Monday, November 21, 2005

Travelogue, Almora, Uttaranchal 2005



A Travelogue

Delhi to Almora, Uttaranchal, India
… The Kumaon Region { Himalayas }
Distance 328 Kms
Time Taken: 9-10 hrs by road one way.
Height Approx 5400 feet above sea level

We leave Delhi at 6:45 AM for Almora. “Josh Ju” as Mr Joshi is called by “Pahadis”” is our driver and “Indica” is the car we set off on.


The first 25 minutes are an eye opener for me, being a Delhiite myself I had never seen the city at this hour on a drive. A gorgeous red sun in the sky, freshly swept highways and a mix of modern high-rises with classical styles of temples, forts and what not. Funny, it never seemed like this when I was here!. We buy the paper at a traffic stop light and the earthquake in India & Pakistan stares us in the face. What can I say? ... this year has overtaken any number of catastrophes in past years. I am told by family that it was felt at our destination too.

We had a hectic few days in Delhi before we set off, so we did not have to try to doze off once we were in the car. In between dozing I caught glances of miles and miles of green fields of the winter crops. The drive was timing well up till Moradabad, UP, at about 130 Kms/hr, actually the speed was making me a bit nervous with trucks coming headlong at us and drivers deciding to take the lanes as a matter of will at the last split second. I decided not to look ahead!

When we woke up at about 11:30 AM we were closing on to Rampur, UP, Josh Ju informed us that the drive had slowed down considerably in UP due to roads that had gotten bad after the rains. He was surprised we had not felt it, we were pleased on the other hand. Josh Ju now thought that we might get to Almora at 7 instead of 4:30!

Rampur, hmmm!, I only associated 2 things with the place, “Rampuria”, referring to the knives made in Rampur and “Rampur Gharana” which is an important style and school for Indian Classical music. That is exactly what this little town is most famous for, other than being a busy stop for trucks & carriers transporting goods between the hills and the plains of Uttaranchal & UP. If one watches closely at the start, Rampur has these really old beautiful Mughal & Colonial styled bungalows, that have now been converted to public offices. It is also a town that saw very severe Hindu – Muslim riots during the partition. The area has since always been wrought with communal tension.

Later I gathered that Rampur has a famous museum with very ancient manuscripts & original exhibits of miniature paintings that were the property of the then Princely State of Rampur. Rampur is today a District in the Indian state of UP.


About 45 mnts from Rampur we enter the long heavily forested drive into the Kumaon region in the Himalayan state of Uttaranchal.. Interestingly the roads become smoother, the state border is lined with Utaranchal police and Kumaon Regiment army personnel to collect octroi & road taxes. Well, atleast one can see it being put to better use here than in UP!
Just before Udham Singh Nagar we stop at “Punjab Dhaba” for parathas and lassi. Stuffed for few hours, we drive into Udham Singh Nagar. This place has a bit of history, named after Udham Singh, who was the only one who ever did something about the brutal Jallianwala Bagh Massacre by killing General Dyer .

We next drive into Kathgodam after driving through Haldwani. Kathgodam is the last terminus of the North East Railways connecting Nainital with Delhi,Dehradun & Howarah. From Kathgodam, the train backs up, and anywhere into kumaon from here has to be by road.
This place is also the place for many a base camps and river rafting activity. One can tell one is in the Himalayan Region as one starts seeing densely forested hills and far away, on a clear day, some snow-capped mountains.

Winding roads start here and one passes an army base camp. The car starts winding its way up and we shut off the AC and roll down our windows, camera out, face sticking out of the window, I start shooting. The green here is absolutely fantastic, so far away from the dry summer in the plains, there is smell of pine in the air, it’s clean. River rafting has been introduced in stretches of Kaliganga and Saryu/Ramganga rivers. On Kaliganga, the average grade of the river is class III while on Saryu the average grade is class II with a few class II rapids, ideal for beginners and leisure rafters. On both stretches, the rivers and rafts flow past a landscape of terraced hills and villages. The drive to Almora from here is about 4 hrs, we are doing good time and at this rate we will reach by our previously calculated time of 4:30 PM.

The drive is so beautiful that we stop for a cup of tea. On the drive all the way up, the climb is steep and winding, an interesting temple catches our eye. There are huge idols of
Hanuman, Ravana and Ganesha, that almost seem to rise from within the mountain, quite a traffic stopper. Hanuman seems to be the most popularly worshipped God here. In some parts I suspect it is the same but called “Gollu Devta”. On many cars and vans you will see the slogan on the windshield stickers…. reading “Jaya Gollu Deva”, as opposed to the “Jaya Mata Di” that is more popular in the plains. We drive by a road that forks in 2 directions. One that steeply moves in a hairpin bend towards Nainital, and the other heads towards Almora. I have visited Nainital on many occasions, but the travelogue fever had not caught up with me by then. So.... it will have to do till my next visit.

At around 3:00pm we drive to this interesting Ashram called “Kanchi Ashram”. My father in law later explains the name to have come from the term “kaenchi” that means scissor, this Ashram is near a double “8” bend in the road that is very sharp, in local term this is referred to as the scissor bend, hence the name sticks till day. Although, it is a convenient name also for the people in the ashram (who came into the picture much later) who revere the great saint of Kanchi Math. We also drive by the little village of “Garam Paani”, the name means “Hot water”, and we take a guess that there maybe hot water springs around.

About this time we are driving through huge pine forests, and it is absolutely lovely, we drift in and out of sleep. On the way we see, huge boulders and damaged roads because of landslides due to heavy rains during the monsoons, some boulders are as big as cars! Also along the way one notices huge number of monkeys sitting by the roads. As we stopped the car for a shot, one started towards us, as if to ask us where we were off to. Pashu quickly rolled up the window and we packed up . On the way back we caught a black faced Lemur on camera.

About 2 kms from Almora, pashu points the “Bright End Corner” , famous for its beautiful sunrise and sunset views of Almora.On another day later we visited an aunt of Pashu’, who lives near about. The unusual calm and peace here is rarely felt on any other hill station offering a similar view. The Circuit house is very close to this point & is an added attraction. Nearby is the Vivekanand library in Ramkrishna Kutir. This place is dedicated to Swami Vivekanand. It was at this place Vivekanand spend few days while his stay in Himalayas. Parts of it have been converted into a rest house for travelers.

The glamour and glitter which is seen in Ranikhet & Nanital is totally absent in Almora. Almora is still a virgin hill-station and is full of scenic beauty. I would say it has a lot of tourist potential that is underdeveloped but it is never late to improve. It appears that nature has spread and blessed this place with a lot of love. In the lap of nature this region has small houses built on the slopes. Just besides the city flows the Koshi & Suyal rivers.


In the 9th century Almora was ruled by Katyur dynasty. By 16th century this place was ruled by rulers from Chandravansh. This town was established by King Balo Kalyan Chand in 1563. This place was the then capital city of Kumaon region. The forts, monuments and palaces built by the rulers of Chandravansh and Katyur dynasty are till date evidence of the splendor this place had in the past. In 1790 Almora passed into the hands of Nepali Gorkhas. The Britishers gained control of this place from Gorkhas in 1815.

Unlike most hill stations Almora wasn't an empty hillside 'discovered' by the British. It was already an established town with a long history. The Kashaya Hill on which Almora is built is mentioned in the Hindu scripture, the Skanda Purana. It is believed that the great god Vishnu dwelt here. The area has been inhabited since the earliest historical times.

Almora is situated on a hillock which is in the shape of a Horse shoe and is surrounded by dense forests of fur and pine trees. In the backdrop are the lovely snow-capped peaks of Himalayas. Almora has been able to retain the tradition and ancient culture even when other places are being influenced by modern trends. Right in the middle of the town is the Nanda Devi temple and Narsingha temple, evidence of the great faith of people in God.

I found a lot of similarity in the temple architecture here and the ones I have seen in Bhaktapur, in Nepal. They date around the same time and are believed to have been built by the same kind of people to a large extent.

We pull up into our hotel, called Shikhar Hotel. It was not fancy, but it had a great view into the valley and the rooms were large and clean, with all the basics that are required. The plus point was that it was walking distance to Pashu’s Uncle’s home which was right in the middle of the bazaar. From the hotel, in the morning we could see the Himalayas, snow capped peaks, winking back at us, behind the forested hills. I believe the ones we saw were the Nanda Devi and the Trishul Peak. Called Trishul, as in the “trident”….. locally known as Chaukhamba.
Apparently what we see is Trisuli West standing at 7035 mts.
Trishul 1-7120 mts
Trishul 2-6680 mts
Trishul 3-6315 mts
Nanda Devi 7,817 mts
Except for some peaks in Kashmir, it is the highest point in India. Hindus believe that the goddess Nanda, wife of Shiva, lives there. Nanda Kot, at an elevation of 22,538 ft (6,870 m), is said to be Nanda's “couch.” The peak was scaled in 1936 by an Anglo-American expedition.

One of the peaks we could see was flat topped and reminded me very specifically of the one I saw in my mountain flight to the Everest in Nepal called the Chamlang at 7319 mts. It is easily recognizable as the flat topped mountain. I still have not confirmed this but am researching some material on it.

" To see the greatness of a mountain, one must keep one's distance; to understand its form, one must move around it; to experience its moods, one must see it at sunrise and sunset, at noon and at midnight, in sun and in rain all other seasons. He who can see the mountain like this comes near to the life of the mountain, a life that is as intense and varied as that of a human being."
-Lama Anagrika Govinda

Here is a link where you can read more about the various peaks: http://www.ardhkumbh2004.com/en/Haridwar/Uttaranchal/TouristDestinations/FamousMountainpeaksofUttaranchal?UTCPostGUID=%7B538703F1-6C20-4C5A-B290-D0785DA83D8E%7D

In case one is interested there are numerous stories associated with the peaks in Uttaranchal. Some can be read at the link above.

There is a post office and the clock tower of interest in Almora: The post office, built in 1905, is still very British but the main clock tower opposite the tourist office, erected in 1886 by an Indian but constructed by a British engineer, shows a strange confusion of styles. My Father in law recollects… that a few days before India’s independence, and it seemed just like yesterday, he had stood there and heard the announcement of independence being made on the loudspeaker, he also tells me that in those days there were not many buildings here and that they used to read the daily news here over the speakers. He tells me that it was also here that he heard the news of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination on 30th Jan 1948 and he, alongwith a million other Indians, listened on in horror.

On our second day we woke up to a lovely vista spread out infront of us from the hotel balcony. The city of Almora was full of clouds in the shape of a tea cup, it was quite unreal , the sight. We had breakfast and headed out with family to the famous Jageshwar Temple Complex, that dates back to the 12 C. Around the same time as we saw the Pashupatinath Temples in Kathmandu, I later found huge similarities in styles of both the temples. But then This was part of Nepal at a point of time and ruled by the Gorkhas.

The drive was beautiful, lined by pine forests and quaint little mountain towns. My MIL tells us about the protected Deodar Forests. Local tale has it that these areas were marshaled by tigers to protect people from harming the Deodars. Till dates you see the huge , tall and majestic forests, untouched apparently. We continue towards the temples. All in stone the group appears out of no where almost. We buy a Puja Thali, adorned with the usual coconout and beautiful, size defying Dahlias in red !, and proceed with our offerings.

The first thing that grabs me is the cold, the floor is stone, and even in this time of the year, freezing. The temples are empty of most idols, as they now find a place in the newly erected Jageshwar museum in the little town. A trek to this is recommended. You can see some fantastic carving and archeological exhibits.
Flanked by stately deodars, Jageshwar is one of the serene spiritual destinations in the Kumaon region. Not being one of the more popular tourist destinations, it lies in repose in the beautiful Jat Ganga Valley. Believed to house one of the 12 jyotirlings of significance to the Hindus, Jageshwar is a complex of about 164 temples constructed over a period of time by the Katyur and Chand dynasties of Kumaon.
The main temple in the complex is dedicated to Bal Jageshwar, or Shiva the child. There is another one dedicated to Vriddha Jageshwar, situated on the higher slopes. The story goes that as Lord Shiva sat meditating at this spot, the village women left their household chores and other duties and walked to watch him, as if in a trance. When the men of the village came to know about the fickle behaviour of the womenfolk, they vowed to kill them and marched towards the spot. Shiva, who realised the danger he had inadvertently put these women to, immediately transformed himself into a child, thus absolving them of any misdemeanour. Since that day, Shiva is worshipped in the form of a child in this temple.
Locals believe that the temples are blessed with mystical powers and a dip in the Jat Ganga or the Brahmkund within the temple complex is said to absolve one of a hundred sins, including matricide.
At the neighbouring Mahamrityunjaya (Conqueror of Death) Temple one can perform a Mahamrityunjaya Jaap for a price. In this case, a group of 718 pundits essentially recite the Mahamritunjaya Mantra, by rotation, one lakh and one times. And this is said to have the power of warding off death!
A big draw here are the two annual fairs one during Shivratri in February and another one in Shravan, the rainy season. A dip in the waters on those occasions is of great religious significance to the Hindus.
Irrespective of whether one believes in the myths surrounding the temples of this town, a visitor to Jageshwar is bound to find the atmosphere refreshing.

Do stop by and feed the old dog if you come across him outside the temple .

By this time we were hungry and we headed to picnic in some clearing in the Deodar forests, on the way back. We hogged Puris and Aloo, and fooled around in the river flowing by. Someone very considerate had even left some detergent by the tap , so we discovered when we went to wash up before the meal. Bobpsy and I decided to try a different way back to the car, and jumped a little wall, only to find that there was no way back other than wading in the freezing stream!, so much for bright ideas! Pinky Mama and I cooled some drinks in the stream in a plastic bag, while Bobpsy took my suggestion to wade through but forgot to take off his shoes, well you figure the rest!

One can also visit the Goldevta Temple at Chitai, which is also a unique seat of justice for the locals. People actually file their complaints at a designated spot and attach photocopies of the judicial papers and beg for divine intervention and mercy. Upon redressal of their cause, most people offer a sacrifice to thank the lord. It is believed that most land disputes in the area have been peacefully resolved through this way, without having to visit the High Court in Allahabad.5


We headed back towards Almora. We stopped by At this stone age exhibit which is a natural stone formation almost as large as a ledge sticking out from one of the hills. This surprisingly is not mentioned in any guide book as yet! I later researched this area to be Lakhudiyar, which has several rock shelters. Members of our species once lived in these rock shelters. They date back to the time when there were no dates, to what is called the Stone Age. The rudimentary drawings on the stone surfaces are humankind’s earliest expressions of creativity. They have miraculously survived thousands of years!
We've come very far from those humble beginnings; there is still a long way to go. If curious visit this link http://ignca.nic.in/asp/showbig.asp?projid=rock and look for Lakhu-Udyar , District Almora.
Factfile: Lakhu-Udyar Is 16 km from Almora town. It literally means `one lakh caves'. It is noted for pre-
historic wall paintings. A hood-like rocky shelter is the chief specimen. The paintings here date back to the mesolithic-chacolithic period.

All possible information about Almora can be found at:
http://almora.nic.in/

We had reached Almora on the Dusshera Day, The festival of Dussehra is celebrated with great pomp and show all over here. Various Ramlilas are enacted depicting the story of Lord Rama's victory over the demon King Ravana. The Almora Dussehra procession is unique with huge effigies of gods, heroes and demons paraded through the streets. Effigies are made by local groups from various localities here, and are paraded through the main streets and eventually burnt at dusk. They don’t use any explosives with these effiegies anymore as there had been incidents of fire before. The entire feel of festivities were in the air as one walked to see where the main burning was to take place.

Very soon and it was so hectic but it was time to go back, after endless yap sessions with family, chai and dahi jalebis, we left Almora, surely to go back very soon.
On the way back in the car we got fantastic glimpses of the Himalyas,Pashu by this time is a bit travel sick. Funny! he is the mountain goat and he feels ill on winding roads!, I am feeling neither cold nor sick..  good for me I suppose. We stopped here and there for stuff to eat and were back in Delhi after a 9 hr drive. We slept through most of it!

Monday, October 31, 2005

What For? !! callous disregard for human life...

An injured person, medical condition not known, is carried to a hospital in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2005.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Syria Trip, Setember of 2005


In the month of September 2005, we went to Syria [ Damascus,Bosra, Palmyra & Homs ]..the country which is often refferred to as "Axis of Evil"..how wrong can you get?? Read on at this :::
link :::

T0 view just Photos of the trip, Click ::: here :::

Thursday, September 22, 2005

About Me

Its rather tough writing about oneself !What can i say?, was born in 1976 [ this is so i don't have to keep updating my years! ].Grew up in the city of New Delhi, India. Studied in this sausage factory called Delhi Public School, which boasts of a Guiness record of having the highest number of students!, Apart from elbowing for space in the classroom, it was a nice school. We did a lot of everything other than studying, which of course was a passing thing .
Between managing an identity crisis in school and family that was really supportive of a total nut case as myself, i decided to study Design.Went to National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.After 5 years of institutional beauracracy, i finally managed to land a job in Delhi.
By the time i was suffering a corporate burnout in my job, i met my to be husband and landed up in America.Thanks to him i have seen a lot of places which i don't think in my usual state of Inertia i might have otherwise aspired to!backpacking through US, Europe and now the middle east, this is where i am currently.
I work as a design consultant and and my portfolio is online www.papiadesigns.com.On and off i like to write, socialise, get positively depressed and so on.Well enough i suppose?

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Summer of 2004 - state of the united states

Guest Article by
Prajapati Sah

May to September, the summer of 2004, described as "a charged and burdened time" by Michael Ignatieff,1 was when I happened to be in the United States. To the elements Ignatieff draws on – "the D-Day commemorations, the death of a President, the daily carnage in Iraq, the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison, a July 4 just over the horizon" - to set up a contrast between “the sublime and the squalid, the decent and the desperate in American life,” .

“so overlaid upon one another that it is hard to reconcile the high rhetoric of one moment with the terrible reality of the other,” I would like to add the choric commentary provided by the Presidential election debate culminating in the Bush-Kerry elocution contests in October. If the events described by Ignatieff presented the sublime and the squalid aspects of American life, the debates provided the comic or the absurd element whose significance as a component of the theatre of American life in the summer of ’04 lies particularly in the fact that the Americans are totally incapable of seeing the absurdity so apparent to an outside observer. In a way, by cutting itself off from the frame of reference by which most of the world today sees it, the US imprisons itself in a shell of irrationality which would be a source of ironic amusement, only if its extraordinary military capability did not pose such a serious threat to the whole world.

As of now, more than twelve hundred US soldiers and over a hundred British ones have been killed in Iraq. Correct estimates of the number of Iraqis killed are not available, since no one is counting (not even the interim Iraqi government), but a pre-Falluja report puts the figure at over 100,000: about 100 Iraqis for every American soldier killed (See Times of India report 30.10 04). Most of the Iraqis killed, according to this American-sourced report, have been women and children. In addition, thousands have been wounded or maimed for life; hundreds of others have been taken prisoner and subjected to degrading treatment; thousands of houses have been destroyed; normal life has been disrupted and life has been reduced to a struggle for basic necessities. There is no question of building careers or promoting social and cultural activities. All this has happened because America decided, in defiance of the UN and world opinion, to attack Iraq on the mere suspicion of being involved in the terrorist attack on the WTC in September 2002 and of possessing weapons of mass destruction. When neither of these suspicions could be proved despite hard and prolonged efforts by its own intelligence agencies, other post facto justifications were invented and are now being proferred on a daily basis.

Does any of this bother the American conscience? It might bother Ignatieff, a few other intellectuals, and some liberals of the film world like Michael Moore, but neither the politicians (of any shade), nor, judging by the fare offered to them by the both the presidential candidates, the average American audiences, seem to find anything wrong in killing over100,000 people, ordinary, innocent men, women, children included, on mere suspicion; or in invading a country first, destroying property and lives, and then starting a search for a reason for doing so. Neither presidential candidate thought the invasion was wrong; neither candidate ever mentioned the Iraqi casualties or the destruction of Iraqi property, neither candidate ever raised the moral question involved in such irresponsible and reckless use of force, or in killing on mere suspicion, or in making their own security the justification for sweepingly destructive pre-emptive action. Yet, both candidates talked tirelessly of how religious and moral-minded they were, how much they valued life and personal freedom, how much they believed in God and compassion, and in doing the right thing. Could one go on listening to such pious talk on the one hand, and watch the images of the rape of Iraq on television everyday, and not wonder what stuff the Americans were made of, what made them behave the way they did, and what could make them so oblivious to the farcical comedy of the presidential debates?

On the surface, it looks that Americans are busy doing a lot of self-examination and analysis. Books are regularly published, special issues of magazines are brought out, there are extensive debates and discussions in the media, but like the presidential debates, most (though certainly not all)of these are predicated on the assumption that whatever America has done or is doing is basically right in the sense that the goals pursued are essentially the correct ones and the debate is only about the effectiveness of the methods used to achieve them; even the morality of the methods used is generally not questioned.. The kind of misdeeds that worry Ignatieff are held to be aberrations and confidence is expressed that the self-correcting American system is capable of taking care of them. The appropriateness of the goals themselves is never held in question. There is a smugness about all such self-evaluations which arises from an unshakeable belief that the specific combination of traits that historical accident has endowed them with has produced in the Americans a unique, unprecedentedly gifted and inventive community of people, almost a morally and intellectually superior race. As proof, they cite the present state of the United States – a nation the like of which history has never seen, the most powerful, the most wealthy, the most free, the most creative, the most knowledgeable in the entire history of civilization.

Let’s take as a sample the special Independence Day issue of US News and World Report. It has the main theme Defining America. The whole issue radiates the belief that today’s America has realized the dream of “a unique destiny” that inspired the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop. Ronald Reagan, at his inauguration, used Winthrop’s words to describe America as “a shining city on a hill” and “the hope of the world.” George Bush Jr. has repeatedly reasserted Winthrop’s belief that God has chosen America to establish freedom and democracy in the world. Bush has on occasion expressed the belief, like Winthrop, that he has God’s special commission to save the world. His supporters see him as a Christian crusader fighting evil.2 It therefore does not come as a surprise that when Bush is faced by another set of people who also consider themselves to be God’s chosen ones, the Islamic Jihadists, the battle for supremacy is fierce and unforgiving. Religion, the lack of which both Bush and his Jihadist opponents berate in their liberal and/or secular critics, is thus at the root of this 21st century Armageddon just as it was during the Crusades.

Lest this sound an exaggeration, at least in the context of modern-day America, let me mention that one of characteristics that the US News special issue attributes to modern-day Americans is ‘religiosity.’ It claims that even today, as in 1782 when Benjamin Franklin said it, one could live to a ripe old age in America without ever meeting an atheist or infidel. It quotes statistics which show that 90% of Americans believe in God while 60% of them say that religion is ‘very important’ in their lives (as against, for example, 10% in France). Even the supposedly secular and neutral elements of the American public life, like the Supreme Court, are hesitant to be seen as opposing religion or staying neutral against Christianity. That may have been the reason why, in June, the judges rejected a petition which sought to remove the words ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance (which every schoolboy in America has to repeat every school morning) but did so on the technical ground that the petitioner had no locus standi in the case. The public impression was that the court wriggled out of a ‘tricky’ decision, which would have aligned it against religion. What most Americans would have liked the Supreme Court to do was to take a substantive decision which would, as Daily News put it, “not only acknowledge the nation’s religious heritage, it could also have shut down once and for all the movement by crusading secularists.” The American constitution, through the First Amendment, grants every citizen the right to practice his or her own religion and prohibits the Congress from making any laws “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But, as Frank Lambert points out in his book The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America (Princeton University Press 2003) “the nation’s religious heritage” includes a strong belief that the Founding Fathers intended to create an explicitly Christian state in America. Actually, Lambert distinguishes two sets of spiritual fathers for America: first, the Puritans of New England, whom he calls the Planting Fathers, who practiced Congregationalism, raised religious taxes and compelled their magistrates to govern according to the Word of God, and, second, nearly 150 years later, the Founding Fathers who made the American constitution. It was the influx of a large number of immigrants belonging to other religions that in later years gave the secularists an edge, but the Christian element has always kept reasserting itself, most significantly during the two presidencies of Eisenhower (1952-60) when Congress opened a Prayer Room in the Capitol, made “In God We Trust” the official national motto, and added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. That in today’s US army there are elements that strongly believe the war against terrorism to be a version of the Crusades, was brought home to those who didn’t suspect it in August when it was revealed that a senior military intelligence officer, Lt. General William Boykin, Deputy Secretary of Defence for Intelligence, had gone round the country speaking at church and other religious gatherings, in his military uniform, declaring that Islamic extremists hated the US “because we are a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian” and that “the enemy is a guy named Satan.” He also declared that God himself had put George Bush Jr. in office.3 On an earlier occasion, in Somalia, the same general, talking about a local Muslim warlord, had told an audience: “I knew my God was a real God and his was an idol.” (Apparently, the General was ignorant of the fact that Muslims do not worship idols.) An inquiry into the affair also revealed that the General had asked military lawyers in advance about the propriety of making such speeches and was not advised against it. The report did not mention if there was any action against the General, but said that the General had apologized when the matter became public.

However, the so-called religiosity alone does not account for the crusading zeal of Bush and his camp followers. In fact, one could argue, as many non-secularist Americans do, that religiosity is what leads to compassion and love including for those “who are against us,” and instances of Christian love and forgiveness winning over enemies can always be found. It is the other element of religiosity, which lays claim to exclusiveness, the quality of being the chosen ones of God, which makes the combination a deadly one.

There are of course different senses in which this ‘exceptionalism’ is understood in America. The idea itself was mooted first not by an American but by a French traveller and historian, Alex de Tocqueville, in the 1830s. Described as “perhaps the most perceptive observer of the American character,” Tocqueville described American character as a thing wholly new and “unknown in the old aristocratic societies.” Some intellectuals, American as well as non-American, have tried to fill in the details and show what this uniqueness consists in. Walt Whitman believed that the “genius” and the “pride” of America lay “not in its executives and its legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors … but always most in the common people,” “the breed of full-sized men or one full-sized man unconquerable and simple.”4 G.K.Chesterton believed the uniqueness lay in the fact that America was “the only nation in the world founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.” Recently, Seymour Martin Lipset5 has amplified this idea:

Other countries’ senses of themselves are derived from a common history. Winston Churchill once gave vivid evidence to the difference between a national identity rooted in history and one defined by ideology in objecting to a proposal in 1940 to outlaw the anti-war Communist Party. In a speech in the House of Commons, Churchill said that as far as he knew, the Communist Party was composed of Englishmen and he did not fear an Englishman. In Europe, nationality is related to community, and thus one cannot become un-English or un-Swedish. Being an American, however, is an ideological commitment. It is not a matter of birth. Those who reject American values are un-American. (Chapter 1)

Lipset goes on to identify five essential elements of this ideology, which he calls Americanism . They are: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and laissez faire. Those who do not believe in these ideas have no place in America. In other words, as in former Soviet Union or other totalitarian countries, the nation allows for only one ideology. The only difference is that the concentration camps to which America expels its renegades are psychological and not physical ones.

This of course is not a small difference. Those renegades who do not mind living in psychological ghettoes can cry themselves hoarse lambasting America and the Americans and find themselves physically and materially not much worse for it. The days of McCarthy and the Rosenbergs 6are gratefully over. But this phenomenon does not encourage one in the thought that at least some of that lambasting may produce results and bring about some softening in the hard-as-nails Americanist attitudes. Their unprecedented economic and intellectual success has so firmly persuaded Americanist Americans of the absolute superiority of their values and beliefs that they are no longer open to any kind or degree of persuasion. It is not that they are not aware of the shortcomings of their system, but they look upon them with a tolerant and indulgent eye as the necessary and irremediable concomitants of extraordinary success. In calling American exceptionalism “a double-edged sword,” this is what Lipset means. He draws attention to a number of negative traits of American society “such as violent crime, incarceration, drug abuse, and family breakdown,” or the indifference towards the processes of democracy like the elections, but goes on to attribute them to the Americans’ strong spirit of equality and liberty, which prevents them from interfering with individual freedom and makes social norms and bonds weak. The lack of interest in elections is attributed to the strong anti-state tradition: in their view, the state should have such a small role in the life of the nation that no matter which party forms the government, it should make no, or completely negligible, difference to the life of the people. The economic and civil life of the people should be a completely private affair to be shaped by private individuals, or their voluntary organizations, but with no interference from the state.

The attitudes displayed by the American administration, mainstream media, the church and people in general towards the damaging revelations of severe prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison, which exploded in the papers in the summer of ’04, are pretty well illustrative of the Americanist attitudes shaped by their exceptionalist beliefs. The administration’s reaction at first, reflected in several statements by George Bush himself, was to dismiss the whole thing as the peccadilloes of a few misguided individuals, which in no way compromised the noble traditions of the US army, but as the matter snowballed, logical quibbling about the definitions of ‘torture’ and Presidential privilege began. The President was advised, in Ignatieff’s words, that “infliction of pain or suffering per se, whether it is physical or mental, is insufficient to amount to torture;” and also that “inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign rendered the US obligations under the Torture Convention inapplicable to interrogation conducted pursuant to his orders.” The exceptionalist mode of the statements becomes obvious if it is pointed out that if similar interpretations were to be applied to President Saddam Hussein, they would make him immune to any charges of torture and murder.7

The US army still continued to claim that it could not be judged by the behaviour, in Ignatieff’s words, of “a few rotten apples in an otherwise sweet American bushel basket.” As matters progressed, however, it became clear not only that superior officers were aware of the goings-on but that the soldiers’ actions had their implicit sanction. When such things are discovered, the US army always makes a great show of bringing the perpetrators of the heinous crimes to justice. They are tried and punishment is handed out with great flourish. Eventually exceptionalism and exemptionalism prevail, Torture Conventions and international treaties are disregarded, national duty and the divine mission are invoked and the perpetrators are set free. The world cannot forget that the master mind of My Lai, Lieutenant William Calley, who was sentenced to life in prison, spent less than three years in jail.

In fact, so deep-rooted are Americans into exceptionalist thinking that even those commentators who unreservedly condemned the soldiers’ behaviour at Abu Ghraib did so because it compromised that exceptionalism. Ignatieff, who thought that, “at Abu Ghraib, America paid the price for American exceptionalism, the idea that America is too noble, too special, too great to actually obey international treaties,” for example, suggests that a lesser country may not have needed to “lose its nerve” over what has happened at Abu Ghraib, but America must (yes, must, not did). America must, “because no other democracy is so exposed by these painful moral juxtapositions.” The implication is that only in America are these instances of disgraceful behaviour juxtaposed with instances of highly noble behaviour. Other nations being completely deficient in the latter, the question of juxtaposition does not arise at all. Further, America must, “because no other nation has made a civil religion of its self-belief.” The relevance of this point is further explained: “The abolition of cruel and unusual punishment was a founding premise of that civil religion. This was how the fledgling republic distinguished itself from the cruel tyrannies of Europe. From this sense of exceptionalism grew an exceptional sense of mission.” It is therefore, argues Ignatieff, that America must worry about what happened at Abu Ghraib. He seems to forget that “this exceptional sense of mission” never stood in the way of exterminating almost the entire population of native American-Indians in their own country; nor did “the fledgling nation” feel much contrition at issuing “cruel and unusual punishment” to the black slaves. “Old Europe” has outlived its “cruel tyrannies” of the past, but My Lai and Abu Ghraib are modern America. America has not apologized for any of these atrocities. If, despite claiming noble ideals and sentiments and professing exemplary concern for human rights, a sizable proportion of Americans are untouched by the murder of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children; if Americans can let their Secretary of State (Madeleine Albright, by the way a Democrat who also laments the loss of moral high ground during the Bush regime) get away with her statement that the death by disease and malnutrition of a hundred thousand Afghan children as a result of American sanctions is “an acceptable cost” of America’s Afghanistan policy, then is it any surprise that so many Americans consider torture and physical abuse acceptable in dealing with suspects?8 Americans will hang other nations for doing far, far less: for example, stop carpet imports from India because at some stage in their manufacture child-labour was involved. Obviously, the standards that Americans apply to themselves are different, because they are exceptional. Because they are exceptional, Americans do not apologize; because they are superior, they do not care what the world thinks of them. When, during the Philippines War (1899-1901), General Jacob H. Smith ordered every Filipino over the age of 10 killed and the country reduced to “ a howling wilderness,” leading to the killing of 200,000 of them, the government’s effort was at first to suppress the news. When the atrocities were finally reported, Mark Twain wrote: “We have debauched America’s honour and blackened her face before the world.” Most Americans no longer feel such compunctions; those of them who do boast of their compunctions and hold them up condescendingly, displaying them as proofs of their moral superiority.

It is indeed nothing short of amazing that no matter what extremes of immoral and inhuman behaviour Americans reveal, they still like to think of themselves as a highly moral society, never very far removed from their Puritan roots. You can see the ordinary Americans getting very upset about very minute infringements of the moral code. The Sunday Magazine of The New York Times regularly carries a column entitled “The Ethicist,” a specialized term the Americans have invented to distinguish their moral philosophers from the run-of-the-mill “moralists” of the Old World. In the pages of this column, at the time when their kids were subjecting Iraqi prisoners to indescribable humiliations at Abu Ghraib, American citizens at home were conscience-stricken about such morally profound issues like the following:

• One woman wants to know if her son is ethically justified in refusing to pay up his share of the money spent on a dinner of five friends till each one of them pays up. The bill had been paid by one of the five, who had exempted two of them from payment because they were not in a position to pay. However, he had offered to pay their share himself without asking the remaining two to share it!
• An African-American male applied for a job. His first name gave away his ethnicity and he got few job offers. Sensing this, he suppressed his first name in later applications and used his second name only. He received more offers and eventually a job. He made no other change in the résumé. Was he justified in hiding his ethnicity?
• A woman helps out at a junior high school bar once a month. One evening, she found a 1953 Franklin half-dollar in the cashbox, an old coin whose value was
$ 4. She replaced it by two quarters. Was it ethical? The child who gave the half-dollar received only half-dollar worth of snacks and the school too received only half a dollar.

In May 1964, President Lyndon Johnson delivered a speech at the University of Michigan commencement in which he set out his vision of “the Great Society” which America was going to be. He believed that America had solved the fundamental problem of material abundance: growth and prosperity were now guaranteed. His government would now address the issues of education, environment, beauty, culture and ethics. His Great Society would be a place where “the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce, but the desire for beauty and hunger for community.” In that future Great Society, people could “renew contact with nature”: they would be more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.” Reading “The Ethicist,” one has the impression that America has achieved that Great Society: the American citizen is now only concerned with the moral and aesthetic quality of his existence. They have leisure which they spend, like Romans at the height of the Roman Empire, in quibbling about ethical and aesthetic issues. And all this becomes possible because they choose to remain blissfully unconcerned with facts: uncomfortable facts like the one about Philippines mentioned above; or the one about the air-raids on North Vietnam which, according to Secretary McNamara himself, were killing or seriously injuring 1,000 non-combatants a week in early 1965; or the fact that, in 1968, a unit of the US army, under the command of Lieutenant William Calley, entered the hamlet of My Lai and massacred 400 hundred innocent villagers in “a fierce outburst of savagery” (One American reaction to this ‘fact’ is quoted in Irwin Unger’s book Recent America: The United States Since 1945 (Prentice Hall, 2002): “It didn’t happen, and besides, they deserved it.”); or the fact that almost exactly at the same time that the correspondents of The New York Times were worrying about the Franklin dollar and the ethnic first name, American soldiers in Iraq were setting “guard dogs at the genitals and legs of cowering naked prisoners,” forcing “shackled, hooded prisoners to masturbate or simulate oral sex with one another” (Susan Sontag: “Regarding the Torture of Others,” The New York Times Magazine, May 23, 2004).

It was inevitable that this kind of ethicist hair-splitting should be carried over into the field of US international policy and respectable academicians and philosophers like Ignatieff himself should jump into the fray trying to defend the indefensible. The summer of ’04 also saw the publication of Ignatieff’s book The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (Princeton University Press) in which he justifies almost every evil action that the Bush government has been guilty of in its so-called war on terror: pre-emptive war (i.e. aggression), targeted assassinations, coercive interrogations, indefinite imprisonment of suspects without trial, and so on.
All these actions, according to Ignatieff, represent “the lesser evil,” as compared to what would happen if the government did not resort to them in the war against terror. What would happen, in Ronald Steel’s summary of the argument (in his review of the book in The New York Times Book Review, July 25, 2004), is that
“terrorists could get hold of nuclear weapons and set them off in American cities. In the wake of the devastation the American public would demand that the government protect them at all costs. Constitutional restraints would go out the window. The United States would degenerate into a police state ruled by fear and suspicion. … To combat this threat we must now begin a draconian war against terror that embraces measures normally repugnant to our values and legal processes.”

Obviously, Ignatieff’s concern for “constitutional restraints” extends only so far as they ensure the rights of American citizens: the US should not be allowed to degenerate into “a police state ruled by fear and suspicion.” To ensure these rights, extraordinary draconian measures should be taken against other countries suspected to be behind terrorist attacks. For the citizens of those countries, even basic human rights like the right to life and the protection of law are not considered necessary, let alone constitutional niceties like the freedom to choose their way of life, freedom of expression, etc. The denial of such rights to the supposedly enemy nations is after all “the lesser evil,” the greater evil being the destruction of US life and property in a terrorist attack. The United States is perfectly within its rights to keep its self-interest above everything else, but then by what rights can it deny this privilege to other countries? If the US is justified in treating the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers and the killing of 3000 US citizens and the destruction of its property as a terrorist attack on its territory which has to be avenged by indiscriminate bombing of any country the US decides to suspect; if, without caring even for the meaning of the word, massive “retaliation” is to be let loose on men, women and children who happen to share the religion or nationality of the attackers, what kind of retaliation, how many 9/11s, would “the Ethicist” consider adequate for the country which was responsible for the Philippines, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, North Korea and Vietnam, not to mention various others? Obviously, it is not ethics that is involved here, but brute force.

But that would put the American ethicist out of business. Hence Ignatieff has to go on. After all, there are still compunctions to be felt, and seen to be felt. Therefore, they must be translated into moral terms. The way to do it, Ignatieff tells us, is to use the draconian measures but never to lose sight of their “morally problematic character.” In other words, as Ronald Steel’s metaphor so beautifully captures it, beat the hell out of the fellow but keep repeating “It hurts me more than it hurts you.” “Does an evil act become lesser simply because it is problematic?... Does suffering a twinge of bad conscience justify what we do in a righteous cause?” asks Steel.

Specially when, we should add, the strong one also decides not only what is righteous and what is not, but also when it’s righteous. America long ago decided that democracy, which it considers synonymous with freedom, is good for it and therefore for every other country. It may well be, but why not leave the countries to discover it for themselves, so that when they do actually find it, it endures? As a seemingly reformed Madeleine Albright (in opposition) now says: Isn’t “imposing democracy” a contradiction in terms? The complete disregard of such an obvious truth makes one suspect that the real motivation behind American imperialism is not the spread of freedom and democracy but what the President of Princeton University said in 1901 defending America’s annexation of the Philippines after killing 200,000 Filipinos:

“The East is to be opened and transformed whether we will it or not; the standards of the West are to be imposed upon it; nations and peoples who have stood still the centuries through are to be quickened and to be made part of the universal world of commerce and of ideas.”

Such thinking was already an American tradition. In 1846, when the US was about to attack Mexico, Americans thought, as they did again during the “liberation” of Iraq, that Mexicans would be chanting, in the words of a New York poet, “The Saxons are coming, our freedom is nigh.” One after another, American presidents were persuaded that they had this special mission to liberate the whole world till President Wilson, in April 1914, declared that “every nation of the world needs to be drawn into the tutelage of America” and sent his troops into Mexico to suppress the Mexican revolution, only to be greeted by Mexican children chanting “Death to the Gringos.” By 1918, the time of the Russian Revolution, Wilson had learned his lesson, but the presidents who followed learnt nothing from him (See John Judis :The Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush could learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Scribner,August 2004).

The Summer of ’04 seemed to be a particularly congenial time for American historians and philosophers to provide intellectual and moral justification to their imperialist-minded Presidents. Those who had long thought America to be on the side of the oppressed and colonized people of the world would be not a little surprised to read, in a discussion between two eminent professors, of history and political science respectively, that the notion of empire is “as American as apple pie” (See The New York Times Book Review, July 25: “Does the US have an Empire?” A Discussion between John Lewis Gaddis and Robert A. Lovett). However, the discussion implies that while other empires were bad, the American empire is good. “…it seems to me on balance,” says one of the discussants, “American imperial power in the 20th century has been a remarkable force for good, for democracy, for prosperity. (That is because) for most of its history the United States (has managed) to be imperial without being imperious.” For those of us who thought we were living in a post-imperial, post-colonial age, it is also instructive to read, in the same issue of the NYT Book Review, Gaddis’s review of a book by Niall Ferguson entitled Colossus, to whom is also attributed another previous book entitled Empire. Ferguson is a young, extraordinarily brilliant and prolific professor, who has just moved from Oxford to Harvard. He goes a step beyond Gaddis and Lovett and claims that empires are highly desirable things: they have as often been a force for progress as a source of oppression. In fact, he says, empires are a time-tested method of imposing order and securing justice. “What is required,” he writes, “is an agency capable of intervening …to contain epidemics, depose tyrants, end local wars and eradicate terrorist organizations.” The UN has long since demonstrated its ability to perform this task. That leaves only the US together with such “Coalition of the Willing” as it can assemble.

If this sounds like an “embedded” academician to you, “you ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” Ferguson believes that only the United States has the power to run a world-wide empire today, but he regrets that the US has proved itself “surprisingly inept” at this job. As a result, American interventions abroad are “often short-lived and their results ephemeral.” Reason: Americans lack “the imperial cast of mind.” (i.e. they are not imperious enough). They fail to train their youth to manage their empire. They resist annexation, preferring “that foreigners … Americanize themselves without the need for formal rule.” Reason for this? Americans “crave for themselves protracted old age and dread, even for other Americans … untimely death in battle.”

The reviewer, Gaddis, who has been nodding approvingly up to this point, finds these accusations too much to bear. Why should annexation be necessary, he roars. Didn’t the British Empire often operate without formally controlling territory? And what is this about Americans being afraid to die? Didn’t American slaughter each other merrily in their own civil war? Didn’t thousands of American die in the Philippines, North Korea and Vietnam? Aren’t they now dying happily in Iraq?

Ferguson of course seems to think that not enough Americans have died yet. And of course far, far fewer of the foreigners than should have been killed in the course of the American war for freedom and democracy. It is bad enough, Ferguson seems to be saying, that the erstwhile imperialist powers of Europe have withdrawn from the scene and thus shown themselves to be lily-livered cowards; must US also turn tail? He’s afraid the US will, since it lacks the stomach for murder and mayhem, at least a big enough stomach. Witness how, in 1950, even after China had driven the American army across the 38th parallel and taken Seoul, President Harry Truman turned down Commander Douglas MacArthur’s recommendation that the US drop 30 to 50 atom bombs on North China and dispatch half a million Taiwanese troops into the Chinese mainland.

The summer of ’04 is over. President Bush has won the election by a good margin. Things would not have been very different even if he had not. Kerry is also committed to “the war on terror,” which is the name by which American imperialism is now known. Republican or Democrat, it does not matter. Bi-partisanship is the distinguishing trait of American democracy. It used to be said that the liberals and the lovers of peace in America are concentrated in the east and the west coast campuses. It’s now being said that their liberalism and love of peace has made cowards and wimps of them all and that they are the factor responsible for America’s failures. So a new breed of academicians is now rising that will provide philosophical foundations to “middle America.” President Bush has full five years to go. He can count on the moral and intellectual support of a growing tribe of these “embedded” intellectuals.



Footnotes:

1. Michael Ignatieff is Director of the Carr Centre of Human Rights Policy at Harvard. The article referred to here, ‘Mirage in the Desert,’ appeared in The New York Times Magazine, 27.6.04, pp. 13ff.
2. See Times of India 29.10.04 for a photo of Bush supporters carrying placards which read : “Finally, a Christian fighting evil. Thank you, George Bush”
3. See USA Today, Friday, August 20
4. Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855)
5. In his book “American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword” (N.W.Norton & Co. New York 1996). The Chesterton quote is also taken from this book.
6. That the Rosenberg episode still rankles the American conscience is evident from the fact that articles keep appearing in mainstream papers about this disgraceful affair which occurred in the 1940s. For the latest, see The New York Times Magazine, 7.6.2004.
7. The 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which United States is a signatory, includes in its definition of torture “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession.” In fact, such a definition has been a common feature of all human rights conventions, customary law, several peace treaties and the four Geneva conventions of 1949. They also specify that torture includes treatment intended to humiliate the victim , like leaving prisoners naked in cells and corridors. The 1984 Convention goes on to declare that “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.” (See Susan Sontag: “Regarding the Torture of Others,” The New York Times Magazine, May 23, 2004)
8. An ABC News/Washington Post poll, reported by Ignatieff, found that 46% Americans believed that physical abuse short of torture was sometimes acceptable, while 35% were ready to accept outright torture.

PARADISE IN INDIA - Kashmir


A Guest Article By Kusum Tayal

PARADISE IN INDIA - Kashmir

One would have thought when one joins or marries an IFS Officer, one gets to see different parts of the world, which certainly is true. But, one advantage, which I realized now is, one also gets to see various parts of India which are relevant to the country that you get posted to, as part of Bharat Darshan.


Our keen desire to see the valley of Kashmir did not materialize before we went to Houston, USA. The loss was entirely ours, because wherever Skand went in the 9 States (from Texas to Florida) as a guest speaker in the different Universities or other forums, the Q & A session would invariably have questions on Kashmir, whatever may have been Skand’s topic. It would have been nice to experience first hand, the life in the Valley.

This time before leaving for Tashkent we were determined to correct this. We knew in the political circles of Uzbekistan too there would be questions on Kashmir, though maybe not as intense as in USA. So off we left on 18th August, 2005 and flew straight to Srinagar from Delhi on the Indian Airlines. The flight was uneventful and once we arrived (around 2.00 p.m.), simply walked out of the terminal. This was in great contrast to when we left Srinagar! But about that later.

We were straight driven to Chashmeshahi, where there are many official government guest houses. It is a beautiful drive up the hill, past the famous Dal Lake. We, as typical tourists, immediately asked for bottled Bisleri water, which the caretaker produced in 5-10 minutes from a nearby kiosk. It was only by the end of the second day that we realized that we were staying in the famous spring water area (Chashma meaning spring in Tajik) which was 5 minutes walk from our guest house. As per the locals, water was sent from this spring every week for Pt. Nehru in Delhi, as he was known to drink water only from this ‘royal’ spring. Obviously on the third and fourth day, we drank the same water.

For the evening tea, we were invited by the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir - Gen. S K Sinha & Mrs Sinha, which turned out to be an absolute delight. The General has a unique background; he was a junior staff officer at army HQ in 1947, fully involved in planning the operations to beat the Pakistani invaders attack during the first insurgency. He was the only officer who had continuous service with the Army HQ from the commencement of the operations to well after the cease-fire in 1949. His razor sharp memory of the events were insightful and those of you who are interested in seeing history through his eyes, his book ‘Operation Rescue’ is a personalized and detailed account of the events of that time. Incidentally, Raj Bhavan has a superb location on the mountains overlooking the Dal Lake and view of the setting sun is breathtaking.

Our next destination was the Dal Lake. Though it was quite late and getting dark, we did not want to miss the opportunity. Imagine our surprise when the shikara owner said the charges were double in the dark than early on in the evening. Once on the shikara, we could see why; it was a full moon night and the water had taken on a silver sheen. The shikara owner was a young man named, perhaps appropriately, Ashiq, for he was full of life and gave us verbal tour of the places we were passing by. We were particularly delighted when he pointed out to us the Raj Bhavan and the Chashmeshahi. As it was getting late, we decided to keep the exploring of Dal Lake for the next day.

The next day, early morning, we set out for Pehelgam in our jeep (about 100 km from Kashmir). The drive was awesome, because we were driving alongside the Lidder river. The water is so clear and full of boulders and stones. There were children playing in the water, women carrying firewood and men tending to sheep on the way. The only thing, which perhaps I should have mentioned right in the beginning, was the presence of security forces everywhere. Literally, everywhere. This is the one factor that remains constant throughout our four days in the valley, i.e., the presence of armed security personnel and vehicles everywhere. In fact throughout our travel, we saw an armed security man at every 100-200 meters. But the life for the locals appeared to go on normally – happy school children, tremendous road building activity, chaotic traffic and bustling bazaars. Now on our drive, suddenly we were stopped and to our amazement, an armed soldier simply got on our jeep at the back with his gun, and after a mile or so, got off. No permission was taken; in fact no words were spoken. Just like that. Only after he got off, did my 13 year old son Kartikeya, who was busy taking pictures of the scenery, thought maybe he could have taken the soldier’s pictures! Well, maybe as well, that he did not.

We reached the Pehelgam Club (7000 ft. above sea level), which is right next to the river and had a leisurely coffee in the beautiful garden. On our way back, Skand and Kartikeya, the keen golfers that they are, were fascinated by the golf course by the side of the mountains. An animated discussion followed, as how an even a slight wayward shot would make the ball simply roll down the hill. We stopped at a Punjabi Vegetarian restaurant in the center of town for our lunch. But, I must confess, the food was terrible. The caretaker at Chashmeshahi was cooking much better fare at dinnertime for us. We hurried back, and on the way passed through Mattan, an area which has a temple and was dominated by Kashmiri Pundits before the insurgency. We reached Srinagar at about 6.00 p.m. and there was plenty of time for a leisurely ride on the Dal Lake. We looked for Ashiq and almost immediately he appeared. Apparently there about 3500 shikaras and 1900 House Boats. He had promised us the day before that he would take us inside a House Boat, which he did now. There were as different names as one could think of; this one was called ‘Prince of Vales’. One named ‘Texas Leisure’ particularly tickled us.
The House Boats are epitome of luxury. The wood carvings, made of teak are simply exquisite. There is a living room & 2, 3, or 4 bedrooms each with an attached bathroom. The rent ranges from Rs.600 to Rs.4,000 a night depending on the quality of the room.

As we continue our journey in the shikara towards Char Chinar ( a small island with 4 chinar trees), we see an interesting sight. Right in front of us, a much larger boat floating towards us is a Grocery Store-cum-Cafetaria. We too stop for our Bisleri water, some Haldiram namkeen and biscuits. Another shikara comes close to us and before we know, the shikara owner took out Kashmiri ornaments made of stone and brass for sale. One may buy them as a momento, but it is the same stuff that you see in Janpath shops.
Charchinar has three chinar(a cousin of maple) trees said to be of Aurangzeb’s time and the fourth being of a more recent vintage. On our way back Ashiq navigated us through narrow floating islands on a different route. There small floating islands were laden with vegetables like lauki, tomatoes and cucumber. As we were cruising through narrow passage of water, I felt we were on a different planet altogether. It was so beautiful and peaceful, with vegetation all around and an occasional shikara passing by. Then, suddenly, without warning there appears a clearing and now all over the place there are brightly lit floating shops on the lake. Shopkeepers with clothes, shawls, electronic equipment and usual grocery are doing brisk business among the tourists. As we cruise through in our shikara towards the jetty, I realize this part has been the most fascinating in our trip so far.

The third day morning was our trip to Gulmarg, which is only 60 km from Srinagar, because it is through the mountains, it takes us over 2 hours to reach. This is the first time we really get close to the mountains and the thick forest is lush and green. The drive is stunning and we reach a point from where we take gondolas (cable car) to another mountain which is 11000 feet from sea level. The ride is long and quite enjoyable. We reach the other end and debate if we should take the next gondola for the next phase which would take us to 13000 feet. Looking at it from down below makes us dizzy. We are still ready to go as we know that we may not get such an opportunity again. But then, we are told because of inclement weather (heavy wind), the 2nd phase has been suspended at that time. So we hire horses, which would take us to a mountain spring, with ice on the slopes. Both Kartikeya and I rake a sledge ride down. As the ice is all hard, the ride down was quite bumpy & I felt my guts would spill out. Nothing, so dramatic happened and we rode to the famous Gulmarg skiing ranges. The place was full of wild grass and stones; in winter we are told it would have at least 10 feet of snow.

It is late afternoon now and we drive to Pari Mahal which is about 1000 ft. above Chashmeshahi. The road is extremely narrow and mountainous, and if there is a vehicle coming from the opposite direction, then one of the vehicles has to go back allowing the other to squeeze by. ‘Pari Mahal’ was said to be initially a Buddhist monastry and later converted to a school of astrology by Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Shahjahan. The ‘Pari Mahal’, as the name suggests is said to be haunted, once upon a time, by mermaids of the lake. Though the view from here too was good, there is not much to see in this ‘Mahal’.

I was keen to visit the famous mosque Hazrat Bal. After discussing with our Kashmiri friends and our driver, we reach there after dusk. It is a serene white marble building on the far side of the Dal Lake. I had worn a salwar kameez that day (not essential, but recommended), and covered my head as we entered the gates to go inside. You cannot enter the mosque if you carry anything like a camera, whether you intend to use it or not. This is the famous mosque where Prophet Mohammad’s hair is believed to be kept. It is brought out for public viewing only on special occasions (2-3 times a year). Only men are allowed inside the inner chamber and I prayed from the zenana hall. Next to the main building, is a nice park with a lovely view of the Dal Lake and we sat, like many other Kashmiri families, enjoying the peaceful night.

Next morning, our last day in the valley, starts early; already packed, we have a quick breakfast and leave for the last phase of our trip. The first place we stopped on our way was the famous Nishat Gardens. There was no time to see both this and Shalimar Gardens. The latter was created by Jahangir for his beloved wife, Noor Jahan and, Nishat Gardens has 10 terraces laid by Asaf Khan, brother of Noor Jahan. It is said, Jahangir was surprised on his first visit to find this more beautiful than his Shalimar Bagh.

The next stop was Mata Kheer Bhawani Mandir. This mandir is said to have great powers. It is built on a man made water tank, but the water comes from a spring underneath. It is said whenever there is a grave danger to India, the water in the tank changes colour, before the event occurs. Our local Kashmiri guide tells us that before Kargil, and before Tsunami struck, the water had turned black in colour - the previous day. All of us looked at the serene pond, which at the moment was pale green/blue in colour. So, no imminent danger to our country. The prasad, after the puja – you guessed it, was delicious kheer. From here we drove straight to Sri Shankaracharya Temple, atop a hill. There is a security check at the base of the mountains. To get to the temple, we climb 260 stone steps. The temple, which is Shivji’s mandir, is really ancient and was said to be originally built in 250 BC. Shankaracharya came in the early 800 AD; he had established 4 ‘Maths’ at 4 corners of India – Sringeri, Dwarka, Badrinath and Puri. Though this is not one of his original 4 ‘Maths’, this temple is of particular significance as he is supposed to have meditated here. The view of the entire Valley from here is the best by far.

Flying out of Srinagar one encounters much more security than when flying in. There are five different check points, where one is stopped and frisked. It is also advised not to have any carryon baggage, except maybe a ladies handbag. Despite this irritant, we come to the end of one of the most pleasant tours we have had in a long long time. On our way from Houston, we had traveled through Austria, country of lakes and Alps. Seeing Kashmir, we felt this is in no way less, maybe even more beautiful.

Ethereal Nepal, a travelogue site


Main website covering a Nepal .A travelogue for a trip by Papia & Pashu.
Click here
In a website format cvering the the cities of Pokhara ,Kathmandu & surrounding cities [ Patan & Bhaktapur - main world heritage sites according to UNESCO], not to metion a flight to the highest mountain peak in the world... MT. Everest at 8848 mts !

Via Italia

Pashu & Papia's trip to Italy, cities of Venice and Rome in December of 2004.The whole travelogue written as a website.
Click here to read the entire travelogue.

Copenhagen, Denmark


Here are some photos

Okay, so Denmark is as beautiful as most promised, at the same time I feel I would like Europe much better if I was here during the summers! For the love of god, I can't understand what streak of sadistic pleasure one gets out of choosing to live in a country with such disgusting weather! Its wet, cold and the combination of Nordic winds isn't exactly the most comfortable to survive.

The architecture, and im not talking monuments and castles only, but in general everything, is simply elegant and grand at the same time, even the apartments, the newer high rises etc, have been blended in really smoothly..As if most took the pain to make it that way. You see good design and good living in most things…starting from your garbage disposal to paying for plastic shopping bags at the checkout counters. People seem "educated" in the correct sense.

After Houston, its so nice to be able to walk, train and bus it to most places!!, but "Houston, we have a problem!"its irritating how there is no signage or instructions in English or what so ever, Iam told that I should be glad to be in Denmark, where everyone is polite enough to respond in English if asked because in Germany and France they couldn't care less if you can not speak theircommon languages.

It's a relief to not see "Wal-Mart's", rather you have small shops around the corners, for wine, bakeries, grocery stores. Indians surely have conquered the world...even in this crazy little town of Copenhagen, there are "Indian Stores" , " Anarkali Restaurant", and "Himalayan Snow Fairness Cream Counters", it is at the same time amusing to see from the things in these shops how people when they came here got kind of stuck in time. This is just a generalization it seems curious how the Indians here do not like to associate with their motherland but are really busy trying to portray otherwise. A really stupid and annoying attitude. Dansk people are basically friendly so far and fairly helpful.

It will take a while to get used tohaving beer by the litre!, it is impolite not to offer a beer here. Dansk food doesn't have much appeal for me...because there is only so much of "Open sandwiches" you can have!


2 days in Paris, France



A write up for a quick trip in Paris. The pictures can be seen on this link


Monday, March 28, 2005

hopefully will write more

Have been thinking of doing this for so long, just not getting around to it, hopefully i will write more now