Gulmarg Memories: Spring Arrives

Iqbal writes of Kashmir:

Agar firdose baroye jameen ast,
hame asto, hame asto, hame ast.....


If heaven resides on earth,
then it is this, it is this, it is this....

so recited Zahoor of limpid eyes and gentle smile over tea at Lala's restaurant in Gulmarg. Zahoor also poignantly once said during a long evening walk-"we do not want militants, or military in Kashmir" remarking on the extremely strong military presence in Gulmarg, which lies just a few miles from the current line of control between India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, nature continued its unhindered course -unmindful of human sorrows, human conflict, the strife to own this earth, call it mine.

Our days in Gulmarg flew in rapid ease, under the shadow of great mountains, snow clad, dominating-immense sentinels to our changing days-changing with the changes of earth around and beneath us- and awakening with it. Each day brought new surprises, new gifts emerging in tiny measures at our feet-a dusting of green interspersed swathes of white in a miraculous renewal of life- tender, fragile, and yet tenacious enough to unfurl, curl upwards, a shoot, a tendril, a tiniest fleck of life, color, yellow, purple, pink, white, blue, at tips of wisps of green-a plumping up of branches, brambles, a sudden burst of color, buds, blossoms, where sheaths of ice, snow had clad a sleeping earth; new streams bubbled, ran, flowed, new lakes formed to reflect infinity of sky, its moods from deep blue to light, fluffy, white, ominous greys- dark, and overhanging, to vast inky sapphires, crystal studded at night- what was once only in the heavens, was now absorbed, and visible deep within earth's bosom.

What energy persuades this awakening? Will I similarly awaken to a me unknown before-to a unhindered joy, unmindful, unashamed, uncaring of human world-following a primordial call
from beyond?