The planeloads of tourists arriving at Srinagar Airport everyday with merrymakers directly heading towards Gulmarg and Pahalgam and the picture-postcard images of “winter in Kashmir” on sundry television networks present a rosy side of Kashmir’s harsh winter.
What is hidden in the flip side of these pictures is the chilling reality of frosty weather that forces the locals to live in cut-off hamlets and electricity blacked out habitations. Count with them the security personnel guarding forward posts and manning the hinterland under perpetual threat of attacks. They too are not much fond of the shivering climate.
“Kashmir is full of contrasts. like its politics, its weather also presents contrasting pictures and demonstrates the inherent disorder in the region”, says academic Rafiq Ahmad, who teaches tourism management in a north Kashmir college.
This season, the harshness of winter started exactly with the beginning of Chillai Kalan on December 21. Kalan is the harshest 40-day spell of the winter that usually records maximum snowfall and the unforgettable plummeting of temperatures. In the southern Kokernag and Aaru pockets or north Kashmir’s Farkian Gali or Sadhna Top, the temperatures go down up to 20 degrees below the freezing point.
The official apathy and the ruler’s disconnect with the people make the situation more horrible for the local dwellers. A hint of snowfall cuts down power supplies, blocks roads, hinders supply of essential commodities and forces most of the population to remain indoors.
The winter restricts movement of people. ladakh is completely cut off from November-end to April. Gurez and Karnah are out of bounds for the entire winter. The Mughal Road connecting Valley with Rajpouri has been closed down. The only road-link with the outer world remains the 300-kilometer Srinagar-Jammu National Highway that is prone to blockades over slight natural provocations.
On January 1, a heavy snowfall enveloped every nook and cranny of Kashmir in a white blanket only to relive the discordance in winter imagery. While the tourists start flocking Gulmarg and Pahalgam, the spell of miseries began to befall the common masses.
“We have 10 to 20 per cent more arrivals of tourists as compared to last year. This time around 200 foreigners are in Gulmarg, most of them busy in skiing on verdant slopes. The domestic tourists are also coming in large numbers”, said Tariq Ganai, chief executive officer of Gulmarg Development Authority. “The skiing courses have begun. The winter tourism will go up as the weather proceeds with more snowfall”, he told The Pioneer.
Ganai said that heli-skiing, attracting high-end tourists will begin in Gulmarg on January 12. “The helicopter is already with us. This sport brings high-spending tourists and lot of fun and challenge in the winter sports”, he said. On January 10, a picket in Farkian Gali of Karnah came under snow avalanche. While body of a soldier was retrieved, the whereabouts of the other soldier were not known.
However, the authorities are indifferent to the plight of commoners. Come winter and the ruling class including ministers, bureaucrats and politicians shift to winter capital Jammu on the biennial shifting of durbar. The affluent class also packs up to the wormer zones where they have set-up their send-homes. “The miserable winter remains to be braved by common Kashmiris or those who have the job compulsions to be in the Valley”, said Shafat Ahmad, a trader in capital Srinagar.