Introduction

Welcome to Wonderland

 

“It would be difficult to describe the colors, which are seen on the Kashmir mountains.”

 –SIR WALTER LAWRENCE, 1895

 

“Here, we have the most splendid amphitheater in the world.”

–AN AMERICAN TRAVELER, 1914

The road into Srinagar was dusty. Local women cloaked in crayon colors walked gracefully alongside the deep green forest. A poster of Lebanon’s famed political party leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrullah, was plastered on the side of a building. Indian Army trucks trudged by with soldiers casually seated in back. Rifles tugged at their shoulders and black boots on their feet. Not a trace of bravura in the whites of their eyes.

The driver pointed to the river.

“There, the Jhelum,” he said, wiping his tired eyes and switched on the radio to the blaring sound of Bollywood music. The Jhelum connected Pakistan to India. The river was like the desert, expansive and enticing.

Kashmir. A tiny valley with nearly 86,000 square miles. A microscopic fraction of the world’s population lives in Kashmir. Over ten million in Jammu and Kashmir reside in the state of India, which is two million more than the people in Virginia, where I live. Nearly six million Kashmiris live in the autonomous territory of Pakistan. By contrast, my childhood home in the state of Texas is twice the size of all of Kashmir. The Chinese regions of Aksai Chin and trans-Karakoram area account for 19 percent of Kashmir, or the size of Maryland,[i] disputed by India. At its highest peak is the Siachen Glacier, where Indian and Pakistani troops engage in tit-for-tat border clashes like schoolyard bullies. It is the world’s highest battlefield, fought at an altitude of 20,000 feet.

Only India and Pakistan have waged war over Kashmir.

This is the only place in the world with three capital cities. Srinagar and Jammu are the summer and winter capitals, respectively, in Indian-held Kashmir. Muzaffarabad is the capital city in Pakistan-held Kashmir.

In the summer, Indian-held Kashmir was a green candy bowl bursting with color. The smell of the place had been an aroma described only as a combination of rain, wood, and a light perfume. When I first arrived in 2008, Srinagar had felt like an amusement park. Tourists glided along Dal Lake in shikaras, small canoes, weaving their way through a floating vegetable garden and a patch of pale-pink water lilies. Children ran up and down the majestic stairs to the entrance of the Mughal garden lined with peonies and roses. Local boys swam in the lake with the sun on their backs.

In winter, royal blue snowflakes fell like ice jewels. A slow wind and frost sent tourists home. Few reporters lagged behind to tell one version of a complicated story. Different histories recorded on a single sheet of paper.

(Book excerpt courtesy of Farhana Qazi)