Kashmir valley, Srinagar

Seven million breathes of beauty


It’s 5:06 am. Athan, a call for prayer springs from all city minarets, the surrounding mountains amplify it to produce the effect of the dolby surround-sound system. Muezzins’ voices unify above the valley and reach the crescent moon drenching its slender body in their crescendo. The words ‘Allahu Akbar’ drip from the tip of the moon into the lake, like drops of honey. The water stirs and still-closed lotus flowers shiver across it. Koshur word for lake is dal and this one is simply called Dal, the lake.

On Dal’s southern bank, four shikara oarsmen are praying, their janamaz, prayer rugs, on the dump ground close to anchored long-beak boats. From the distance I see pale soles of their feet emerge bare under their woollen ferens, traditional coat-like garment. Anticipation of my first shikara ride bubbles up as I wait for namaz, the prayer, to end.

When I approach them, Ahmad Ajaz Mir is the first one to look at me; I have made arrangements for a ride through a common friend. Good business deals are arranged ahead of time, preferably through a friend. A tourist is not likely to strike a fair deal when bargaining on the spot with a skilful Kashmiri wallah, a businessman, they have not met before.

As is Kashmiri custom, in friendship and in business alike, Ahmad invites me for a cup of kahva first; it’s green tea brewed with saffron, cinnamon sticks, green cardamom, cloves and chopped almonds. Its warmth embraces me in the dump morning air, its mellow taste lined with fading bitterness.

Milky light oozes over the mountaintops in the east. I carefully enter the yellow and red shikara at the brink of dawn. It floats low in the water like a crocodile.

Kingfisher is fishing its breakfast. Miniature blue bird with bright orange belly pierces the water with precision and speed of an arrow shot from the sky. In seconds, it emerges from the water, silver back of a small fish arching in its black beak, and flies away towards the west.

My eyes squint when the warm fingertips of the first sunrays caress the fresh white marble of Srinagar’s only domed shrine. The reflection of Hazrat Bal dome surfaces from the lake like an egg-shaped pearl, the water distorting the oval of the dome. This shrine treasures Moi-e-Muqqadus, the sacred hair of Prophet Mohammad. Finally, sun’s light and warmth hold the petals of opening lotus flowers and it is morning in Srinagar.

I lived in Kashmir for a year and inhaled approximately seven million breaths of its pure air. Seven million breathes of beauty, generous, genuine and raw. Years after I left Kashmir, I am aware that Kashmir has never left me. With each breath, the pure valley air constructed little Kashmir inside me, where the white dome of Hasratbal, like a round face of a young Kashmiri woman veiled in white muslin, mirrors itself in Dal under the siege of pink lotus flowers.