Srinagar Snow

Srinagar never seemed to me a very happy valley. Looking beyond political troubles that are characters of the valley for ever, what I find of Srinagar is a landscape of naked trees under a mellow sky. Nowhere in India sunset brings in such a depressed feeling for days long gone by. As it snows in the valley in January, a more somber shroud descends down on this heaven on earth. Dal Lake freezes into a solid sheet over which the ‘shikaras’ more glide than sail. Hidden in long over-alls people attain the look of deceptive characters from some epic originated in Central Asia. The old city goes into hibernation and bare poplars always remain distant. Seen through a permanent haze the valley looks too opaque to be real.