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Ram and Sita's Kashmiri trip
Telly couple Debina Bonnerjee and Gurmeet Chaudhary had gone for a trip to witness the biting cold of Kashmir in December last year.
Debina Bonerjee writes about their trip to Kashmir and Amritsar
"In Srinagar, we decided to stay in a houseboat. It was freezing cold and was an experience of a lifetime. Wherever we had to go, we had to take the shikara and cross the Dal lake. It was a fulfilling experience to sit on a shikara and cross Dal every time.
The first day we went to the 'Shankaracharya temple,' built by the Pandavas. It was around 280 steps climb, adorned by the chinar trees ... The ones we had seen in the film Mohabbatein. Those beautiful leaves in that film...... remember!
Time to get back to our freezing houseboat. By this time, we had started to curse our idea of staying in the houseboat. Unfortunately, it was my (debina) idea later jointly agreed upon by all.
Next day we left H.B around 10.30 to go to Gulmarg.
Gulmarg was snowing. It was all snow and just snow. We got into our gumboots and headed for our snow adventure. We tried some skiing also and found out that we were good at it. We rolled, jumped, walked, ran on the snow and ate some of it as well. It was pure fun. We were there until our feet started burning of frostbites. Got back to our car at five and headed towards Srinagar to our freezer.
Next day we decided to go to Pahelgaon. On the way came "Badami baug cantonment." Gurmeet got emotional seeing the cantonment as he had been staying in Srinagar in the same cantonment for three yrs of his childhood. After asking about a hundred army men, we landed upon colonel Gupta who had two daughters our age.... Who in turn got emotional seeing us and granted us permission, not only for the two of us but all our friends and our vehicle as well.
Army canteen in Srinagar was a sight, a city within a city. It had around two schools, theatre halls, number of shopping markets, temples and so on and so forth. We girls started shopping frantically as the rates were extremely low for the same Kashmiri stuff that we were getting outside. Guru was moist eyes, reviving his childhood memories. He was running around showing us his school and his house. The schoolteacher recognised him as her ex student and as Gurmeet, the actor, welcomed us with open arms and the principal announced to put guru's name in the alumni list of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Srinagar. We were delayed beyond the point we could not even afford.
We hurriedly left for pahelgaon around 1 o clock and reached by 3.30. By 4.30, we were ready for our sight seeing after having lunch. We took horses and thought the local sight seeing includes a joy ride. However, the horses started climbing the cliffs vertically. I would be joking if I say I was not scared. It was a 90-degree climb. We climbed 900 km up the mountains and reached a plateau. It was beautiful, my eyes were treated with the sight of green meadows right in between mountains. Day light was gone and night had started, I mean it became dark. As it is, we were late to climb up and we got so lost in the scenic beauty that we did not realise that there was nobody but our horses, two men, and us and the horse wallas. We started to hurry down. Those horse wallas said if they took the straight roads it would take us 1 hour and the vertical climb down would take us fifteen minutes. Both the roads were empty and dark. In the flat straight spiral roads also, I felt I could be jumped upon by tigers from behind. It was better to take the risk of a downhill climb from the jungle and reach faster. Only we know how we climbed down. We had, for the first time in our lives, switched on the night vision of our eyes to see.... If we could see something at least. Body tilted backwards and legs on front.... Balancing ourselves, we came down with great difficulty. Hugged and loved our horses as they had done a tremendous job and we still do not know whether horses can see at night. Back to our houseboat, in addition, the discussion of our adventure with horses and hills. A lovely trip altogether, could not have been better. We headed for Amritsar... However, that has yet to come."
Later on the couple went to Amritsar
"We reached Amritsar late in the evening, just checked in to a hotel to cool our nerves. The next morning, started with our visit to the GOLDEN TEMPLE. It was as if a picture had come alive as it was beautiful and serene. The kind of response that we got from people out there was outstanding. We were taken straight inside the golden temple in front of the guru granth sahib. We listened to prayers and headed for the langar. It was so fulfilling a feeling by itself. We next moved to JALIANWALABAUG, the place where the British killed around 2000 people at one go. We felt our blood boiling, the patriot Gurmeet is, he was stuck at the "well" where many people who jumped inside to escape, died. We felt a terrible emptiness, the marks of the bullets were like scratching marks in our hearts.
We had only one day in Amritsar so we headed next to WAGHA BOARDER. The boarder between INDIA & PAKISTAN. The marching of the Indian and Pakistani army was a sight to see, we were jumping with joy. The shaking of hands by both side of the army was terrific. It was so strange that the land and everything looked same. But beyond that gate was what, we call...... PAKISTAN.
The patriotic song was an added dose to our already patriotic mind. People started dancing to it. In addition, we left before we were mobbed. In the night, we visited the golden temple again. It was different to see it in the day and then in the night. The golden temple shines in the middle of water in the night; it was a sense of peace that we felt. Next morning we had to head back straight to Bombay."
Telly couple Debina Bonnerjee and Gurmeet Chaudhary had gone for a trip to witness the biting cold of Kashmir in December last year.
"In Srinagar, we decided to stay in a houseboat. It was freezing cold and was an experience of a lifetime. Wherever we had to go, we had to take the shikara and cross the Dal lake. It was a fulfilling experience to sit on a shikara and cross Dal every time.
The first day we went to the 'Shankaracharya temple,' built by the Pandavas. It was around 280 steps climb, adorned by the chinar trees ... The ones we had seen in the film Mohabbatein. Those beautiful leaves in that film...... remember!
Time to get back to our freezing houseboat. By this time, we had started to curse our idea of staying in the houseboat. Unfortunately, it was my (debina) idea later jointly agreed upon by all.
Next day we left H.B around 10.30 to go to Gulmarg.
Gulmarg was snowing. It was all snow and just snow. We got into our gumboots and headed for our snow adventure. We tried some skiing also and found out that we were good at it. We rolled, jumped, walked, ran on the snow and ate some of it as well. It was pure fun. We were there until our feet started burning of frostbites. Got back to our car at five and headed towards Srinagar to our freezer.
Next day we decided to go to Pahelgaon. On the way came "Badami baug cantonment." Gurmeet got emotional seeing the cantonment as he had been staying in Srinagar in the same cantonment for three yrs of his childhood. After asking about a hundred army men, we landed upon colonel Gupta who had two daughters our age.... Who in turn got emotional seeing us and granted us permission, not only for the two of us but all our friends and our vehicle as well.
Army canteen in Srinagar was a sight, a city within a city. It had around two schools, theatre halls, number of shopping markets, temples and so on and so forth. We girls started shopping frantically as the rates were extremely low for the same Kashmiri stuff that we were getting outside. Guru was moist eyes, reviving his childhood memories. He was running around showing us his school and his house. The schoolteacher recognised him as her ex student and as Gurmeet, the actor, welcomed us with open arms and the principal announced to put guru's name in the alumni list of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Srinagar. We were delayed beyond the point we could not even afford.
We hurriedly left for pahelgaon around 1 o clock and reached by 3.30. By 4.30, we were ready for our sight seeing after having lunch. We took horses and thought the local sight seeing includes a joy ride. However, the horses started climbing the cliffs vertically. I would be joking if I say I was not scared. It was a 90-degree climb. We climbed 900 km up the mountains and reached a plateau. It was beautiful, my eyes were treated with the sight of green meadows right in between mountains. Day light was gone and night had started, I mean it became dark. As it is, we were late to climb up and we got so lost in the scenic beauty that we did not realise that there was nobody but our horses, two men, and us and the horse wallas. We started to hurry down. Those horse wallas said if they took the straight roads it would take us 1 hour and the vertical climb down would take us fifteen minutes. Both the roads were empty and dark. In the flat straight spiral roads also, I felt I could be jumped upon by tigers from behind. It was better to take the risk of a downhill climb from the jungle and reach faster. Only we know how we climbed down. We had, for the first time in our lives, switched on the night vision of our eyes to see.... If we could see something at least. Body tilted backwards and legs on front.... Balancing ourselves, we came down with great difficulty. Hugged and loved our horses as they had done a tremendous job and we still do not know whether horses can see at night. Back to our houseboat, in addition, the discussion of our adventure with horses and hills. A lovely trip altogether, could not have been better. We headed for Amritsar... However, that has yet to come."
Later on the couple went to Amritsar
"We reached Amritsar late in the evening, just checked in to a hotel to cool our nerves. The next morning, started with our visit to the GOLDEN TEMPLE. It was as if a picture had come alive as it was beautiful and serene. The kind of response that we got from people out there was outstanding. We were taken straight inside the golden temple in front of the guru granth sahib. We listened to prayers and headed for the langar. It was so fulfilling a feeling by itself. We next moved to JALIANWALABAUG, the place where the British killed around 2000 people at one go. We felt our blood boiling, the patriot Gurmeet is, he was stuck at the "well" where many people who jumped inside to escape, died. We felt a terrible emptiness, the marks of the bullets were like scratching marks in our hearts.
We had only one day in Amritsar so we headed next to WAGHA BOARDER. The boarder between INDIA & PAKISTAN. The marching of the Indian and Pakistani army was a sight to see, we were jumping with joy. The shaking of hands by both side of the army was terrific. It was so strange that the land and everything looked same. But beyond that gate was what, we call...... PAKISTAN.
The patriotic song was an added dose to our already patriotic mind. People started dancing to it. In addition, we left before we were mobbed. In the night, we visited the golden temple again. It was different to see it in the day and then in the night. The golden temple shines in the middle of water in the night; it was a sense of peace that we felt. Next morning we had to head back straight to Bombay."
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