Mother's Chronicles - Book Five

17

Kashmir

"Quite agree with your estimate of Kashmir." Dilip had waxed eloquent on Kashmir after his recent trip there towards the end of 1938, and had written to Sri Aurobindo glowingly about the idyllic life. Agreeing, Sri Aurobindo replied, "The charm of its mountains and rivers and the ideal life dawdling along in the midst of a supreme beauty in the slowly moving leisure of a houseboat —that was a kind of earthly Paradise — also writing poetry on the banks of the Jhelum where it rushes down Kashmir towards the plains." I do wonder what both of them would have said today, when there are at least one thousand foreign tourists in houseboats on the Dal lake! —a sewage canal?¹ However there is always a fly in the ointment. "Unfortunately there was the over-industrious Gaekwar to cut short the Paradise!" said Sri Aurobindo ruefully. "His idea of Paradise was going through administrative papers and making myself and others write speeches for which he got all the credit.

1. This was written in 1993; the scenario has radically changed now, in 1996, since the terrorists with their execrable acts have overrun Kashmir.

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Kashmir's Dal Lake early this century

But after all, according to the nature, to each one his Eden."

Sri Aurobindo had gone on a tour of Kashmir as the Private Secretary of the Maharaja. From late May 1903 to September they toured the Princely State. In October Sri Aurobindo returned to Baroda.

Sri Aurobindo jotted down a few things in a notebook which he had taken with him for the trip. Here are a few extracts.

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"Cashmere, Srinagar.

"Saturday.

"In the morning Sardesai dropped in and we went together to Dhond, where I arranged with Rajaram to mess with him ; the dinner consisted of the usual Brahminic course, dal [lentils] and rice, two chupatties [flat bread] with potatoes and greens and amthi [tamarind sauce],—the whole to be seasoned liberally by a great square of clarified butter at one side of the tray. Fortunately the dishes were not very pungent and, with this allowance, I have made myself sufficiently adaptable to be a Brahmin with the Brahmins."

Then other notes, written probably the very next day.

"Dinner in the morning from Rajaram, who put me au courant with zenana¹ politics. Not having his son to quarrel with, H. H. has filled up the gap with his wife; they have been at it hammer and tongs since the Maharani joined him at Murree, chiefly, it seems, about dhobies [washermen] and other such highly unroyal topics.... The latest trouble is about 'unnecessary tongas' from Murree to Srinagar; yet the Maharaja was assured that if he insisted upon starting at once, there was no other course open, and at the time he promised to sanction any expense entailed. Now that he has had his own convenience satisfied, he chooses not to remember that he ever promised anything of the sort, so that he may have the pitiful satisfaction of venting his ill temper on innocent people. He has also ordered

1. The zenana was in higher Hindu society the part of the house where the women were secluded .

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that no one shall receive special bhutta [allowance] at a hill-station, unless the matter is brought to his notice and he is personally satisfied that prices are higher than in Baroda. Where will all this shopkeeping unprinceliness and pettifogging injustice end?"

Then he was contacted by his cousin, Dr. Ashutosh Mitra. Dr. Mitra was appointed the first Chief Medical Officer of the first Government hospital in Kashmir. He was instrumental in setting up the women's hospital in Srinagar and another in Jammu. A large number of dispensaries were opened all over the State in his time. The good doctor also founded the first municipality in Srinagar. As an important Minister in the Council of Maharaja Pratap Singh he was able to raise the status of the State School, and introduced the teaching of English. Was it Dr. Mitra's idea to make motorable the Jhelun Cart Road over the Banihal Pass which linked Srinagar directly with Jammu? A carriage belonging to the Maharaja was the first to cross it in 1915. The Cart Road remained the private property of the Maharaja till July 1922, when it was opened to the public.

"Ashudada sent Visva's son Hemchandra with a note to me ;" ran Sri Aurobindo's account, "the lad is a young Hercules five foot ten in height and monstrous in muscle with a roaring voice and continual outbursts of boisterous laughter over anything in the shape of a joke good or bad — a fine specimen of the outlander Bengali. His companion, a Kaviraj,¹ rejoices in the name of Satyendranath Banerji Kobirunjun and is something of

1. A physician practising one of India's traditional systems of medicine.

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an ass and much of a coward, but not a bad fellow withal. We adjourned in a body, Sardesai, Ambegavkar, Dr. Balabhai, myself and the two Bengalis to the Maharaja's green-cushioned boat and set out on the broad bosom of Lake Dal and through the lock and a canal into the Jhelum. The boatman swore that we should get drowned if we shot the lock, but Hem Babu, though he admitted there might be a little danger, insisted on having it done. In the result we only shipped a little water which sought the left leg of my trousers as naturally as a bird seeks its nest, but the Kaviraj was in a terrible fright and clamoured protestation till we were right in the swirl of the waters. The water was lined with houseboats of the ogre-monkeys in some of which there were marvellous specimens of Cashmeri beauty. After a visit to Ashu and then to the hospital, — where I found I turned the scale at 113, my old weight, and reached the height of 5ft. 51 in my shoes -we adjourned through the rain to Hem Babu's house. There we met his father, the genial and hearty Reception Officer , tall and robust in build, with a fine largely cut jovial face and a venerable beard, and several other Bengalis .... The tea was execrable but the cigarettes and the company were good.

"Afterwards the carriage took us through the streets of the town and then, the coachman being unable or unwilling to find his way out, back the same way. The streets are very narrow and the houses poor and ricketty, though occasionally picturesque, being built impartially of bricks, stones or other material

1. 113 lbs = 51 kg; 5 ft. 5 = 165 cm.

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imposed and intersticed irregularly and without cement, cobbled in fact rather than built. The windows are usually plastered with paper —for the sake of privacy, I suppose,—but it must make the rooms very dingy and gloomy. The roofs are often grown over with a garden of grasses and wild flowers, making a very pretty effect. The Maharaja's palace by the river in the true quaint Hindu way of building was the one building which struck me in Srinagar,—how much superior to the pretentious monstrosities of architecture at [Baroda's] Luxmivilas Palace! This drive has finally completed and confirmed my observations of Cashmeri beauty. The men in the country parts are more commonly handsome than the town people and the Hindus than the Mahomedans."

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