This day we had planned on going to Gulmarg but ended up deciding against it. Even though Gulmarg seemed to be beautiful, we wanted to thoroughly explore Srinagar. I believe that in wanting to explore everything at once, you might not get to explore anything beyond the surface level.
Living in a city, I never really got to learn much about nature. I love plants, but most of what I know about them, I’ve learnt from books and poetry. We decided to go to all the gardens that the city offered and take this opportunity to learn more about the flowers I have only ever heard of.
It was still quite early in the day, there were hardly any people in there. The entrance was decorated by a leafy archway, and a fallen down tree stump which was decorated with potted plants. A winding path led through the garden, with ambling fields full of flowers on one side and a lake on the other.
We roamed around the front for a while, looking at all the amazing flowers. There were peonies, sunflowers, poppies and so many more I couldn’t even begin to name. Bumblebees flew over the flower patches, happily buzzing away. The main highlight of the garden were the roses. Lots and lots of roses. When I think of rose, what came to mind was a small red flower, all closed up. The roses here were bursting in bloom, and of so many varied colours. I had never even imagined that roses had such variety. But they did, and they were all here right in front of me.
Venturing further, we came upon a quiet little nook with a gazebo. We sat there for a while and watched the squirrels and birds peck at crumbs laying on the ground. Wild daisies littered the fields. I took photos of everything, even though my hands began to get tired because I knew I would regret it if I didn’t capture every single moment of this experience.
Tired of roaming about, we headed down to a field and sat under a magnolia tree. The tree was in bloom and the sweet smell of magnolias wafted down to us. I had hardly been sitting for a minute when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see two schoolgirls holding out their phones. They wanted me to make a video for their Snapchat story, of them walking down the stairs. They were around the same age as me, and it was very amusing to see them enjoying themselves like normal schoolgirls. I talked to them for a bit. They revealed that they had bunked their classes to hang out in the park. I found it funny that even across the country, students still got up to the same hijinks.
There was still a lot left to be explored. I feel like it would have taken an entire day to explore every inch of the huge botanical garden. Unfortunately, time was one thing we didn’t have enough of.
As we walked back down the path, we noticed a lot more people had begun to mill about in the park. Outside, there were various food stalls. We tried out panipuri at one of these stalls. I liked it, it was very airy and crunchy.
We made our way to Parimahal, which was a fort. The name Parimahal made me think that it may have some sort of magical history behind it. The gardens in the fort were full of beautiful flowers of all kinds. I thought it would have been impossible, but there were even more flowers here than we had seen in the other park. There were many levels to the fort, connected by stairs.
On each level there were more and more gardens, all decorated with the most gorgeous flowers I had ever seen. Treasure flowers, phloxes, marigolds and of course, roses. I never knew that India was home to such beautiful flowers. The view was breathtaking too. Situated on the edge of the mountain, the whole valley could be seen from there.
After roaming in the gardens of Parimahal for a while, we headed down to Chashmeshahi which was right down the road. Chashmeshahi is a spring around which a garden was built by Shahjahan. An old maple tree, planted by the Mughals, stood in the centre of the garden.We roamed around the garden for a while, and then sat down in the shade to rest, watching the sights from a distance.
There was an artificial stream flowing down the middle of the garden. Following the stream, we came upon its source, which was the Chashmeshahi spring. Decorated with intricate carvings, it was quite a sight. It is believed that Pandit Nehru had this spring water transported to his office in Delhi to drink. There was a long line of people wanting to drink the spring water. We too, filled our bottles up with the ice-cold spring water. Sitting in the middle of the stream, I dipped my hand into the water, to cool off from the heat of the harsh afternoon sun. The weather really was much warmer than I thought it would be.
Outside the gates of Chashmeshahi Gardens, there were a lot of vendors selling souvenirs. We stopped by to buy some jewellery and clothes, and were surprised to find that they were much cheaper than what was available in the city. When we mentioned this to the vendors, they told us that most sellers down in the city will try their best to scam the tourists and gave us a list of reliable sellers from whom we could buy souvenirs.
Next, we headed to Hazratbal, a famous dargah. It is also a mosque, and since it was Friday, we went into the prayerhall for prayers. After it ended, my mom and I went out and waited for Papa. Ten minutes turned into an hour, was still no sign of him. We couldn’t even reach his phone. All the announcements were made in Kashmiri so we couldn’t even understand why no one except us had come out of the shrine.
A little anxious, we just strolled up and down the street. The afternoon sun kept battering down on us; it wasn’t a fun experience. It felt like we had been transported back to Mumbai. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop, but what no one tells you is that idleness also leads to needless expenditure. There was nothing to do, so we just browsed some nearby shops and ended up buying some random knick-knacks.
Then the actual prayer started and we realized that we had finished up much earlier than we were supposed to. Most people had been listening to the sermons, which were being given in Kashmiri so we had not been able to tell. As soon as the prayer ended, we went back to the shrine gates and met up with papa in front of the mosque.
Gulping down some cool drinks and snacks for lunch, we made our way to our next stop; Kashmir University.
To be continued…
Insha Faridoon