Valley of valour

This is paradise. And the proverbial serpent here is death. There is possibly no other funeral ground in the world that is as hauntingly beautiful as the one perched high above the rushing waters of the Jhelum near Uri in Kashmir - a neatly bordered patch of green with a ready bunch of carefully arranged logs that awaits the next casualty from the border. Which of these men rushing around in fatigues and jeeps will find his way here next? Hard to say in a place where beauty, destiny, history and violence merge as seamlessly as distant mists, snow, mountains and clouds.

But I am getting ahead of my journey. I left a sodden Srinagar early one morning this summer. Heavy skies squeezing out fat drops of rain, empty and rows upon rows of idle boatmen sitting on the parapets lining Dal Lake, awaiting non-existent tourists. The shutters were down on most shops at Dal Gate and would take their time lifting as the day progressed - Kashmir was ready and waiting but despite Sonia Gandhi's recent inauguration of the manicured tulip gardens, tourists were just about beginning to amble in this year. Outside, the booming construction projects belied the quiet of the city. Money was obviously flowing in - the new homes, some of them palatial, belonged to business families that had benefited from the promise of peace that appears to have recently gripped the valley. Apple blossoms were beginning to appear on trees as were pink cherry buds and white flowers. The fruit growers were exporting more than they ever had before - the trucks were out, cables were being laid, fast food joints were open till midnight and beyond. Why, Srinagar even had fashion shows now!

But the real test lay in the hinterland. Two years ago, when I visited last, the road to Pahalgam and Gulmarg was manned by security personnel at every few hundred metres. The situation was still the same this summer, but somehow the Army seemed more at ease - the battle may not be over but there is no doubt as to who is in control now. No more tense-looking soldiers standing stiffly like sitting ducks at their posts - these men were more relaxed, not watching their backs all the time. As we drove through Baramulla, the colonel accompanying us pointed to a spot in the bazaar where he had been standing when a local man appeared from within the usual milling crowd, drew a gun from within the folds of his robe, and shot the soldier standing next to him. "This happened at the height of the insurgency of course-this whole belt was under ‘their' control then. It's taken a lot of work to re-exert our control here," he said.

The mists rolled in over the river as we crossed the outer boundary of Baramulla, heading towards Rampur. I asked the colonel to take a picture of me. As I stepped out of the jeep to stand against the stunning backdrop, I realize that at my feet was one of the worst garbage dumps-plastic, cartons, animal carcasses, mangled metal-that I had seen in the area so far. Somehow, the spot seemed to mark the reality of Kashmir today.

On the way to Rampur, construction of the new rail lines that will link this remote part of the country to the rest of India is clearly visible. Rampur itself is a beautiful cantonment, the army mess located in what used to be Maharajah Ranjeet Singh's hunting lodge. Carefully preserved in many ways, with a few additions made by an alcoholic CO who used to host ghazal evenings along with his wife against the backdrop of snow falling silently on the Jhelum (their vivid portraits in full regalia decorate the walls), the mess also has a record of the route we were travelling on. This is the historic path taken by Pakistan in 1947 in its attempt to capture Srinagar-an attempt that almost succeeded had it been not for the courage of the many forgotten martyrs (Brig. Rajinder Singh, Captain Naseeb Singh, Lt Col Ranjit Rai and others) who are remembered at this outpost. Anyone who travels this road to Uri should use the excellent account of that battle captured in by Lt Gen LP Sen, as a travelling companion-historic landmarks like Mahura and the destroyed bridge over the Uri stream will come vividly alive.

Rampur has to be one of the most frighteningly beautiful places on earth. Looking north towards Uri, on the right, is the drop to the Jhelum and a small valley with misty hills beyond. On the left is a massive cliff that rises sky high, dense with foliage and numerous waterfalls. And yet, this quiet village has been shelled so often from across the border that almost all villagers have experienced ‘war' without actually having been in the thick of it. Since leaving Srinagar, I had hardly seen any women in the bazaars and the streets of the small towns we had crossed. So, an old farmer kindly took us to his home to meet his family. Gathered in the tiny kitchen with a lively warm fire over which was being brewed, were his wife, mother, daughters, nieces, grand-daughters-almost 15 of them in the cramped quarters, ranging in age from 3 to 80. They politely drew their scarves over their heads when appeared in the doorway but were hardly shy the moment he left. The old grand dame kissed my hands and touched them to her eyes. Confused, I didn't know what to do but touch her feet in a mark of respect as accustomed to in my part of the world. This embarrassed her and we sat awkwardly next to each other in silence. Then the young girls began to shoot questions at me which I tried to answer the best I could-no, I didn't know about the latest happenings on , yes I had seen a few episodes of and on Zee TV, no I didn't have an opinion on what Tulsi is like as a ‘'. Left indoors for most of the time (except when the young ones go to school and come back straight home), these women were living their lives through Ekta Kapoor soaps-it had even given some of them the courage to say that they would like to choose their own life partners rather than marry the one chosen by their father.

The colonel was anxious to move on-we needed to reach Aman Setu, the bridge at the LoC near Uri that connects Srinagar with Muzaffarabad in Pakistan, and be back in Srinagar before sunset-officers and their guests are not allowed to be out after dark unless on official business. The rest of the journey was made difficult by the terrible condition of the roads-there were landslides along the way and often the colonel and his driver disembarked from the jeep to remove the boulders from the road even as local truck drivers sat sullenly inside their vehicles waiting for the bulldozers or someone else to do the job.

A BSF commander, who had just been visiting some villages in the surrounding hillsides with a team of doctors to provide free eye checkups, invited us to his tent for tea (despite our hurry the colonel thought it would be impolite to refuse so we accepted). I had a strange conversation over the sweet brew and Marie biscuits with the pathologist who was an expert at carrying out post-mortems of ‘terrorists' killed in encounters-his job was to accompany the BSF commander everywhere and establish without doubt that the person killed in the encounter was not innocent or tortured by the Army.

We reached Uri, devastated a few years earlier by a massive earthquake that destroyed homes, collapsed army bunkers over the heads of sleeping jawans, and took many more lives from the local populace. The Uri cantonment is also known as the ‘chutney' brigade within the Indian Army due to the fact that it is located in a bowl shaped valley and is open to shelling from three sides across the border-the reason many offices and quarters are located in bunkers. The small town was shining with new construction now-ever since the government issued grants of Rs 1.5 lakh each for homes destroyed in the quake. "Many people whose homes were intact destroyed them on purpose just to get the grants and rebuild new ones," our driver told us.

Onward to Aman Setu, a distance of barely 20 km, the road became extremely rough-it was hard to imagine a passenger bus trundling its way into Pakistan over this surface every couple of weeks. As we rolled into Kaman post, Pakistan was just about the distance of a football field across the border. Aman Setu, the bridge, is by itself 210 feet long-a footbridge used by bus passengers who disembark from one bus to walk across and board another across border. The Kaman post has a customs and immigration shed, a snack bar and a waiting area for passengers-all standing desolate in the rain the day I visited because the next bus wasn't due for two weeks. The officer commanding the post was hospitable and friendly although my Army friends tell me that it is a sign of the times (the falling number of Indian Army officers) that a young major like him should be placed in so important a position.

As we headed back to Srinagar in the pelting rain, I saw young soldiers, barely out of their teens, manning remote posts in basic gear-men from Garhwal, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, UP, Bihar, Manipur and all the other states around the country-with no television, internet, restaurants, shopping malls-not even the small treats of small towns and villages like festivals and melas-or the basic comfort of a home. Travel to any of these border locations around India and you cannot help but come away with deep respect and admiration for these men in uniform and the work they do so selflessly.