Two Gardens And A Mosque

I hadn't planned to come to Kashmir, just like I never planned to come to India at all. But after changing my flight home and obtaining a flight for Kabul, I had four days to myself. Stay in dreaded Delhi where everyone I know has developed the Delhi cough (the coughing stops the minute you leave Delhi), or leave the city for where I imagine the air is cool and I can reach the sky?

I've always wanted to go to the Himalayas. Something about the balance of mountain, water, and open air that drives me to Algonquin every year now drove me to Kashmir, especially when I found out it was only a one-hour flight to get here and not the mind-spattering 12-hour Indian-train ride I dreaded.

On arriving in Srinagar, I was picked up by Ali, one of the partners of a fleet of houseboats where I stayed. He told me a bit about what his family suffered during the 15-year three-way fight over Kashmir - Pakistan wanted to grab Kashmir, India wanted to keep Kashmir, Kashmir wanted independence. Though the war is now over and everyone, except the Lonely Planet guide book, says life is safe and stable, Indian military presence is still heavy. Soldiers strut their rifles on every road, at every intersection, and even up in the mountains.

I was told that I didn't have enough time to trek into more remote areas of the Himalayas because I was only in Srinagar for two and a half days. It'd take at least two days to get to the first lake in the mountains. I was just as glad. Kashmir is high in altitude. It rises from 1,000 ft to 28,000 ft within four degrees of latitude. So upon getting off the plane, I started to flood like the Ganges in spring. Good thing Kathy told me about her experience in Sanaa so I had come to India with some protection until I could get to a drugstore.

For my stay, I had a guide and a driver. The first afternoon, my guide Mohamed took me to see the Moghul gardens - Shalimar Bagh and Nishat Bagh. Art and culture thrived under the Moghuls. They had a refined sense of balance, symmetry, and engineering knowledge. Even now in autumn, when the grass have gone brown and the fountains are mostly dry, I see the gardens had been designed with lush green, colourful blooms, cascading fountains and water spouts in mind. Water for the fountains are drawn through pipes dug into the mountains. When the Himalayan snow melts in the spring and summer, water gushes down the fountains and drain out to Dal Lake at the bottom of the gardens.





The gardens are full of chinar trees. They are maple trees. Mohamed said they look like maples but they are not. They have round, furry, podded seeds, like mini chestnuts. The older trees are really big, with a larger, lighter and smoother trunk than maple trees.

Everywhere I turn, the Himalayan mountains loom still and large. Mohamed said they look near, but they are far. We must have a different sense of near and far. Surely we are at the bottom of some of the mountains. We drive by houses that seem to have the Himalayans as the backyard.



We next visited a mosque. It is an all-wood structure. It is beautiful and intricately detailed on the outside. Non-muslims and women are not allowed inside.



Are there mosques I can go inside? Mohamed took me to Jama Masjid, a 700-year-old mosque. First, I left my shoes outside the entrance to the mosque, then I put on one of the robes that hung on wall because my arms were exposed, and finally I covered my head with my scarf.

The mosque is rectangular structure with a court yard in the middle. Each side is an open room supported by pillars made of a single, unbroken pine tree trunk. The are over 300 pillars and they all reach floor to high ceiling. The rooms form an open rectangle around the court yard. I felt order, calm and airiness inside the mosque. Mohamed told me all mosques are one open room inside and they are built symmetrically. Ah, hence the sense of order and simplicity.



Still, I am mindful of the controversy over the interpretation of Sharia law and I don't like the condescension of husband towards wife. I asked Mohamed why women must sit at the back in a mosque. He said because Mohamed the Prophet sat at the front of the mosque and women sat in the back, so now men sit at the front and women sit at the back.

That's no reason. A good Muslim doesn't always have to do everything Mohamed the Prophet did. Men are allowed four wives because Mohamed the Prophet had four wives. But now a days, Muslim men don't have four wives. True, Mohamed the guide said, one is more than enough. So why do women still sit in the back of the mosque just because they did in Mohamed the Prophet's time? Because that's the way it is. I guess you have to be Muslim to get it.