Reflections of Dal Lake

A reflection is more than simply an optical effect. It presents a different view – an opportunity to look at oneself or others in different light. Some notice details, some look for flaws while others see what they want to.  But reflections can often tell you a story – as the old monkey tells Simba in ‘The Lion king’, you just need to look a bit harder.

SM and I were looking hard alright! After our arrival in Srinagar in the early evening, we began our hunt for a hotel. After several deliberations, we finally chose the Akbar hotel on the banks of the lake near Dal gate. No tour of Srinagar is complete without a Shikara ride on the Dal Lake and that was right on top of our checklist!

The bazaar

The floating vendors

Our first sight of Dal Lake is a line of Houseboats and Shikaras lined near Dal gate. The Shikaras are on the banks while the houseboats are across the canal. Since the houseboats are stationary, you wonder why they too aren’t on the banks – perhaps it’s to give tourists a feel of staying afloat in the middle of the lake, or perhaps it is so that tourists HAVE to take a Shikara each time they need to go to shore! Your guess is as good as mine.

The thinking boats

We hire a Shikara for an hour around the lake. His name is Shah Jahan (Yes, boats can be male). We are to move in and around Dal gate area itself, before the Nehru Park. It doesn’t take long though for vendors to come up in their smaller, sometimes open boats right besides ours, selling anything and everything from carpets to coke. And it’s not a few of them – they are everywhere. Alongside some of the house boats, are handicraft shops – some stand on stilts, others on a sort of earthen reclamation. Darting between the boats and the weeds are ducks – plenty of them. It seems more like the floating market of Bangkok! In fact our boatman tells us that in the early hours of the morning, the lake hosts a floating vegetable market- one of its kind in India. The boatman repeatedly urges us to take a look at some of the handicrafts in the shops – He is obviously in for a small cut if we buy something from there – it’s a common practice across the country. We turn out of the smaller canals into a wider area – there are fountains, many more houseboats and more floating vendors. The interesting part is not really the houseboats but their names. The boats are christened after almost anything from places, both Indian and foreign – Montreal, Prince of Bombay, Lake Victoria, Khyber etc to philosophers – Plato, Aristotle etc. Some might prefer to differ, but to me, it’s Indian ingenuity at its best. The sun is now setting, and the lights in the houseboats and the roads near the lake are coming on – time for the markets to wind up, time to get back to shore.

Sunset at the lake

Lake Placid

The evening ride just wetted our appetite for more – another Shikara ride at sunrise was arranged, a longer one that would take us past the Char Chinar and drop us off near the Nishat gardens.

Misty morning

We set out in the early hours, while darkness still covered the city. The city isn’t awake yet and Dal Lake isn’t either. We are groggy and our thoughts are as hazy as the misty panoramas before us. The lake is showing us her other side, her true self. At 5:30, the call to prayers pierces the silence. The dark, deep blue sky slowly begins to get streaks of orange. In the meantime, our boatman, an elderly man, perhaps in his sixties, breaks into song. I can’t tell the language or the song, but from our earlier conversations, I assume its Urdu, from the tune and the intensity, I assume it’s a song of praise, perhaps a hymn. Surreal is not the word! Urdu hymns, eagle cries up above and just the paddle sweep of the oar – I don’t want the sun to rise; I just want time to freeze! Neither SM nor I say a word lest we disrupt the serenity. Mist creeps in from the poplar lined banks and a few other boats can be spotted in isolation. Heaven knows what they are doing out here at this ungodly hour. Perhaps they, like us are here to experience God himself! Slowly, but surely the sun rises, sparkling the lake and making clear the horizons, just in time for us to get clear reflections of the Char Chinar. The Char Chinar is a manmade island in the middle of Dal Lake that harbours four Chinar (Maple) trees, which change colour with the season – now its yellowish orange. In a month from now, it will be red! We stop at the island for a break and to admire the lake around.

...and the sun begins to rise

Lone boatman

....and another

The Char Chinar

Yellow Maple

Reflections!

The sun is out now – the images in the water are brighter but distorted by the ripples of the falling maple leaves. As the city awakes, the tranquillity of the lake will be shed off to give way to the hustle of floating markets of commerce and the bustle of life itself. Dal Lake awakes and sleeps with Srinagar, the city and her people; it hosts everything you could associate with the city – carpets, shawls, Kashmiri food, tourists and beauty. She is a microcosm of Srinagar, a reflection of more than life afloat on her waters; it’s a reflection of the character of the Kashmiri city – aspirations of modern civic life with a desire for peace and calm - something for me to reflect on as I head to shore.

POINTERS

• October and November is off-season – bargain for hotel, Shikara rates
• Unlike the houseboats of Kerala, the ones on Dal Lake don’t move around – it’s just an experience of staying afloat on a lake and vendors selling handicrafts in a boat at your doorstep.