Gulmarg Diary, August 14-18, on John ki Jaan

Gulmarg – August 14–18, 2007

Why go to Gulmarg the week of India’s 60th independence given the relative political instability and unrest in Jammu and Kashmir? To celebrate one of my favorite uncle’s 70th b’day. Believe me, Gulmarg is almost like paradise on earth. Despite being touristy, it has an amazing charm of its own.

My uncle owns a hut in Gulmarg, which has been renovated (but they have not changed the cool bathroom fixtures and woodwork ceilings as they were in good condition and look fabulous, not to mention being over a 100 yrs old). Let me clarify that it is much more than just a “hut.” It has 5-bedrooms and 4 bathrooms!

And on a clear morning, one can see the majestic Nanga Parbat peak—9th highest in the world and second highest in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir—and a range of other Himalayan snow-capped peaks.

There is a fabulous story about how this hut came to belong to my uncle’s family. It was owned by my uncle’s grandfather. Years back, he made some local maharaja very happy by saving his life (well, the king was also a bit of a hypochondriac and thought he was about to die, when this was far from the truth!) and he was granted this property as payment. It was then passed down to my uncle’s father and then to my uncle himself.

The caretaker family that looks after it has done so for 4 generations! Incredible. What is even more amazing is that despite being kept under lock and key for the last 15 years, it is in such amazing shape and had not been ransacked, usurped, or destroyed by military personnel or by anyone else. It was a momentous occasion for all of us family and family friends who had last been to hut in the early 1980s or even earlier.

Let me digress a bit. Thanks to my over-cautious (to put it mildly) parents, we arrived at the domestic airport 2 hours prior to the departure time. We went through security easily and quickly and faced an amused gentlemen. One of the security personnel saw John with me and asked me where I had found John. It was said in a very curious and disbelieving tone.

I was not offended, but replied calmly that I met him while living in America, and we got married and decided to move to India. The man looked quite surprised, smiled at me and said I was very lucky to find a “white” man—all this in Hindi. Of course, I translated this for John who was quite amused (he understood most of what was going on in any case).

So we approached the check-in desk and were informed that our flight had been cancelled but that there should be no problem getting us on to another flight. When I asked them why, they had no clue. Strange. Of course, my first reaction was thank god my parents sent us to the airport early!

So we got on to Jet Airways, which was a major bonus since the flight is not bare-bones like the one we were supposed to be on, and they serve lunch—well, an apology for lunch. An aunt and uncle were on the same cancelled flight as us, but they luckily made it on time to change to the flight we were on. What a way to start a vacation. Phew!

The flight was uneventful and pretty empty. Guess people stayed away from Kashmir during Independence for fear of “terrorist” attacks. When we were approaching Kashmir, the view of the mountain ranges was spectacular. Brought back a flood of memories of when we had last been to Gulmarg and to Kashmir as a family, around 22 years ago!!