National

Up, Up The Stygian Creek

For the people of Srinagar, paradise is a far-away memory. A guided tour to the ghost of a town...

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Up, Up The Stygian Creek
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The idyllic, holiday feel of Srinagar is dead and buried in the mass graves of Idgah. Today it's a nervous town, a town under siege, with no one quite sure where or when the next round of firing will begin. Says Farooq Abdullah, former chief minister and National Conference chief: "They used to call this place the Switzerland of the East. Today it's a hell-hole. Even the meadows here are weeping."

Much before sundown, life retreats from the outdoors. Shops down shutters and streets clear up by 6 pm. As you drive through a ghost town, you see the burnt-out remains of cinema theatres torched by militants. Movies are out—militants banned this form of entertainment in 1990. There's no prohibition, but drinking has to be a hush-hush affair. There are no bars and no liquor stores. There are only a handful of hotels where you can still check in, the bigger and better known ones now accommodate army and paramilitary staff. This, ironically, keeps the owners assured of a full house though tourism has dried up.

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The town-under-siege image that hits you even as you drive in from the airport is reinforced at every step. You discover that Srin-agar is perhaps the only state capital without a single STD or fax centre. Other than the hotel, the only place you can make an outstation call from is the Central Telegraph Office, the entrance to which looks like a bunker out of World War II movies. You are frisked by AK-47-wielding guards—no bags are allowed—and you are directed to a hall full of impatient people. A journalist friend tells me many people have applied for connections to set up PCO centres, but no allotments have been made for security reasons.

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Houseboat owners on the Dal Lake are full of tales of the good old days of fun and frolic and money. It's been almost seven years since business for over 400 houseboats slumped—many of the old-timers have left their boats with caretakers and fled to Jammu, Delhi or Bombay. Those left behind eke out a miserable existence. Particularly, those who own the smaller boats. Bashir Ahmed, for example, has berthed his houseboat on one of the flood channels that leads to the lake. He lives with his family in the boat. Says he: "This boat has become a burden. I don't make a paisa out of it. I don't even have the money to pay the municipality tax for it."

Ahmed and three others now live off collecting junk and selling it in Jammu. "This is what our life has been reduced to," says one of them, Zaffar Rashid, pointing to the channel banks, where lies a huge mound of twisted metal, old furniture and the bodies of cars and jeeps and what have you.

The owners still live in their boats since they have no houses. They've been demanding alternative accommodation—their vessels are leaking and they don't have the money for repairs. These boats, some with stately names like Empress and Silver Queen and more hip ones like Pink Floyd —all lie in idle testimony to a way of life fallen by the lakeside. On the Dal itself, BSF patrol parties zip away on speedboats.

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They dare not speak openly, but those who owed their livelihood to the tourist traffic will tell you their fervent prayer is that the insurgency comes to an end. At the taxi stand near Lal Chowk, drivers talk of how business has plummeted by 75 per cent. There was a time when they were busy throughout the year. Even in the winter months, there would be a steady flow of tourists to Gulmarg. Today, the prize catch is a businessman on a visit or a journalist on the prowl. Says Mashkoor Ahmed, who has been driving a taxi here since 1974: "Earlier, we never got a moment of rest. We were able to pay off our loans. Now there are no passengers and over 100 days a year are lost in hartals."

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The very lifestyle of the Kashmiri has changed. No one stays out late. It's not owed to play outdoors. A senior professor at Kashmir University says the most committed TV viewers in the country must be the people of Srinagar. Children come home from school and settle down in front of the TV set. And though the days of lazy matinees and laid-back second shows are long gone, the latest Bollywood masala is available on video and Shah Rukh Khan is quite the rage in Srinagar. Even on bandh days, some video parlours remain open and do brisk business.

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So accustomed are Srinagarites to being indoors, particularly after dark, that a lecturer in the sociology department of Kashmir University says he found it difficult to adjust to the bright street lights in Jammu on a recent visit. Says he: "I felt strange strolling down the streets at 10 pm. Here, we are so used to living under a virtual curfew. If you step out here at 8 pm, you'll be stopped and questioned and might even end up in lock-up for the night."

The Kashmir University has none of the usual campus bustle—it's patrolled 24 hours a day by armed BSF personnel. At the main administration block, eight to 10 automatic rifle-wielding men guard the entrance. On the campus, one runs into BSF patrols so frequently that one student says they have become part of the topography.

In the post-graduate students' hostel, inmates tell you about identification parades where renegade militants come with BSF men to pick out students supposed to be close to militants. Inevitably, innocents also get picked up often. "We've learnt to live with it, but every time it happens, fear gets you," says a post-graduate student.

Ever since two persons were killed by the militants two years ago for speaking to the press, no one wishes to be photographed or quoted. The shopkeepers will let loose a litany of woes—quite vocal in their antimilitant views, but, sorry, no names. Says state Janata Dal chief Abdul Qayum: "The common man is fed up. He is fed up with the militants. He is fed up with the army. He wants to get on with his life." 

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It's no different for government officials and their families. In Tulsibaug colony, where many officials live, the bandobust is of the kind you find outside a defence establishment. You are frisked, your baggage is examined, car searched and you enter only after putting down such details as your father's name and permanent address in the log book. "It's for security reasons," says the man at the gate, apologetically.

Never for a moment do you feel secure, but the security drill follows you everywhere. It even sees you off at the airport. On the approach road, you are frisked and your baggage searched at two points. You are frisked again at the entrance. Then, again, you are asked to empty your pockets. Finally, just before you board the plane, a metal detector scours over you. "We have to be very strict here. It's not like in India," the Kashmiri securityman tells you.

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