The roof of the world

We welcome the cool breeze on the lake in Srinagar, we have come as climate-refugees from sweltering Delhi, the heat drove us northwards and into the mountains.

Unfortunately it has been the warmest summer and the driest monsoon in about 40 years, but the blessed breeze helps a lot. In the nighttime we sit on the Houseboat and drink Kashmiri chai, a green tea which is the best I’ve had in India so far.

It is easy to understand why this is the favorite location of Bollywood when they film honeymoons, the atmosphere is very relaxed. We rent this place with all meals for 2000 rupies per night. We are probably overpaying, but the effort that the family puts into making us feel at home is tremendous. They are happy to have us; tourism has been low for ten years, after Bill Clinton called the area the world’s most dangerous place in 2001, luckily..

..it is beautiful..

..and the tourists..

..are beginning to return to the once thriving city and surrounding mountains.

Being a houseboat owner is a relaxing but difficult lifestyle. A lot of care is needed to maintain the boat, and to moor it properly so it does not drift, but loosely enough that it does not sink with rising waters. In winter the roof has to be shoveled several times per night. The snow is heavy, and if left will weigh down the boat until it sinks. The day-to-day work is not terribly stressful though. “She’s the only one who works in this family” Hanna says about her sister-in-law, who does all the cooking and cleaning in the three boats which are the residence of the three generations.

Hanna is a PhD student from Germany working on anthropology and sociology for the university in Delhi. She moved here for Latif, the younger brother on the boat. We have extended discussion about India every night for the duration of our stay, they always end with Latif repeating his personal motto; “Life is like an icecream, taste before it melts”.

When there are no tourists on the boat the men in the family try to find some, going in to town to make contact. With tourists in the boat they do a couple of hours work taking us on tours of the local area, we paddle around the lake for five hours to look at floating gardens and visit a honey-factory where you can get honey from bees which get their nectar exclusively from opium plants, we buy one each, just because apparently its What Mick Jagger Would Do, and did.

We float around the lake for some time, the youngest girl in the family teaches us how to count to ten in Kashmiri, it sounds like; Akk, Tsu, Tre, Zur, Paahns, Sjø, Satt, Åht, Nao, Da.

They take us other places too, like the Angel Fort – where you could hear angels singing before the lake became so crowded. Beautiful gardens from the Mughul era; where a gay kid tried to charm Stig (offcourse, it seems his gay appeal extends to many cultures) “how nice your muscles are, do you work out often”?

We visit a mosque where they have kept one of Mohammed’s hairs, a very interesting young man of 25 years talks to us. He claims to study biochemistry at the university, but has not been introduced to scientific methodology.

His standpoint is that of a Muslim Marxist Spiritualist, he talks to demons and is utterly convinced that the only right thing would be for all people to have the same wage – anything else, he says – is undemocratic(?). It was an interesting discussion to be sure, we are glad that this young man was a happy camper who believed we are all a part of the same human family, we did not upset him terribly.

Stig did the masterstroke of buying a tailored Cashmere suit, from Kashmir.

We learn a lot from our conversations with the family and their friends; “would you rather it said 30 grams or 450 grams” the police officer had asked a friend who was caught with 5’000’000 rupies and 450 grams of hashish. The amount was reduced to 30 grams after he gave the money to the police. He is now being asked for another 350’000 for his release from prison.

It also becomes apparent that no one is the family can read, quite a contrast to the German PhD student staying with them. It created problems for Latif when he was working in London, he did well at his jobs except everyone expected him to be able to fill out forms.

They ask about Norway and are shocked to find out about the midnight sun, when we explain about the earth rotating around the sun on a tilted axis and Latif says that his mother would not believe us no matter how hard we tried to convince her. They are also shocked to hear about the level of welfare provided and the unarmed police.

On the last night we ate with the family, Latif had told us about Kashmiri weddings; how they slaughter 30 sheep, and have 15 chefs standing ready to make 15 dishes with a lot of meat. The saint of a housewife agreed to make seven of these dishes for us for dinner, among which was extraordinary meatballs fried and boiled in a sourcream-mix. As mentioned we sat with the whole family, in their kitchen, on the ground, eating with our hands (right hand only!) the traditional food from the region. It was delicious; we gave up any thought of discussing price after this meal, so much care was made to ensure that we felt at home.

At first glance

”I met one of your prime minister candidates, Siv Jensen, she was not impressive”. This is the first thing Ryios tells us when we answer The Question; we will be asked The Question at least 20 times every day for the next two weeks; “Where you from? Sir! Sir! Which country from?” Stig and I are waiting for our flight from Helsinki to Delhi, in the departure hall we meet Ryios. He is a war correspondent going to Kashmir to investigate how the Taliban is financed by smuggling opium. He has worked for AP for 12 years, and he is not impressed by Siv Jensens take on foreign policy.

The flight is 8 hours long, ample time to see a couple of movies and get some sleep. We arrive in the middle of the night. Delhi is scorching hot. 34 degrees and the humidity is close to 100 percent. Luckily our hotel has a driver waiting for us.

Old Delhi. Everyone stares, the stench of urine and garbage is almost as overwhelming as the constant cacophony of endless honking. The noise is tiring and constant, we try to observe traffic and understand what the honking means. It appears that you are supposed to honk whenever passing someone, when being passed, when driving by pedestrians, when rounding a corner, running a red light or at any point in time when other drivers need to know that you are on the road. It is like no one trusts their eyes – or other people. It looks like most of the People seem to have all the time in the world, they sit around. They typically sit in groups of three or four men, squatting on the floor or maybe leaning against a wall. You never see a single woman; they travel in pairs. No one is in a hurry. But put the same people in a car and their driving is aggressive, like they really need to get somewhere extremely fast. They rush from place to place, but once they arrive they appear to only sit.

As we are walking along a row of shops selling glasses, pants, clocks and pharmaceuticals. We are treated as walking bags of money. Everyone is our friend. Stig notices that some stuff is falling out of his backpack and turns around, nothing important fell out and nothing is broken, but we find it very strange that this should happen since the backpack is closed. Upon closer inspection we see that the bottom of the front pocket has been cut open.

Suddenly we stumble upon a white temple. We stop, an old man wants to show us around, it is pretty obvious that we do not know the customs. He belongs to this temple, he is a Sikh. He tells us that the founding of the Sikh religion was a Hindu reaction to the Muslim influence in India. Hindus do not recruit new members to their faith – Muslims did so quite aggressively. Ten Hindu gurus sought out the ruler at the time because they were worried that the country was going to be converted into Islam. These ten gurus were killed, decapitated. Where they were killed this white temple was built in Old Delhi.

Sikh Temple

Even the diety needs rupees

Before entering we leave our shoes and socks outside, wash our hands, forehead and feet. Inside a man is reading from their holy text – and occasionally fanning it with a large pink feather. We take a seat on the floor next to the bedroom of the holy text and we can finally relax for half an hour.

From a 24th floor revolving restaurant

India Gate

India Gate Park

We did a little sightseeing and shopping in Delhi, but quickly decided that we should try to find a more pleasant climate.