‘A typical Day in Kashmir, in August 2024: with a Temple & a Mosque visit.’
‘A Day in Kashmir, in August 2024: with a Temple & Mosque visit.’
On this morning, our second last day in Kashmir, we visited the well known Shankaracharya Temple, in Srinagar. It was right after breakfast at the houseboat on Dal Lake, that we took a Shikara ride to Ghat 9 and then a lovely long drive by the lake and uphill to quite a distance, to reach this ancient temple.
Before the drive, we had stopped at an ATM beside which there was a grocery shop. I strategically bought two fruit and nut chocolates here. This was to gain strength and brace myself for the 250 stairs that we would need to climb to reach the temple. On the drive, I ate 2-3 pieces, and also offered Bishwanath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishwanath_Ghosh_(writer) — who refused it outright. The difference between a ‘privileged’ journalist and a down to earth novelist(me)
— even if both poets.
I shoved a piece at him several times, as he had just eaten two slices of bread with butter – which in my view is not sufficient breakfast to meet a regular day, leave alone a hike up 250 stairs after a hill walk – but he categorically refused to have the chocolate piece.
So by the time I reached the foot of the stairs, as I had intended, the chocolate provided me with sufficient energy to skip up several stairs at a time, then wait for Bishwanath every few steps and then move on holding him by hand.
Up the stairs, on the first landing, I insisted on his having two chocolate pieces, which he now did, but they were not going to be absorbed into the bloodstream promptly. With much difficulty and acute weariness on his part, stopping several times, we managed to reach the top of the stairs. I kept telling him not to count the stairs he had walked as he was, nor look at the top, but to just keep looking at the next step in climbing up. As that’s how I deal with life in general. I don’t look at those beside me, or above me, nor below me on my climb up, to compare. Then neither do I count the stairs and least of all do I look at the finishing line – I just concentrate all of my energies into climbing the particular step I am on and then keep looking back to see how far up I have come.
The Shankaracharya Temple or Jyeshteshwara Temple is a Hindu temple situated on top of the Zabarwan Range in Srinagar. It is dedicated to Shiva. The temple is at a height of 1,000 feet (300 m) above the valley floor. The temple is accessible via a road that emerges off Boulevard road near Gagribal. The temple and adjacent land is a Monument of National Importance, centrally protected under the Archaeological Survey of India.
So when we reached the top of the stairs and walked in through the outer archway, I was panting, but I could still march up the steep last part to the temple in the photos at one go. If you see the posture of all the young people in the photos you will realize how difficult it was and so for the elders it is daunting.
After a few moments of hesitation, BG followed me haltingly, but once up at the temple, he was fatigued beyond his imagination. I briskly completed my darshan and then a walk around outside the main temple and was ready to descend, but BG was not, as he being an acute Shiva devotee was not satisfied with his brisk darshan in acute tired mindlessness. But he climbed down after me anyways, and was thus by now totally infuriated with me.
More so, as he had been wanting to come here since the first day of our Kashmir visit right after the Chinar bookfest, but I had kept it in the itinerary for the last day.
I’m not a religious person, though I am acutely spiritual and as I have always said – nature is my true god above any other. So I preferred to go out into nature first, though I respect everyone else’s god. BG isn’t that religious either and in his hometown Kanpur visits the Dargah on every trip, has done so weekly since his youth. But he’s a great fan of Shiva. And for a fan not to have a heart to heart with his idol is surely cause to be mad at the one who caused it.
So anyways, we sat down, downstairs of the main temple, but as far away from each other. As by now, it was getting crowded and I was really angry too – for his not gauging a perceived hurdle and physical threat, worse for not listening to my warnings to have a better breakfast and the chocolate for strength. All the days he would not have lunch either, just a light breakfast and a heavy dinner.
When I’m in a difficult situation or feel anxious — his having to climb down again weighing on my mind also added to his defiance — I start to say my daily chants. This was a second time that day — to give me mental strength to see me through.
An elderly lady, looking at me wearily, abruptly asked me for water. I don’t know how she assumed I might have some. I had a tiny little bottle from the flight, refilled, tucked into my bag for an emergency. I thought BG might need it as he wasn’t feeling too good, but thinking it was the right thing to do as she needed it first, I gave her the bottle. She thanked me earnestly and then thoughtfully consumed just a couple of small sips and returned the bottle that I tucked away to save for BG on the descent.
Then I sat down again under a large tree looking at the temple and resumed my chants. I had barely finished the 108, that I always do for mental strength, when a lady, a visitor like us, came up to me and handed me a large ghee laddoo saying it was Prasad. I took it hesitantly but thankfully and was just thinking how to convince BG to have some of it. But to my immense relief the lady went across after giving some other people and shoved one into his hands. I looked at him slyly and to my greater relief, he was actually eating it.
Just a few moments after he was done eating it, he said to me in a brighter tone, “I’m going back to the temple, you want to come?”
He then almost sprinted up and I sat there refusing to go, as I said “I’ve had a great darshan and I don’t need to go up again.”
As I watched, he came back down smug and happy. Then after viewing the cave where Shakracharya meditated, we slowly walked back all the way down 250 stairs and a long walk downhill, as the parking was much further below.
On the drive down, I was a bit awkward to ask Umer, who was waiting downstairs for us, to now take us to the mosque. I didn’t want him to think a temple precedes a mosque in our view, when actually it does not for BG or me. But to my relief, Umer himself suggested cheerily, as I had told him on the first day itself, without him suggesting, that we would surely like to visit there — “So should we go to the Hazratbal mosque now?”
“Yes, yes, please let’s go…”
So we drove to Hazratbal and in the car I covered my head with the dupatta I carried for this purpose. My photos here are in front of the Hazratbal mosque, Srinagar, where I as a woman could not enter the shrine, but I respectfully waited outside. I believe in honouring religious sentiments, but not undue injustices.
A young muslim woman, to my surprise, after saying her prayers outside the shrine, came and tucked into my hand a coin from Vaishno Devi with Ma Sherawali etched on it, saying, “I had to give this to someone so you keep it…”
She walked away just as abruptly. I looked at the coin and the woman in awe and curiosity. Two other muslim women who were drinking water from the dispenser, came and empathised with me vociferously, “what’s wrong with her, why did she give you this coin here?”
Then they called the cop there and complained to him about what just happened, and he said pointing to the woman who gave me the coin, “What a stupid woman…she does not even know that in this place of worship, in God’s presence, we are all equal. We can all pray here securely, irrespective of our backgrounds,” then looking at me he added cheerfully, “madam, you please don’t mind, just think that in this holy place in front of the shrine you received this particular coin as a blessing from God. You are special. Keep it safely, always.”
The policeman actually had echoed my sentiments then – I had been thinking, why would I receive the strength of female Shakti just outside the shrine of a mosque! There had to be a reason that Allah also blessed me with the power of Shakti just outside the shrine I could not enter. It was definitely a blessing, irrespective of the source used to empower me with it. I am empowered by God, is what I must believe.
Bishwanath came out of the shrine and insisted on a cap from this holy place. Though the guard kept asking him to get one from outside, inspite of his wearing a baseball cap to go inside which was permitted — but then he got a green skull cap from the mosque to bring home as a memento. The Chinar leaves in the photos here are all collected by Bishwanath from all over Kashmir.
Those of you who have read my novel Across Borders are aware of my mention of this mosque and how the prophets hair lost from here had started a movement in East Pakistan…leading to Bangladesh.
These incidents, the laddoo and the coin coming to me out of the blue, I take as positive assertions from the universe. I had been reading a memoir on Kashmir since my flight here. So I asked Umer about Downtown. He promptly drove us there, then through and around that old part of town, before taking us to Lal Chowk and Residency Road, also the Polo View Market. All this in the photos. Umer’s younger brother Amaan had suggested to him to take us to Adhoos, the famed eatery for Kashmiri Wazwan.
Two of my Kashmiri friends, also an elderly Shikara-man(after work), who has been employed with Thomas Cook for the last 40 years, had suggested this place that I must try the Wazwan there.
“Hope the trip has been worth its while” one of my friends had written from Pune, “While in Srinagar, you can eat _Gushtaba_ for a meal or mutton seekh kabab for an evening snack at _Ahdoos_ restaurant near The Bund/Residency Road.”
After the heavy but awesome meal, including the above suggestions, of which BG had just tomato soup and Phirni and Umer and I had all you see at the table in the photos – we took a stroll around Residency Road and Polo View Market along with Umer.
This was before the last and final drive along the Dal Lake to ghat 9, from where we took a Shikara ride back to the houseboat for the night.
The photos to go with this post are here: https://www.facebook.com/share/1971uXG6FL/?mibextid=wwXIfr
*****
Sharing the entire photo album of the August 2024 visit, you can click on the square icon to the top right in the link below, for the write-up on each place and set of photos: https://www.facebook.com/share/15XT9DwMab/?
PS: Above is a repost with reference to the recent terrorist attacks in Kashmir on Hindu tourists, in this and my last few posts: https://shuvashreeghosh.wordpress.com/2025/04/22/terrorist-shootout-at-baisaran-mini-switzerland-kashmir/
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