The Guide

My initial desire was to describe my North Indian jaunt in a sequence, especially the Kashmir part. But I find that some incidents are noteworthy than the rest and hence demand attention.
I got up late in the afternoon that day. The hotel had Kashimiri pulao and Kashmiri rice on the menu. Since both were Kashmiri, I guessed they would be cheaper, so I ordered them both, with gravy. The rice turned out to be soggy, short grained and looked overcooked,  but on eating I found that it actually tasted good. The pulao was nothing out of the ordinary, but nonetheless eatable, but oily. I had wondered how rice grew on the rocky, snow covered, cold terrain of Kashmir, but later found that this variety of rice grows on low lying areas surrounding Dal Lake, that lies in the middle of Srinagar.
After brunch, I asked the elderly gentleman who ran the lodge how I could make it to Gulmarg- "The path of Roses (in Kashmiri)" where I planned to take a gondola ride and if luck permitted, experience snow for the first time. He explained that if I planned to take public transport (run down private vans) I would have to change vehicles thrice, which didn't look too appealing.

It was Deepavali, which the whole nation was at that moment celebrating with gusto, but Srinagar was shut down at the behest of some local leaders who were protesting the meager aid provided to Kashmir by the Center, post-flooding of the Jhelum that ran through the center of Srinagar. The streets were empty and all you saw was gun toting army-men, armored vehicles and a few locals on bikes and a few cars, and the aforesaid rickety vans crammed with ill dressed people. Even the J&K Bank ATMs that were usually reliable, were out of cash and everything was plunged in deep gloom literally, after the day-night power blackout.

I happened to find a tourist agency near Dal Lake, where I could hire a chauffeured car to Gulmarg for a couple of thousand rupees, which happened to be less since it was off-season.
Soon the driver with a bushy beard and shaved mustache wearing the traditional black winter cloak that looked more like a blanket wrapped around him, was driving me all the way to Gulmarg on scenic roads. He occasionally withdrew his hands from the sleeves letting them loosely hand around his shoulder giving him a ghost like look which unnerved me. He was in a mood talkative mood and seemed to be at ease with outsiders. I thought he was trying to probe my religious tendencies when he asked me whether I had been to the Shankaracharya Mutt temple on the banks of the Jhelum. He said he had luckily parked his car below the temple, and his vehicle was saved from the ravages of the flood since the Mutt was at a higher altitude. He went on to describe how many and how badly vehicles were damaged due to the Jhelum floods, leaving almost nothing untouched in it's wake.
I told him I was not a Hindu.
"Then, are you a Muslim?", he asked, surprised a bit.
"Neither",said I, "I am a Christian."
Taking this in his stride, he then told me that then I must definitely visit the antique Church on the foothills of Gulmarg, which had been built during the British times.
The driver en route, stopped to have a hookah and when he spoke with locals in Kashmiri, it felt more like Arabic or Persian to me than Urdu, but in fact Kashmiri is more of a mixture of Urdu, Pharisee, Arabic and English and is usually written in the Urdu script. English is part of Kashmiri today, the driver told me with a grin, when I inquired inquisitively.
What happened next after that was the usual tourist thing, up the gondola ,the horse ride to Gulmarg Phase I; Phase II being closed due to heavy snow and windy weather, and the trip back to our waiting taxi.
One more person had joined us before the trip to Gulmarg, a young man in his thirties who was a government recognized guide, mandatory for the trip up, I was told. I noted his piercing, shifty eyes, rugged features, and his quiet demeanor, who seemed to be bored with the guide routine. There was a sense of  foreboding about him that seemed to give him a troubled look, so it seemed.
The guide seemed to be familiar with a locals and many of them waved to him in greeting which he acknowledged with a few gruff words. When we reached the taxi park, back from the climb up the snow clad mountain, we found that our driver had not yet returned from his namaz, which he had said he would be performing at the Jama Mazjid nearby, as was his practice on all his trips to Gulmarg. As I was hungry I decided to have vegetable noodles at a small shack with tea, while the guide preferred to have just biscuits.
Leaning towards me on the table where we sat he said. "You know Kashmir is a mistake. When the British partitioned United India, they made Hindustan and Pakistan. But they forgot Kashmir. Kashmir neither part of India, nor of Pakistan, was left out. They forgot Kashmir. And that is where all the trouble lies and where all the mess started."
I nodded, not knowing what to say.
"You see", he said, "I have taken many Western tourists on this route many a thousand times and I have asked them the same very thing, and you know what they say? The West just does business. They don't care or bother if it is India or Pakistan. They sell deadly weapons to both parties and make money. That's how they work."
He went on. "When Raja Hari Singh pleaded India to save Kashmir from the marauding Pakistani troops, Gandhiji sent the Indian army. The army came and they never went back. Why? Why did this happen to Kashmir?", he repeated softly. There was deep feeling in his voice. It was as if he was talking of an unwanted orphan. Not an object of desire for two warring nations.
He leaned towards me conspiratorially. "Do you know there are more army-men in Kashmir than Kashmiris? And how many Kashmiris have been killed since?" I did not venture to reply,

I had seen the many Indian army-men stationed all over Srinagar including Lal Chowk where I had put up. I had actually seen them randomly stopping cars and bike riders, and letting them go after a cursory body-search and identification check. It was as if every Kashimiri was a suspect.
I had also seen a random group of young Kashmiri gathered near a defunct ATM, men smelling of expensive perfume, chanting slogans to the affect of "Louto! Louto!" meaning "Go back!" obviously to the long men in the queue at the ATM, but could be a message for the army as well. At Lal Chowk there was a sudden flurry of activity as a group of young men rushed to an old rickety building for some reasons know only to them, followed by clueless unorderly gun toting army militia. I has seen banners of Arafat and Khomenei all over Srinagar. Spray painted slogans saying "Death to Israel!" just as I had seen "Leave Tibet!" slogans in Dharamshala. This seemed to be another part of the world. Kashmiri youth, I felt, were more politically aware than any Indian state I know except perhaps Kerala.

I thought over and reminded the guide that it was not Gandhiji, but Menon, at the behest of Nehru and Patel who had sent the army. He acknowledged this with some thought.
"Raja Hari Singh was a traitor", he reiterated. "Hari Singh sold Kashmir and his countrymen."
To him, it seemed, Kashmir or Kashmiris had not yet assimilated into India after all those years of protests, strife, army presence and international notoriety at the behest of Pakistan amid the continuing low key war all along the Kashmir border with Pakistan. There was still a long way to go before men like him would be convinced that Kashmir had a part to play in the planned scheme of things. At that point I told him as a matter of fact that Hari Singh wanted an independent Kashmir which was not practical since Kashmir did not have any natural resources such as minerals or any other noteworthy source of  natural wealth, except for its scenic beauty. The guide paused and considered this. I was glad that my bookish knowledge was at least pushing this one sided conversation forward.
I didn't dare another opinion, so the guide continued "I have been to the forbidden land - POK- Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. I have relatives there and I went to visit them", he explained.
"The people in POK are twenty years behind us", he informed me."Uncivilized nomadic tribal shepherds who live in shanty huts."
At that point of time our driver returned from his namaz and the talk turned to currency - whether it was Indian or Pakistani currency that was stronger. As it turned out, they used a wrong yardstick to measure this - the equivalence to the dollar. The driver was of the opinion that the Indian rupee was stronger since you got more dollars for a rupee than a Pakistani rupee. But the guide disagreed.
On the way back, the driver continued with another of his lengthy talks and told me "You have visited Kashmir in the winter. But anyone who visits Kashmir returns three more times - once for each season. You have to come back again in Summer, Spring and Winter to be bewitched by its natural beauty, now that you have visited it in Autumn!"
I doubted this very much, noting how Kashimir had become a cesspool of political and civil violence and unrest.