Ladakhi Singers





“Ladakhi girls dancing at Nemu Camp, 18 miles before Leh. They have visited Punjab and hence their style of dress.” July 1949. Enaskshi Bhavnani for Photo Division India.



After the show
Singers
 Hunder Nubra valley

I asked them to sing a “Bodhi” song. They laughed and said,”Aap nay toh humay Bodh bana diya!” 
They were Muslim, they sang love songs.
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Cannons in Kashmir

In July, I read about the origins of cannon in Kashmir.



Cannons were first imported in Kashmir in A.D. 1464 on the order of Budshah Zain-ul-Abidin using Turkish knowhow. Srivara, the court poet of Budshah called it ‘Top’. A year later the cannons were getting manufactured in Kashmir. The man credited for doing this was a Turkish pyrotechnician named Habib.

Image: “Guards at old fort in Srinagar demonstrate how ancient cannon was loaded to be fired. Srinagar, Kashmir, 1945.” [2010 post on 1945]
Source: Medieval Kashmir and the science of history (2004) by Walter Slaje.

‘Paris Lingerie House’, Residency Road

In January, I discovered this rare shop in Srinagar.

‘Paris Lingerie House’, Residency Road. From Louise Weiss’s Cachemire (1955).

In 1920s, products from the shop were popular among expat British.

The trigger was the story of tailor named Butterfly given in ‘Travels in Kashmir’ (1989) by Brigid Keenan.

“And on other end we have the story of a Kashmiri tailor named Butterfly, maker of finest lingerie for British in India, who accidentally embarrassed his Memsahib clients when he brought out a catalogue carrying neatly sketched details of his comfy products and the names of the elite clients who had bought them.”

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Maut Ka Kua

In January, I finally saw “Maut Ka Kua”.

In winters the population of Jammu increases as people from Kashmir and Ladakh move in. A good time for fairs. Seen here ‘Maut ka Kua’ (Well of death), at a fair held in a ground that in early 90s was a ‘ migrant camp’ in Muthi. 

Earlier such fairs were common in Srinagar where performers would come from all over India to perform. Most awaited feat used to be ‘Jump’ in which a man, ablaze, would jump from a great height into a small pool of water [the act was called “‘Naarevoth“].

Tikkoo to Graham

And interesting addition to the archive this year:

A postcard sent by one S. K. Tikkoo of Zaina Kadal to one Captain R. C. Graham of England in 1940. It wasn’t easy to read the handwriting but from the understandable bits it seems the two had met in Tangmarg. Sometime after that Captain who was placed in Peshawar moved to England due to World War 2. The two lost touch. But Tikkoo managed to find his England address. Along with new year greetings, Tikkoo wishes a sooner end to Nazism in Europe. That’s about it. After much searching I was able to find that one Sarvanand Tikkoo was postmaster of Gulmarg.

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‘Kah-Kah’ Pal

For centuries, no old chronicle of Kashmir, not even the later Persian ones, was complete without having a section on the ‘supernatural’ things witnessed at various places in Kashmir. In the photograph from 1970s (via Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Asian Art at The Ohio State University) can be seen the famous ‘Kah-Kah’ Pal (Eleven-Eleven Stone) of Vijeshwer Shiv Temple, Bijbehara. The green coloured conch shaped stone weighing roughly 60 kilograms, it was claimed could be lifted by eleven people using their index finger chanting ‘Kah’ (Eleven). The stone went missing in the 90s.

‘Kah-Kah’ Pal (Eleven-Eleven Stone) of Vijeshwer Shiv Temple, Bijbehara. Extract from a docu made in August 1977 on Gopi Krishna.

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Similar stone lifting practice among South-Asian Muslims and Tibetans:

Dargah of Qamar Ali Shah Dervish in Shivapur near Pune.

Old Banihal Cart Road

A photograph of old Banihal pass (at 9,200 feet) by A. Hodgson for National Geographic magazine 1921.

‘A guide for visitors to Kashmir’ (1898) by W. Newman mentions Banihal route to Kashmir but adds that it was meant only for the royal family. In addition, Walter Rooper Lawrence, the Land settlement officer in Kashmir from 1889 to 1895 in his book ‘Valley of Kashmir’ (1895) regrets that valley in not connect to plains via Banihal pass which was something achievable and desirable. The route linking Srinagar to Rawalpindi railhead, Jehlum Valley Cart road was already operational by 1890 using help of Spedding & Co, a private army of civil engineers maintained by Charles Spedding. The modern route via Banihal must have first come up in between those years. The road called ‘new’ Banihal route  [BC Road, Banihal Cart Road] was finally completed in 1915 at a cost of about 40 lakh and opened to public in around 1922. The main Kashmiri engineer for the Banihal project was Pt. Laxman Joo Tickoo. With the opening of the motor-able all weather road, the dreaded ‘Begar’ system, in which people would be forceful made to act like coolies for people crossing the treacherous passes, died

Jawahar Tunnel,
the present route
2008
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Leh Polo Ground by Radha Krishna Kaul

The famous Polo Ground in Leh was commissioned in 1885 by Wazir Pandit Radha Krishna Kaul.


I travelled to walk on it
no trace of his name
Leh Polo Ground, September 2015
At the museum of Hemis monastery, I found a gift by Radha Krishna Kaul to the monastery, a huge silk thangka. They wouldn’t let anyone photograph. 

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