Pass (thirteen thousand feet)

Village of Kardong, Lakoul

Moravion Mission House, Kardong

Buddhist Monastery Near Leh

Busqo village Ladakh

Bridge over Indus

Kerboo-Surgol

Gyam Ladakh

Pass of Bara Lacha

Suru River

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Kashmir, 1912

2012-01-17T11:49:00.000-08:00

Photographs from 'Beyond the Pir Panjal life and missionary enterprise in Kashmir' by Ernest F. Neve (1914, first published in 1912). Photographs are by Dr. Neve himself unless mentioned otherwise. The rest of the photographs are by popular photographer from Sialkot R.E. Shorter (check out his kashmir work here and here). Besides Shorter, we have G. W. Millais (Geoffrey W. Millais, son of Sir John Millais, his previously featured here and here), we have famous Biscoe, and we have new names like G.W. Possnet and two very Indian, B.D. Chadda and Shiv Nath (Vishwanath?).

Crossing the Indus on a Raft of inflated Sheepskins. [More on crossing rivers on dead skin, later]

Konsa Nag, a the foot of Brahma Peaks

Mount Tatticooti, highest peak in Pir Panjal range

Saussurea, last flower found on Pir Panjal heights

Street view Anantnag/Islamabad

Kashmiri Villagers

Peasant holding Kangri

Fair at Hazrat Bal

Mar Canal

(I think is should be Tsont-i-kul or Apple tree Canal?)

Shah-Hamadan

Previously posted here from a year 1904 book but now identified to have been shot by R.E. Shorter (which also means that the photographs posted here are actually probably a decade or so older that the stated 1912)

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Leave and Arrive

2012-01-14T12:45:00.000-08:00

Habba Kadal, 2008

'Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again.'

This blog is now definitely floating in some strange waters. A couple of weeks ago my sister went to Jim Corbett National Park with her colleagues for an 'Office Picnic. The place she works for, an IT firm based around Noida, has quite a lot Kashmiri Muslims on its payroll. In fact, the firm has a mini-branch of a sort operating from Srinagar. It was simple, they hired a Kashmiri in Delhi who good at what he did and they got him to hire some more. Because the work involves technology, the firm was just as happy having them work from Srinagar. For the Picnic these outstation employees were also invited. So at Jim Corbett my sister got to interact with some Kashimiri Muslims. Here impression of them was of the usual type: one a bright beautiful girl but head ever covered and other a decent, honest, zealous boy who asks questions like, 'So, why did you leave?'

On that infamous January night in 1990, my mother and sister were at my Massi's place in Chanpora while I was at home with my Grandmother in Chattabal.

'Your sister, who must have been 6 at the time, was quite a screamer as a kid ( in fact still is), master in the art of Baakh. When the loudspeakers from the mosques started their death songs about creating a new paradise on earth, your devil little sister, probably disapproving, or perhaps afraid or just hungry, or just for the fun if it, started crying at the top of her lungs. Your mother and I tried to console her as we were terrified that her crying was going to attract the attention of whoever was singing the hit number 'Death to Kafirs' from the mosque. After all our attempts to reason with her failed, we stuffed her mouth with Parle-G biscuits. That shut her up good and we again focused back our attention on the long-winding sermon from the mosque.The sermon stopped a few hours before dawn, it stopped just as suddenly at it had started. It was only next morning that we realized that it was all probably audio-taped sermons imported from Pakistan. No one could have stayed up that late into the night just to sit in front of a microphone and talk about killing. That why was the sermon delivered in Urdu? I asked a neighbour about happening of the night only to be greeted by silence. Not a word was spoken.'

At this point my Massi's narrative as broken by her Bahu who added:

'Yes, I too remember the night. When the sermon started, my mother shut me and my younger sister in a storeroom under a staircase.'

'Where did you used to live?'

'Jawahar Nagar. The night was same all over the city.'

I don't remember what happened that night in Chattabal. I have no recollection of it. All I remember is that just around that time we stopped sleeping in the room closer to the outer wall. We heard about people getting short in sleep, in their beds. We stopped sleeping.

Given the nature of this blog, one would expect that I have a lot of Kashmiri Muslim friends or that at least I interact a lot with them or that I interact a lot with Muslims. That definitely is not the case. As a Kid, growing up in Jammu, I did have a lot of Kashmiri Muslim 'Cricket' friends who taught me reverse swing. I had a Muslim friend in college who regaled me with stories like the one about Muslim men planning to melt all of American Gold at Fort Knox by crashing mercury filled plane into it. Given my 'Muslim Parast' concerns, one would think I must be hanging out with Muslims all the time. That definitely is not the case. In fact, I became conscious of this fact only last year when hoping to join my family for a holiday on 2nd October I reached my mother's place only to realize that she along with my sister had gone to the wedding of a U.P. Muslim friend of my sister somewhere deep in Ghaziabad. It occurred to me that even though I have read a bunch of books on Islam and Muslims, and even though my sister has read none, it was she who can now say that she has been to a Muslim wedding and not I. In fact, I am sure she doesn't even think of it as a big deal. 'You live there, We live here.' is how she simply answered the question, 'Why did you leave?'

I am writing all this after running into a Kashmiri Muslim from Baramulla last night at a Lohri 'Party' thrown by a bunch of couples from Ranchi and Kota living in Dwarka. It was a 'beganay ki shaadi may Abdullah deewana' kind of scene for me as I just knew one of the guys and that too only because we briefly worked together. On realizing that I am a Kashmiri, one of the hosts pointed to a guy in the room, a college buddy of his, and said, 'He too is a Kashmiri.' Indians are generally ignorant about complexities of 'Masla-e-Kashmir', this ignorance is often a cause of heartburn for Kashmiris but in this particular case, it somehow gave me pleasure that these simple working guys knew nothing about our history and didn't care about its complexities. To them, we both were just Kashmirirs. Just when you put people in cozy, comfortable definitions, people break out of them. And so I met a fellow Kashmiri and we started a brief conversation with the usual questions, 'So, where do you live?'

P.S. I say this blog is floating in some strange waters because the guy who asked my sister that question actually 'Likes' this blog on Facebook.
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till

2012-01-03T01:27:00.000-08:00

Till. Distributed four days after birth of a child. I recently became an Uncle. I reached my mother's place just in time to enjoy some till.

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Kangir Seasonal Ditty

2012-01-03T00:22:00.001-08:00

Manjho rav ti Tsa'ndav log Kangre,
Poh av ti hoh bariv Kangre,
Magh av ti drag Voth Kangre,
Phagun av ti zagun hyo tukh Kangre

The month of Maghar (Nov/Dec) is to look for Kangri,
Fill the fire-pot even with the rice-husk, because it is Poh (December/January)
It is the month of Magh (Jan/Feb) and the Kangri has become scarce.
Its existence becomes suspicious in the month of Phagun (February/March)

Cross these lines in 'Kashmir Hindu Sanskars (Rituals, Rites and Customs): A study' by S.N. Pandit.

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Land of the Shalimar, Video, 1931

2012-01-02T22:39:00.000-08:00

video link

100 fun things they did in downtown

2012-01-02T07:55:00.000-08:00

Shared and compiled by Arun Jalali. Watch out for Vadder Gun!

Akus Bakus
Sazza – (Hop Scot)
Tule Langun
Play “Ring”- (flying much like Frisbee)
Garam Bal ( sat Katter- 7 Nos of round Terracota plates stacked and hit by a ball)
Ball Badminton (Plywood rackets and ingeniously made shuttle corks.)
Kho kho,
Badminton with PVC ball,
Football, (with ingenious materials)
Cricket – with Bera-baal,
Hikkat, (kukkudi)
Rope skipping
Ear (kan)radio non power device
Matchbox Car that powered by rubber band
Paper rocket propelled by rubber band/ airplane made from paper
Gulel, games, (slingshot) with rodi faul ya kani faul
Chore Police (in Razdan Angun)
Single tire cycles- Sliced from truck tires /others got from scrap steel bearing rings guided with specially steel rods having U -shape at one end and a small hold on another.
Gulli Danda (lauth & lathkij)
Khira putt a Winter snow game skiing on frosted snow
Sheena jung a game with no rules
Hara with Ali Baba’s 3 tullus.- Kodiya tekh &, quin/ hesh-0/0 or up up
Lakkad Lakkad (jut jut)
Kaw - Kaw bata kavo
Cricket with Class note book (Randomly open your text book -if pg 264 opens you made 4 runs or if page 260 opens you are out)
Bow Arrow (Teer Kamman–less played)
Banta (Marbles)
Blind & Catch (catch your friends blind folded)
Chidya – ud
Slingshot with Elastic Rubber & folded paper.
Paper boat / paper jet
Crosses & dots ( 9 squares)
Paper Pin Wheels
Origami ( folding paper into a ball or a conical shape
Make Fans with folded paper.
Lottery ( paper pieces folded on a sheet )
Origami Parachute
Activity , cut glass bottle to make a tumbler or lamp shade.
Activity Make kerosene Chimney ( for lighting purposes)
Play Tencha {tinkay } (seven or nine or eleven pebbles, tossed in air)
Play “ Vish Amrit
Make shuttle cock with bird feather’s
Origami - whistle
Rubber Band Guns
Vadder Gun (made out of steel packing strips)
Listening Share–Bakra conflict stories
Water Ball and elastic rope
Helium balloons
Blow balloons from soap solution
Yo Yo with Small Rubber ball (1”) and elastic rope
Card Games 2.3.5 / sweep/ 10 Warki/ bank etc.
Aais Pais (Hide and seek)
Watani –ghur for toddlers (by A.Bambroo)
Hagur(d) (by A.Bambroo)
Thread winding ( threads & hands)
kurkatch muhul 2 friends on hinged balance (by A.Bambroo)
Thar Nanuk (Heads & Tails) ( by D Labroo)
Guttyi ( by D.Labroo)
Make weighing scales using shoe polish box cups
Make Toy hut from mud and wooden pieces.
Play Kash - throw terra cotta glazings in air over roof tops
Make origami rose with hanky
Collect kaw shup from sand/ river bed.
Tow –ve ( clapped hands girl game)
Play juph & tak with hara’s
Play tischan with hara’s ( like carom)
Samandar ( is like hop-skot).
Play “taar” throw porcelain pieces in river so as to skid on water.
Winding Button & string for a cute whistle
Making the snow man ( sheen mohinuv)
Khari patt on snow.
Consuming the chilling cold shisr ganth and its competition.
Bursting fish bladders
Bursting paper bags
Playing chak-mak the white marble game
Childhood Game -Conceal your Friends slippers and see the fun
Play cycle cycle ( 2 persons lie down on floor on opposite sides to simulate cycling by touching each other’s feet)
Atya patya (ref: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/just-this-n-that/entry/games-we-played)
Reading hindi novels from raj pocket books (murtiyo ka hangama)
Blowing thin cotton flake in air and watching how it gets airborne
Fauka doine-From a burst balloon make small (marble size) balloons by and burst them on floor.
Desi Yo-Yo made from thread bobbins (wooden bobbins)
Visiting Ramkoul temple in Maharaj Gunj
Camping for Rishi peer’s salvation day celebrations
Swimming in Jhelum Early morning bath.
Aiming for Walnuts (Razdan Angun)
Make Geometric Art using compass box. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_of_Life#Seed_of_Life))
Chotain Potain (gyur maich lala.. ho lala, aaya raja choitain potain)
Making earthen wares using guruyt maich
Balancing peacock feather streak on eye lashes
Collecting peacock feathers (more-schaal) as good omen for better grades in class
Twisting eye lids to scare someone ( tyare kadain)
Finger juggling (using thumb and first finger of both hands )
Cracking bones and holding a competition for the loudest and most consistent ones.
Kabbadi in razdan angun
Make origami cap with paper (gandhi cap)
Helping parents for mud plastering ( livuyn)
Playing music chairs using vidya-bhavan school tools.
Flying kites with long tails sometime with tik vavij attached.
Collecting match box packaging

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Panoramic view of Srinagar, 1862

2011-12-29T12:15:00.000-08:00

Came across this stunning painting in 'Travels in Ladâk, Tartary, and Kashmir' (1862) by Henry D'Oyley Torrens. The places marked in the painting (starting from left and going in clockwise direction):
1. Shankaracharya
2. The Capital city
3. Hari Parbat
4. Naseem Bagh
5. Island of Son Lank (Golden Island)
6. Island of Rop Lank (Silver Island) or Island of Chinars or Char Chinari of nowadays
7. Shalimar Bagh
8. Nishat Bagh

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Gul Gulshan Gulfam

2011-12-29T10:56:00.000-08:00

video link

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Kashmir, 1944

2011-12-28T11:25:00.000-08:00

From Louise Morgan's Flickr Collection [check out the complete collection] having photos of India taken by one Major E Brookman in 1943/4. Louise bought the collection in 1980s from an antique shop in Seven Dials, Brighton, UK for around a dollar. She now plans to visit some of these places.

'The Greengrocer'

Third Bridge - Fateh Kadal, Srinagar July 1944

Gulmarg 1944

Gulmarg, Summer 2008

Shalamar
(I am really intrigued to see that the garden used to be referred as Shalamar, a name that Kashmiris still use even though now Shalimar is in more currency)

Entrance of Shalimar Garden. Summer 2008.
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Monochrome Kashmir Canvas, 40s-50s

2011-12-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

Painting by an unnamed member of the Kashmir Progressive Artists’ Association, late 40s or early 1950s

PINK AND GREEN by Trilok Kaul, 1950

THE BOILER by P.N. Kachru, 1950

TWO FLOWERS by S.N. Butt, 1950

VILLAGE SCENE by Trilok Kaul, 1948

WINTER LANDSCAPE by S.N. Butt, 1950

Came across these colorless copies at: Indian Government's Online Photo Division
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Kashmir Yesterday, India Today 1990

2011-12-26T08:34:00.000-08:00

Photographs from the 'Kashmir' section of 15th Anniversary issue of India Today published in 1990. If there is a Kashmir 'special' issue today in any Magazine, you will probably see similar form of story telling through pictures. Photographers who first figured out the Kashmir template include Raghu Rai, Prashant Panjair and Pramod Pushkarna.

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Pandit Joseph, 1965

2011-12-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

Southern Asia Tiding, August 1965
via adventistarchives.org

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Srinagar, 1928

2011-12-26T07:20:00.000-08:00

'The Oriental Watchman and Herald of Health: A Magazine for Health Home and Happiness' January 1928.
Came across it in Adventist Archives.

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Khetchi Mawas, foodies' peace treaty with Yakshas

2011-12-24T10:20:00.000-08:00

After fifteenth day of the dark half of the month of 'Paush', Yakshas come down from mountains and roam free in the valley of Kashmir. On this day an old treaty is honored. Rice is cooked with lentils and served to the guardians spirits of Kubera on a plate with cooked radish and some pickle.

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2011-12-17T10:21:00.000-08:00

Jammu, May 2011

Kyoho Arwell Chukh Chakaan

2011-12-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

" The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions — racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war — which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action."- Wells, Hitler and the World State, Orwell.
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'Mata Hari of Kashmir': Miss Edna Bellefontaine

2011-12-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

England born Miss Edna Bellefontaine called Kashmir her home. She lived in houseboats, hiked through Himalayas (once even spent a night in a sacred high cave, which one we don't know, she even claimed to be the first white woman to ever enter the Kingdom of Nepal). Miss Edna painted all that she saw. And on some days she would put on a black wig and some native dress to do some exotic twist for the soon to depart royalty. For all that she earned a title: 'Mata Hari of Kashmir'. But with a name like that, there could be no happy ending. Or did that name come up only later, as a minor footnote to an event in history. In 1953, after a meeting with General Ayub Khan of Pakistan, she was banished from the land of Kashmir. At gun point Mata Hari was ousted from her houseboat and sent packing to Delhi with her six trunks and two dogs where for some years she was charged with planning Kashmir's sedition from India. For years she petitioned India and Pakistan to let her go back to her paradise. A fate was met with by a man who too had met the Gereral that day. But Edna was to never return. In exile she became Mrs. Edna Bailey and wrote a book called 'Externed from Paradise'. Hoping to teach Indian dancing in some college or university, in Trenton New Jersey, Mata Hari of Kashmir did the native dances for soldiers, the wealthy and women's group.

Tonawanda News . February 26, 1970
via: fultonhistory.com/

Two paintings by Miss Edna Bellefontaine

Pounding Rice, 1949

Srinagar Club under Snow
Found these paintings at: Indian Government's Online Photo Division

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Bhairav of Bagh-i-Sundar Balla Chattabal

2011-12-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

'So, the temple! Is it going to fall to the left or to the right?'

My grandfather couldn't remember the way to his house. He didn't recognize the chowk, the tang adda nor the left turn that led to the house that was once his. When we reached the house, he asked, 'Is this the place?'
His memory had probably started to disintegrate the previous summer. Memories flowing in his blood had started to clot in his cranium. In a condition like that pulling the directions to a neighbourhood temple from memory was perhaps too much to ask. Yet, we engaged in a play. Many a games like these we played. The pace at which the bus was moving, everyone had to pick a side or miss having the darshan. Everyone in the bus looked left and then right and then left. I chose right. I knew the temple was to the right. It had to be.

One the the earliest memories of Kashmir I have is of a day, not a particular day, rather sum of many such days, one of those days when my grandfather would take me to the ghat. On way to the river bank he would tell me about the weir. The weir on Jhelum was built around 1916, an engineering feat performed using British help, to maintain the water level of the river, to keep the river navigational and to keep an old river going. Back then I didn't know all this. I didn't realize rivers could die. But the sound of weir excited me. Weir had been part of Kashmiri language for decades now but when I heard the word 'Wey'r', I asked him to explain what this Wey'r thing looked like.What is a Wey'r?

'It's a big wooden structure built across a river...'

One could simply say it's a small dam like structure but as I heard and misheard and missed my grandfather's explanation, the picture that my mind chose to draw was no simple dam. My mind took: from the pair of snakes in Medical insignia of Soura hospital, one snake and comity, from the cranky old wooden electric pole in our yard, it took a slippery and wet wooden pole and an uncertainty, from the rows of those huge taps that someone put alongside a railing of an old bridge on Jhelum and then left them all open as if by mistake, to pump oxygen (not water) into a thirsty river, it took sound and breath, and from the dying moments of a black and white television screen, it took its last slow murmur of life, a single beautiful dot of blinding whiteness in the center of a finite darkness. A picture emerged, my eyes could now see the wey'r: it was an unreadable god, in the middle of a deep river a huge pole reaching for an overcast grey sky, wound around it, a giant dark serpent with inviting diamond twinkle in its eyes. Can it call out to people? Can its voice be heard? Why it looked like Skeletor's snake mountain!

'That way to the Wye'r.' I couldn't see anything. The vision faded. Or did it appear only later in a nightmare I had on a Sunday. This day must have been a Sunday.

'Aren't we going to go?'
'Maybe later. First we will go ration. Don't you want to see the houseboats.'
'Yes...'

I wanted to see it all. I wanted to run to the shore as soon as the whiff of the river reached me. But before going to the houseboat-shops, grandfather stopped. He stopped in front of a structure that looked like a storeroom. A storeroom with a locked door.

'Is the shop closed? Will we again have to come back tomorrow? What do they sell here?'

'This is our Bhairav Mandar,' my grandfather answered even as he offered the lock a head-bent namaskar.

'What's inside?'

'God.'

'Why is it locked? Can we look inside?'

As he proceeded to circumvent the structure, holding on to a corner of his kurta, I followed him with my questions.

'Which one?'
'What 'Which one'?'
'Which God?'
'Bhairav'
Is Bhairav Shankar?

He then started talking something about chappals.

'They threw chappals into the hawan kund. The government put a lock on the temple and we were barred from praying there. Just like that. The matter went to the court. We agitated. I too fought the police. I think the matter is still in the court.'

He ended that sentence with a snort. For a moment all his memories seemed lucid again. The dispute over the Bhokhatiashwar Bhairov Nath Mandir of Chattabal arose in around 1973 when a mob attacked the temple premise which had been a center of cultural and religious activities for Pandits of Chattabal. Later, Food Control department of the State government laid claim over the temple's ghat. Pandit fought back the claim with a surprising resolve. They were out of streets facing police lathicharge.The matter reached the court which locked down the temple structure till a verdict was reached. But the verdict never arrived. In 1990, the families of people who took part in temple agitation were doubly afraid for their lives. There were old scores to be settled. As their temple was already locked, temporarily, they locked their houses too. The locks remained until 1992 when, in the aftermath of Babri Masjid Demolition, Bhairav temple, like many a Pandit houses, lost its lock, lost its door, windows, roof, the walls and the stones and anything valuable or unvaluable or invaluable inside. Does it make sense? Any of it. Taking about a temple in Chattabal and a temple in Ayodhya. Love may not tie humanity, but the violence already does. Does violence offer greater intimacy? Is Chappal a God too?

My grandfather didn't take me to the weir that day. I never saw it. But I did try to find it, on my own. I was just starting to discover the place where I was born. I had started to walk out of the house alone, tracing the by-lanes, just to see where they led, to a bridge or a river, or a dead-end or a grocery, or a butcher's shop. Out for running home errands, buying eggs, butter, milk or zamdod, followed by crows and eagles, I would sometimes take a new route, take a wrong turn, just to see how far I could go before I got that lost feeling in my stomach. On these walks, one of the boundaries of my daring adventures, Lachman Rekha of my kingdom, my point of 'better-return-back-home', was a bridge from which I could see the houseboats on the ghat. Somewhere near this bridge, to the left, was a shop that sold mint candies that looked like Digene pills, only white not pink. White like those white pebbles used to emboss Gurmukhi Omkar above the door of that Sardarji in Chanpore near Massi's house. Didn't I always want to pluck those white candies out from that wall, just to confirm they were not edible? Is Chappal a God too? Did I really ask Daddy that question? How after long walks with Nani on the dry river bed of Tawi, a bed of red clay baked in summer sun, I used to bring back to her those beautiful stones. She would ask us kids to look for a Kajwot, a perfect grinding stone, and we would run back to her carrying a stone with white stripes around it, a mark like a Brahmin's yoni, a janau. 'Ye ti Shivji', she would exclaim and send a little prayer. We would pocket the god. Few minutes later we would again run back to her to confirm if we had again found a god. The river bank only had too many gods and too few Kajwots. She would again say a prayer. Our pockets were too small and the world had too many stones. We would throw the stones in the river. While we looked for a perfect Kajwot, she would often talk about Doodhganga. We used to have these walks in Kashmir too, in Chanpore, on the dry bed of a river called 'Milk Ganga'. They say in the old days a single stream of milky whiteness used to flow in the center of that muddy river. Hence the name. Where could that shop selling white mint candies be?

'There. To the right. There somewhere should be the temple. Yes, there it is. The ruins. All burnt.'
'Where?'

In the mad dash, I couldn't see a thing. Facing right, staring as a fast passing train of trees, shacks, a muddy river bank, a dry river bed, a rolling polythene bag, empty crushed plastic bottles, overhead metal of electric poles and wires, I kept shooting the camera blindly, hoping to capture something, anything. The moment passed just as it came. Did I miss it? I believed I did. I wanted to see the place were my father used to accompany his father to buy American IR-8 rice. I wanted to see the temple. The boats. I wanted to see the wye'r.

'I think it is settled.'

Grandfather exclaimed solemnly. After a brief pause he added, 'This is how things are settled.'

A sad laughter escaped deep from his throat and he went back to reading a local Urdu newspaper from Kashmir.

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