Paradise in Kashmir - 1

I had been to Kashmir in early March for a short holiday and was really mesmerised by the beauty of Kashmir. It is truly Paradise on Earth...
There is hell lot of things to share here about Kashmir, but would try to make more room for my snaps and less for writing...
Kashmir as you all know is known at the moment for:
1. Lots and Lots of security forces.
2. Terrorism.
3. Snow capped Hills.
4. Dal Lake.
Well there was heavy secirity cover all over the place and the snow capped hills were amazing, but the thing that surprised me the most is the Dal Lake, the people and the amazingly vast human resources that is available in this state...
Me and my family had been to Srinagar, GulMarg and Pahelgaon. 3 places all different in thier own way.
Srinagar is the capital of Kashmir and is best known for Dal Lake. Wow!! what an amzing lake it is...
25 Kms in circumference and believe me it is huge...
The thing about Dal Lake are the House boats, the romantic setting and the flashback of some old film songs shot here...

The snow capped hills

In view here are some snaps that represent The Dal Lake. We have the Snow capped hills, a boat (Shikara) ride with amazing view in front, Some brid life at the Lake, Mobile department store, boatman and a few from the market place in the Dal Lake. Transport to the market place from one shop to another is by the Boat...

The stay at the House boats was truly amazing. Speactacular view right in front, luxury within and a very relazxing setting...

This is the different views in front of the our House boat...
The Dal Lake is truly an amazing place... it is soooo huge and yet the administration over there has let out only a small place for the house boats whereas the rest of the lake is protected and maintained very very clean...
It is truly a shame that people down here in Bangalore struggle to maintain one small lake (Ulsoor lake) clean for a long period of time and keep giving excuses. They should for once visit Kashmir and learn a few things...
We had been to many other places withing the Sninagar city and one place is the temple on top of the Hill overlooking the Dal lake. This is a Shiva temple and there is a huge Linga in there. The very first rays of the Sun falls on this Linga and then lights the rest of the city of Srinagar...

The view from up there is such that on one side you can see the old part of the city with the River Jhelum on that side and the Dal lake and the newer part of the city on the other side. This is the best place to have a look at the vastness of the city of Srinagar...
Of the other places in Srinagar, we had been to the place known famously for its terrorist attack a few years back namely the Lal Chowk. This place is bustling with energy and has too many secirity people, which makes the peopel feel really secure...



Truly the visit to Srinagar was amazing... I will write a bit more about that trip in the next blog... which is a trip to Gulmarg and Pahelgaon...

When the taps went dry...

This last couple of days for us and probably last 4 days for the people in bangalore has been very tough.
No water for the whole city, when did we hear that last time??? Well that is what the situation was in Bangalore the last couple of days. The taps and the tanks went dry and absolutely no water in the whole city.
There was heavy rainfall for a couple of days and it broke open some thing which was affecting the water supply, hence they(Govt department) had to shut down water supply to whole of bangalore till the breach was repaired. It got repaired by late friday evening, but per the govt statement it takes 12 hours to reach the tanks in Bangalore... Well the wait is still on.
The water has not yet returned and we are still waiting for it...
In our case, living in an area which never had any water issues for the past 25 years of staying in this locality, had to for the first time wait the whole day for the tanker to get water to our building... also had to fill up as much water as was possible as the news was that we would not have water for another day...
Even worse for us was there is a pre-marriage puja and function at our place and lots of guests are invited. But I am sure we will cope with this and remember such occasions till our memory lasts...

This time around the water supply to one whole city was cut off due to some repair work, the next time it may be due to no water available for us to use... That day may not be too far...
Ive learnt the value of water the hard way, I hope our future generations do not face it as a reality...
Save water.... it is precious as gold....