Day 1: 12th May, 2022
I woke up at 7:58 a.m. It was a warm summer morning. Warmer than I would have liked it to be. Which is why it was the perfect time to go off to a hill station and bask in the cool pleasant weather of Kashmir. Calling Kashmir a hill station isn’t entirely right, since it is an entire state, fortunate enough to be in the lap of the Himalayan mountain range. Being stuck at home for two years because of the pandemic, and still being stuck at home later because of exams can really do wonders for a person’s psyche. So I had decided that I want to travel somewhere far away, and forget about my usual life for a while.
I did some last-minute packing and changed into comfortable clothes for the flight. It was going to be a long day, and though I do like looking fancy every once in a while, I believe in comfort over everything else.
It seems like everyone had the same idea, of flying away to a cold place to bear the heat wave that had taken over the country. The airport was packed full of people, and the boarding gate for the Jammu and Kashmir flight seemed to be fuller than most. I bought a few books at the bookstore at the airport and waited for the boarding to start. The flight took almost four hours, enough to bore the most patient of people. I had downloaded some episodes of my favourite show on Netflix, which helped me pass the time. By the time lunch rolled around, my stomach had begun to grumble. The only thing I had eaten all day was breakfast, which was hours ago.
My mom, bless her foresight, had packed a bunch of homemade parathas. Everyone knows how airplane food is like, and I was only too happy to avoid it. It seems like my mother was not the only one who thought this way, because I noticed many other people who had brought tiffin boxes full of food on the flight.
We had a stopover at Jammu. Honestly, I didn’t understand the point of having two airports in such close proximity. It took us only about half an hour more to reach Srinagar. The airplane staff mentioned that they were both defense airports. As the plane began to descend, we could see the snowcapped Himalayan peaks come into view through the airplane window. When the plane got closer to the ground, we could also see lush fields and colourful picturesque houses. It felt like I had walked right into a postcard.
We got off the plane and collected our luggage. The airport was quite small, decorated with pictures of Kashmiri tourist attractions. Walking out of the airport, I saw the sunset. Maybe it was just tourist fever, maybe it really was that beautiful, but the setting sun looked like someone had painted over the sky with the most beautiful colours just to welcome us. The road leading out of the airport was lined with colourful summer blossoms.
We made our way to the Dal Lake, where we would be spending the night on a houseboat. The traffic was horrible. The hordes of tourists making their way to the houseboats seemed endless. By the time we finally reached the dock, the sun had already set. The oarsman of the shikhara offered to take us on a tour of the Dal Lake. Dusk rolled around and we could see a bright string of lights snaking across a nearby mountain. The oarsman told us that each one of those lights was a soldier, stationed on the mountain.
The Dal Lake looked ethereal. Dyed cobalt blue by twilight, surrounded by mountains and lit up by the faint ligh
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