!!! KASHMIR !!!

If there is a paradise on earth; It is here, it is here, it is here !

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ( Mughal Emperor, Jehangir)
Kashmir is my birthplace and my mother tongue is kashmiri. It is a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains on all sides with the mighty Himalayas in the north and northeast and the pirpanjal mountain range in the south. There are many valley's within. Kashmir is a beautiful land but not without its problems. As they say in our part of the world, the worst enemy of a woman is her beauty. The same applies to Kashmir. It is divided between India, Pakistan and China. Pakistanis call their part of Kashmir as Azad (Independent) Kashmir and India calls the same Kashmir as Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). Pakistan calls the Indian side of Kashmir as the occupied Kashmir. For Kashmiris, it is a tragedy. Ask the families who are separated along the line of control between two Kashmir's. The good news is the road between two Kashmir's was opened in 2005 after more than 50 years and people have started visiting their relatives across the line of control.
Now, the vale of Kashmir, where I am from is a part of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir. There are three major regions in this state. Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. Ladakh has the largest area, with the least population, Jammu is second largest with larger population than Ladakh and the vale of Kashmir has the least area with the largest population of the three regions. The state has two capital cities. Srinagar is the capital in Summer and Jammu is its capital city in winter. The whole secretariat moves back and forth between the two cities every six months.
Kashmir valley is connected to India and the rest of the world by national highway 1A, which gets closed sometimes in winter and we are cutoff from the rest of the world. It is a scenic road which connects Srinagar, the center of Kashmir with Jammu city, the center of Jammu. It is a 184 mile drive but usually takes between 10-12 hours in summer depending on the vehicle, the age of the driver and the weather. In winter it takes longer, sometimes people even get stranded on the highway. I was stranded once, man! it was cold in that bus without any heating system and we were at the highest point of the highway. Next morning, just me and my friends dared to wash their faces with the icy water from a broken pipe, rest were patient till we reached Jammu.
I love that place whatever the conditions. Of the many blessings that I have been bestowed with, being born in Kashmir is one of them. By the way even my second name, Nayeem, means a blessing. So I am blessed all the way and I am grateful to ALLAH, alhumdulillah ( All praise is for ALLAH).

Photo essay on Kashmir.

Kashmir has all the four seasons. I would like to show some of the pictures by directing you to some sites here.

Myself
Spring is beautiful with flowers blossoming, vegetation coming alive again and the snow
starts melting.

Myself
Summer is bright and that is the time when most of the tourists from across the globe come
to visit the place and enjoy its breathtaking beauty.

Myself
Fall is colorful and I love it the most. The leaves of chinar turn crimson red and start falling,
so do the leaves from all other deciduous trees whose leaves change their colors and finally
fall on the ground probably the reason why the season is called fall.

Myself
The winter is cold and moist and white with snow. I love it when the sun shines on the snowy
peaks, they look like emeralds in the sky. However, not many days in winter are sunny.

My effort to capture the beauty of Kashmir


Myself In the spring of 2004 I was in Kashmir for a month. I spent most of my time at my home in Srinagar and didn't go out too much. I took some pictures around my home. However, I went to a place called Pahalgam. This is one of my favourites in Kashmir. Beautiful pines and deodars, lofty gorgeous mountains and the roaring lidder. Lidder is the river flowing through this valley of shepherds (Pahalgam), and it literally roars, you can feel it when you hear it. Talking about lidder, I had a funny incident when I came out of my office here in fort collins. I was working at Hewlett-Packard before I quit to join school full-time. Anyways, I was in the parking lot on that evening with my colleague and I heard some noise which was close to what lidder makes in Pahalgam. I thought there was a river in Fort collins just like lidder, but I stood corrected in a moment when my colleague disclosed it is the river of cars on I-25.
        Spring 2004           Click on the image on the left or on the text below it, to see the pictures that I took in Kashmir in the spring of 2004.