TraWorld Magazine 3rd Edition

This was the first thing that took me by surprise, as the things that these
vendors had to sell had a wide variety to them despite of being in water.
You could buy some souvenirs, some home décor, some fruits, vegetables,
some flower saplings, some snacks; many of them also sold a traditional
Kashmiri tea called the ‘Kahwa’. So, you could enjoy the view while sipping
on some Kahwa, all at the same time. Now, moving forward, the boatman
starts to unveil some more secrets of the lake, one by one. Starting off with
a floating post office. Yes! The lake had a floating post office, one of a kind
in the entire world. Then we see small children, elderly people, the army
men, all floating around in a ‘Shikara’ of their own. We start seeing general
stores, tailor shops, and colonies of buildings over the Lake, that’s when the
boatman tells us, the Dal Lake itself houses a population of over 40000
people. The lake has schools up till the 10th grade, where kids actually go
to study. People have their own ‘land’ on the lake where they do agriculture
and have farms of lotus and other vegetation that are indigenous to the
lake.
The Dal Lake houseboat where we spent our final night in Kashmir was
the icing on the cake. In the evening, the lake became quiet as Srinagar,
a stunning city, came to life. It completed our visit to Kashmir and made
us fall in love with the place.
-Rashmi Das
BTTM SEM 5