Gar firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto, hamin ast
(If there is a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here, it’s here)
The famous line – attributed to Mughal emperor Jehangir – is the best example to describe what people believe to be one the most beautiful places in India, the Kashmir valley, part of the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Located between the mighty Karakoram and the Pir Panjal ranges of the Himalayas, the valley is notorious for being in news almost every day, albeit not always for positive reasons.
But its beauty has attracted hundreds and thousands of visitors year after year. If spring is the general time when tourists land in droves, winter months too are a beautiful time to witness the pristine white cover everywhere due to intermittent snow fall. TwoCircles.net’s Srinagar correspondent Raqib Hamid Naik takes you on a virtual tour of the snow-clad life in and around Srinagar.
Welcome to the white kingdom! A beautiful view of the blanket of snow saturated on a road towards Awantipora village. Disruption of air and road traffic, power cuts are common during heavy snowfall days.
A car passing past snow-covered road near Wanpoh, Kulgam. The visibility threatens to go down more anytime as skylight takes a dip along with the mercury. This time of the year, it has been days of heavy snow fall and then, a little relief. Roads leading to the Valley and also those within are the bell weather.
For days together scores of villages remain completely wrapped under dense fog. Houses stand still amid a blanket of snow, layer after layer, day after day amid tall sky-high defoliated trees. Here, a typical Kashmiri village near Qazigund.
As it snows heavily, empty streets and stranded vehicles becomes a common feature across the valley. A deserted road bereft of pedestrians on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Qazigund with small passenger vehicles stranded even as goods vehicles and trucks struggle past the slippery, snow-filled road towards Srinagar.
A young boy in pheran (traditional Kashmiri knee-length over coat) shelters himself with an umbrella on his way to buy Kashmiri Rotis for evening tea. A little respite from heavy snow fall gives a small window to locals to quickly complete their routine essential chores.
Two young girls, covered with white flakes, brave thick snow for their family’s requirement of water. Even when it is snows everywhere, there are small windows in time when municipal taps yield water drop by drop.
As if relaxation in nature’s curfew, people step out in the lean period of snow fall to buy commodities. Fruits, bread, Kashmiri Roti, grocery, people are busy buying all this at the Main Market at Wanpoh.
All flat surfaces are covered with snow, no exception. A shrub, a heap of cut grass or even a pile of wood, everything is layered, buried under snow. In picture, a heap of cut grass in a farm field in one of the villages in the valley.
Where once flowed a channel and sprang a fountain (in summer season) … view of a park inside the Sher-E-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences at Srinagar.
And then there is light! A relatively clear day with the Sun playing hide and seek with the spun-cotton-clouds revealing the majestic snow-clad ranges that forms the backdrop for almost entire valley. This adorable scene from near Ganderbal, Srinagar.