THE JASHN-E-GUREZ EXPERIENCE

“If there is paradise on Earth, it is here; it is here; it is here!”

Ask the question, ‘which is the most beautiful place in India?’, and most people in the know would say ‘Kashmir’ (and probably repeat the lines Emperor Jehangir used to describe the place, which I have quoted above). But ask the question, ‘which is the most beautiful place in Kashmir?’, and the answers are likely to be more varied. The tourist guides would suggest one of Gulmarg, Sonmarg or Pahalgam, the indolent would point to the further reaches of the Dal or Wullar lakes, and the adventurous would go for the Lolab Valley, the Great Lakes trek, or crossing the Sadhana Pass into Teerthwal. Only the seriously knowledgeable, either old-timers familiar with the Kashmir riyasat of yore or military personnel who have served in its far corners, would say that there is nothing like the Gurez Valley. And then they would qualify the statement by adding, but don’t go there, it is too dangerous.

I visited Gurez this August, about 15 years after first hearing about it – this was for a trek to a high-altitude lake called Patalwan that was organized as part of the Army’s Jashn-e-Gurez festivities in the region celebrating India’s independence.

Gurez is the southwestern part of the old territory of Dardistan, which stretches from Gilgit in the north to Dras (famous as the second-coldest inhabited place on earth) in the east, cutting across two antagonistic countries and multiple geographic zones separated by high mountains but continuing to share culture and language. It lies 130 km from Srinagar along the Gilgit road that heads north out of the city, goes past the eastern edge of the Wullar, the town of Bandipora, and then across the 3,500-meter Razdan Pass where snowfall closes the route for 4 months a year. Continuing on the road past Dawar would take one north across the Line of Control (LOC) and onwards to Gilgit, or else east across the 4,100 m Kaobal Gali Pass and through the Mushkoh Valley into Dras (one of three motorable routes from within India into Ladakh, and open only to military vehicles). All these roads were ancient caravan trails that formed part of the ‘silk route’ connecting India, China and the West.

Administratively, Gurez is a tehseel within Bandipora district in Kashmir. Its defining features are – its inhabitants, who are Dardi (and not Kashmiri), tall, blue-eyed and speaking the Shina language that is still the lingua franca across Dardistan; the Habba Khatoon peak that resembles a pyramid and dominates Dawar town; and the rushing and roaring Kishanganga aka Neelam river that flows through it.

So, first things first, is Gurez beautiful? An unqualified yes, especially so around Dawar where the valley opens out and the river rushes through. We camped on a meadow by the side of the river for two nights, at an altitude of 2,700 meters (see photo 1 below). The trek too was beautiful – the alpine meadows were green (photo 2), undulating and uninhabited except for a few Gujjar families and their herds, there were no other trekking groups in the vicinity and so the campsites did not resemble Dharavi, and the lake that was our destination was large, impressive, and worth all the effort to get there. The trek was also pleasant, except for a day spent traversing rocks brought down by the glaciers along the route (day 4, see the appendix below).